Polk County Sports A10 Polk County Itemizer-Observer • January 24, 2018 Central splits games DALLAS BOYS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE WEDNESDAY, JAN. 24 Girls Basketball: Central at Dallas, 7 p.m. THURSDAY, JAN. 25 Boys Basketball: Jewell at Falls City, 7 p.m. Men’s Basketball: West- ern Oregon at Alaska Fair- banks, 7:30 p.m. Girls Basketball: Jewell at Falls City, 5:30 p.m. Women’s Basketball: Northwest Nazarene at West- ern Oregon, 7 p.m. Wrestling: Dallas at Cen- tral, 6 p.m. By Herb Swett For the Itemizer-Observer FRIDAY, JAN. 26 Boys Basketball: Silverton at Central, 7 p.m. Dallas at South Albany, 7 p.m. Crosshill Christian at Perrydale, 7 p.m. Girls Basketball: Silverton at Central, 5:30 p.m. South Albany at Dallas, 7 p.m. Cross- hill Christian at Perrydale, 5:30 p.m. Track and Field: Western Oregon at University of Wash- ington Invitational (Dempsey Indoor), all day. SATURDAY, JAN. 27 Men’s Basketball: West- ern Oregon at Alaska Anchor- age, 5:15 p.m. Track and Field: Western Oregon at University of Wash- ington Invitational (Dempsey Indoor), all day. Women’s Basketball: Central Washington at West- ern Oregon, 7 p.m. Wrestling: Dallas at Farm City Invitational (at Hermis- ton), 10 a.m. TUESDAY, JAN. 30 Boys Basketball: Crescent Valley at Central, 7 p.m. Silver- ton at Dallas, 7 p.m. Crosshill Christian at Falls City, 7 p.m. Jewell at Perrydale, 7 p.m. Men’s Basketball: Con- cordia University at Western Oregon, 7 p.m. Girls Basketball: Central at Crescent Valley, 7 p.m. Dallas at Silverton, 7 p.m. Crosshill Christian at Falls City, 5:30 p.m. Jewell at Perrydale, 5:30 p.m. Emily Mentzer/Itemizer-Observer Jack Anderson (20) passes the ball to a teammate during the Jan. 16 game against Woodburn. Dallas comes from behind for win By Emily Mentzer The Itemizer-Observer DALLAS — Dallas boys basketball team ended a thrill- er against Woodburn with a season-high 83 points, beating the Bulldogs by 15. The Dragons didn’t start well, said guard Evan Court- ney. “We didn’t play very good,” he said after the game on Jan. 16. “I upped the defense and shots started falling more.” Woodburn started out strong in the first half, leading 43-36, and Dallas struggled to keep up. “Getting started, we had some difficulty,” said Coach Trent Schwartz. “We made some adjustments. We were down 13 (at the half), took a time out, and took a swing. I’m proud of the kids for getting down 13 and coming back.” G u a rd Ja c k A n d e r s o n was on fire, making four three-pointers in the second half. He contributed a game- high 28 points. Courtney Dragons place second in tourney Schedules Subject to Change QUICK HITS Western rising in coaches’ poll Ribich named athlete of the week MONMOUTH — Open- ing he indoor season in record-breaking fashion, Western Oregon University’s David Ribich was named the NCAA DII National Athlete of the Week by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTF- CCCA). Ribich, the NCAA DII national champion in the 1,500-meter run last spring, placed second overall in the 1,000 at the UW Preview on Saturday with a school GNAC and NCAA DII record time of 2:21.38. Ribich crossed the line within strides of Drew Win- dle, who competed at the 2017 IAAF World Champi- onships in the 800 for Team USA. The time shattered WOU’s school record by more than seven seconds. Itemizer-Observer staff report Treve Earhart CRESCENT VALLEY — Thursday night, Dallas High School wrestling team (6-0 Mid-Willamette Conference) won over Crescent Valley in a MWC League Dual. Friday and Saturday, the Dragons traveled to Liberty High School in Hillsboro for the Reser’s Tournament. The tournament is com- prised of the best teams re- gardless of classification, said Walt Markee. “It’s an open tournament, which means 6A, 5A, and all the other classifications compete against each other,” he said. Dallas took second overall with 152 points. Class 4A Crook County of Prineville took the title with 192.5 points. Newberg came in third with 148 points. This is the second year in a row Dallas has taken second place in this tournament, Mar- kee said. Treve Earhart (182 pounds) placed first in the tournament. Other individual placers were Joe Foster (third, 132), Haydn Millard (fourth, 113), Dawson Barcroft (third, 125), Ryan Bibler (fifth, 120) and Ashton Brecht (sixth, 285). Earhart is the fifth Dallas wrestler to win this tourna- ment. Junior varsity finished third overall. Dylan Dupas, Jared Coxen, Luke Hess, Joe English, Colson Spencer, Dakota Aime, and Kadin Thorsted all placed. DALLAS GIRLS BASKETBALL Dallas turns over to Lebanon By Jolene Guzman The Itemizer-Observer DALLAS — Last week was a tale of two games for the Dallas girls’ basketball team. They started the week de- feating Woodburn 49-19 on Jan. 16, with Jordan Dippel leading the scoring for the Dragons with 17 and Makayli Laizure adding seven. As a team, Dallas pulled down 28 rebounds and got 21 steals. Friday at home against the Lebanon Warriors (11-2 overall, 2-2 Mid-Willamette Conference), the tables turned. “We had an opportunity to