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