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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 7, 2019)
6A Monday, October 7, 2019 The Observer Tigers’ defense dominates in 34-21 GOL victory in Baker By Gerry Steele EO Media Group La Grande’s opportunistic de- fense took advantage of four first- half Baker turnovers Friday on the way to a 34-21 Greater Oregon League football win at Bulldog Memorial Stadium. “Our defense was solid,” said La Grande coach Rich McIlmoil. It was actually Baker’s defense that made the first dent in the scoreboard. Two plays into the game, Baker’s Alex Hammans stole the ball from a La Grande runner and scooted 35 yards for the touchdown. Less than two minutes later La Grande’s evened the score at PREP FOOTBALL 7-7 when Payton Cooper raced off right tackle and outran the Baker defenders for a 51-yard TD. That’s when La Grande’s defense took over. The Tigers recovered a Baker fumble at the Baker 7. Two plays later, quarterback Parker Robinson scored the first of his three touch- downs, going 5 yards off left tackle. La Grande’s Dawson Gaertner then intercepted Kaden Myer’s pass, giving the Tigers the ball at the Baker 5. Two plays later, Robinson scored again, this time from the 1. La Grande led 21-7 at halftime. “We got off to a great start,” said Baker coach Jason Ramos. “Then we had too many mistakes, too many turnovers in the first half. We gave them a short field a couple of times. You can’t do that against a good team.” See Tigers / Page 10A Pair of EOU sweeps set up showdown Ronald Bond/The Observer Eastern Oregon’s Anna Hager (23) and Carroll’s McKenna Payne (4) both make a play on a corner kick during the second half of Friday’s match. No. 6 EOU won the match, 2-0. Redemption complete By Ronald Bond The Observer Nan Kiebert and Josee Bassett were admittedly a bit delirious as they sprinted to the sideline as the No. 6 Eastern Oregon University women’s soccer team began its home match against Carroll College. The seniors had just completed a second straight shift in a nursing clinical and weren’t in their typical spots in the starting lineup for the 4 p.m. kickoff. “We worked two straight back-to-back 12-hour shifts Thursday and Friday, and then ran from Nan’s car in our scrubs, changed and ran on the field,” Bassett said. “We just had adrenaline going.” They provided a boost on offense once they did step on the field. Kiebert played a corner kick that Bassett headed in for the game’s first goal late Ronald Bond/The Observer Eastern Oregon’s Breanna Shaffer, right, attempts a kill during Saturday’s match against Multnomah. WOMEN’S COLLEGE SOCCER COLLEGE VOLLEYBALL By Ronald Bond in the first half, then found Kayla Storm for a goal in the second half, and the Mountaineers began a per- fect weekend with a 2-0 win over Carroll College Friday at Community Stadium. “They’re a good team,” head coach Jacob Plocher said of Carroll. “We talked this week that it was a redemption week. Last year we were up early, they came back and we tied against them. We told (the team) we wanted to set the tone, stay on top of them early and often. It was nice to get that second goal later just to take a breath.” EOU followed with a 4-0 win over Providence on Sat- urday to complete “redemp- tion week.” Providence had given EOU its only regular See Women / Page 9A The Observer Ronald Bond/The Observer The Eastern Oregon Uni- versity volleyball team took some time to get started in each of its three sets against Multnomah Saturday. Once they did, though, the No. 5 Mountaineers had no issue pulling away from the visiting Lions. Jet Taylor had eight kills and five block assists, and EOU, though not always sharp, swept Multnomah in Cascade Collegiate Confer- ence action Saturday, 25-14, 25-11, 25-16, to cap a perfect weekend at home. Eastern swept Warner Pacific Friday, 25-17, 25-22, 26-24. “That’s been our M.O., to be honest, (and) tonight it was re- ally pronounced,” head coach Kaki McLean-Morehead said. Easten Oregon’s Josee Bassett (13) hits home a header for the first goal of Friday’s win over Carroll College. “We didn’t do a great job of the non-volleyball related stuff as far as starting off with strong communication, strong energy. That usually is something that gets us going, and we didn’t do a great job of that. But once we did get started, probably 10 points in, we started getting in a rhythm and doing what we needed to do.” Multnomah held an early lead in each set, and all three were tied at similar points — 7-7 in the first, 8-8 in the second, and 9-9 in the third. It was about then each set that Eastern put together a run to distance itself from the Lions. See Volleyball / Page 10A PREP FOOTBALL Huskies show grit Late goal puts damper on EOU’s weekend in loss to ‘Lopes MEN’S COLLEGE SOCCER By Ronald Bond By Ronald Bond The Observer The Observer The Eastern Oregon University men’s soccer team put together argu- ably its best performance in a win Friday. A late goal Saturday, though, kept the Mountaineers from a perfect weekend. EOU scored twice in each half to earn a 4-1 win over Carroll College on Friday but had to settle for a split when Providence stole Saturday’s match, 2-1, in a pair of Cascade Colle- giate Conference games at Community Stadium. “(On Friday) they were playing hard and playing for each other, and you could see it in one of the goals,” head coach Zach Mills said. “The entire team celebrated, the bench (celebrated), and that was a beautiful thing. We are a family here.” Both teams scored in the game’s first 10 minutes, with EOU’s Javier Moran finding the back of the net unassisted The final score of Elgin’s home loss to Adrian/Jordan Valley — 84-42 — indicates the game was a blowout. What it doesn’t show, however, was the Huskies’ ability to trade punches with the Antelopes — even after losing starting quarterback Tristan Simpson late in the first quarter to an arm injury — before Adrian/Jordan Val- ley pulled away in the latter stages of the third quarter. “I’m proud of the guys,” head coach Jeff Rysdam said. “Gage (McKay) stepped up when we needed him. Our young running backs stepped up. We never quit. We were going to keep fighting.” Rysdam said the team’s ability to not quit was something it hadn’t had in Ronald Bond/The Observer Eastern Oregon goalkeeper Max Rose leaps for a ball during Saturday’s match against Providence. in the fifth minute before Carroll’s Nick Lowrimore scored three minutes later. After that, it was all Mountaineers. Jack Rose broke the tie with an unassisted goal in the 33rd minute to See Men / Page 9A the past. “That’s one thing I told the team (after the game) — 2018, they would have rolled over and died,” he said. The first seven minutes set the stage for what the game should have been on paper — a shootout between the top two offenses in 8-man football, as both entered av- eraging more than 60 points per game. Elgin showed it belonged next to the team ranked No. 1 in the 8-man coaches poll, too. The Huskies took an 8-6 first-quarter lead on a 29- yard touchdown pass from Simpson to McKay on fourth and 17, recovered an onside kick, and went up 14-6 im- mediately after on a 2-yard run by Simpson. Simpson, who finished See Huskies / Page 7A