get some good things in on Tuesday (at Woodburn) and we knew this was going to be a tough one,” coach Tim Ehlers said. That proved true as the War- riors defeated Dallas 69-36. Lebanon is 2-2 in MWC play, but that includes two losses against two of the best teams in the league, Silverton and See DALLAS, Page A12 www.polkio.com and of his teammates kept him going strong, Anderson said. The Dragons lost a close game to Lebanon Friday, 42-48. Dallas boys ended the week 2-2 in Mid-Willamette Confer- ence, 3-10 overall, and in fifth place in the standings. The Dragons hosted the Central High School Panthers Tuesday after press time in a Rivalry Week. They take on South Albany at 7 p.m. on Friday in Albany. DALLAS WRESTLING — MONMOUTH — Riding an eight-game winning streak, the Western Oregon University men’s basketball team continued its climb up the NCAA DII Coaches’ Poll with a No. 9 national ranking, the NABC announced on Tuesday. Western Oregon has com- piled a 15-1 overall record and a 7-1 mark in GNAC play. The team’s lone blemish occurred more than a month ago with a setback at West- ern Washington on Dec. 2. WOU was the only GNAC program represented in the top 25 through Western Washington received 13 votes in the poll to come in at No. 29 nationally. California Baptist (12 votes), Cal Poly Pomona (10 votes) and Cal State San Mar- cos (3 votes) also received points in the poll to repre- sent the West Region scored 16, and guard Carter Weisensee added 11. Anderson said the game felt good. “It’s always good with a W,” he said. “I love the comeback.” Once baskets started fall- ing, the crowd was on its feet as Dallas took a lead and never looked back. “Once we got the defense going, they (Woodburn) got flustered, and we took advan- tage of that,” Courtney said. The energy of the crowd INDEPENDENCE — A shaky first quarter for Central’s boys led to a 59-45 road loss to South Albany there Jan. 16. The taller Rebels outplayed the Panthers most of the way, but Central outscored the host team 17-9 in the fourth period, in which the South Albany bench saw some action. In the first quarter, the Reb- els outshot and outrebounded the Panthers so thoroughly and kept up such a strong zone de- fense that they led 22-7 at the end of the period. The Panthers (11-3, 3-1 Mid-Willamette Conference) improved somewhat in the second quarter, but the Rebels still outscored them, 17-13. Kaleb Kantola, who was to the top Panther scorer with 10 points, had 8 of them in the period. Kantola also had one of Central’s three-point buckets in that quarter. Brandon Les- meister was the Panthers’ No. 2 scorer with 9. Central had only 8 points in the third period, but its zone defense held the Rebels to 11. Kantola started the fourth-quarter scoring with an outside shot that made the score 50-30. A layin by Javier Cantu cut the South Albany lead by two more points. Cody Baldwin and Brenden Dedek hit three-pointers in the final period. Dedek’s was the last score of the game. South Albany’s top scorer was Jake Costello with 14 points. Jaden Guilford had 13 and Kyle Miller 12. “We got hit with a ton of en- ergy,” Central coach Tim Kreta said. “It was the most points we’ve given up in the first quarter. Our kids are learning. We dropped one big one at the beginning of the year to Banks. I was proud of the way we played in the fourth quarter.” Central boys basketball downed Corvallis 59-56 in dra- matic fashion Friday in a game that went to overtime. “The kids were hoping to come out strong and make a stand to make up for Tuesday night,” Kreta said. “Unfortu- nately, we did not come out strong. We found ourselves down by as many as 16 before going into the half down nine.” Central made up ground in the second half, making it a two-point game to begin the fourth quarter. “Our guys did a great job communicating on screens and were able to defend their first look and hold them off to force overtime,” Kreta said. He said Central played strong defense, forcing Cor- vallis into difficult shots in overtime. “We found ourselves up three with 4 seconds left and got the deflection we needed to have the clock run out,” Kreta said. The Panthers played Dallas on Tuesday after press time and host Silverton on Friday. Panther kids end season well Itemizer-Observer staff report Jolene Guzman/Itemizer-Observer Makayli Laizure (2) drives against a Lebanon defender in Friday’s game at DHS. www.facebook.com/pages/Polk-County-Itemizer-Observer/205062686252209 LEBANON — Panther Kids Wrestling concluded the season in Lebanon Saturday. Mason and Josiah Vela placed first. Roddy Alvarez placed second, while Liliana Alvarez, Easton and Sawyer Herbert, Casey Humphreys, Grady Lewis, Issac McBride and Tyanna H. placed third. Diego Pena took fourth place. The season was from No- vember through January. A few Talmadge Cougars wrestled in a bonus meet Saturday at the LaCreole Duals. Joey Pearson won all three matches. Nicolas Thomas, and Case and Jake Merrit had two wins. Trevyn Lilly had one win to finish the middle school season. www.twitter.com/PolkIOSports