Sports
6A
Tuesday, June 1, 2021
Th e Observer
Kathy Aney/East Oregonian, File
Enterprise coach Mike Crawford and his players react while watch-
ing the end of the team’s Blue Mountain District tournament over-
time win Saturday, Feb. 22, 2020, against Heppner at the Pendleton
Convention Center — the victory marked the coach’s 500th win.
Crawford has been named the 2021 National Federation State High
School Association’s Section 8 Coach of the Year for girls basketball.
Samantha Flett/Eastern Oregon University Athletics, File
Samantha Buckley (5) of Eastern Oregon University maneuvers between a pair of Corban University players during a lacrosse
match Saturday, March 20, 2021. The Mountaineers completed the program’s inaugural season with a 1-4 record. The program’s
lone win came against Whitworth, posting a 22-16 victory March 5.
IN THE BOOKS
EOU lacrosse
looks forward
to 2022 season
after inaugural
campaign
Kombol
By COREY KIRK
Baker City Herald
L
A GRANDE — When
Eastern Oregon University
hired Monica Plut in early
2020 to build the school’s
women’s lacrosse program, Plut
was excited about playing a part in
teaching the game she loves.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic
derailed those plans.
“I started recruiting ASAP, of
course, then COVID hit,” she said.
“It was a pretty crazy year to be
honest.”
Since the program’s initial
season of 2020 was no longer hap-
pening, Plut hit the recruiting
trail again, gearing up for a 2021
season. With the future marred
with uncertainty due to the pan-
demic, recruiting prospective stu-
dent athletes became more diffi -
cult. Add in that the sport doesn’t
have much of a foothold in North-
eastern Oregon.
“A lot of these diff erent layers
added into once COVID was a
Plut
Watchman
thing, and the hard part about
recruiting lacrosse is that it’s not
big here,” Plut said. “You’ve got
pockets of it. Boise, Portland,
Seattle, but there’s no lacrosse
within two hours of here.”
As time progressed, the next
season was deemed salvageable
just a few months into 2021. Not
being recognized as a sport by the
Cascade Collegiate Conference
quite yet, lacrosse programs like
EOU’s had to face any opponents
that were near enough to be able to
compete in a condensed format.
“There’s only us and Corban (in
2021) that have a team in the whole
conference. Multnomah is adding
next year. We played Corban three
times and there aren’t any com-
munity colleges out here either. So
we got in touch with a couple of
club teams we played with, and we
were going to play Boise State’s
club team but they weren’t able to
start practicing until late March,”
Plut said. “So we played all of the
Division III teams — Linfi eld,
Pacifi c, Willamette, Whitworth —
and Northwest Nazarene. Basically
anyone we can get a game with we
reached out to.”
EOU was forced into having to
compete in all of its games quickly,
since out-of-conference opponents
would not be able to play once con-
ference seasons started.
“We were done by mid-April,”
Plut said.
All in all, the Mountaineers
completed the program’s fi rst
season with a 1-4 record. Eastern’s
fi rst win came against Whitworth,
posting a 22-16 victory March 5.
“We were winning the game
the whole time, even though at the
end of it all, we had three players
plus a goalie,” Plut said. “They had
the same on their side, but they
also had all these subs and were
switching people out. Our girls
made it work and came out with a
win. It was awesome.”
Now, already fi ve weeks into
the off season, Plut, who spent one
season as the head coach at NCAA
Division II Adams State in Ala-
mosa, Colorado, prior to joining
EOU, has most of the roster set to
return for the 2022 season. The
only graduating senior from the
team is Hailey Crudo.
Plut is excited to see the young
roster continue to grow within
the game, like sophomore Kiana
Watchman.
“Kiana was a key defender for
us,” she said. “In the beginning,
she didn’t love defense. But she
really wants to grow in that leader-
ship position on defense next year.”
See, Lacrosse/Page 7A
Enterprise coach
honored as one
of best in nation
Mike Crawford named 2021 National
Federation State High School
Association’s Section 8 Coach of the Year
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — A
major accolade has come
the way of Mike Crawford.
Next Sunday, June 6, the
longtime Enterprise girls
basketball coach will be
given his award for being
named the 2021 National
Federation State High
School Associations Sec-
tion 8 Coach of the Year
for girls basketball, which
in essence pegs him as the
top girls hoops coach in the
Northwest, and one of the
best in the county.
“You stop to think about
it, Mike was chosen as the
best of the best from six
Northwest states,” said
Oregon Athletic Coaches
Association Executive
Director Rob Younger.
Crawford, along with 12
other Section 8 award win-
ners, fi ve state award win-
ners and two national win-
ners, will be honored at an
awards banquet June 6 at
Eastern Oregon University
in La Grande.
Crawford was nominated
last fall as the state coach of
the year for girls basketball,
which put him up against
other coaches from the
Section 8 states: Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, Alaska,
Montana and Wyoming.
“The fact that it was
a recognition from other
coaches that got it started,
it’s humbling,” Crawford
said. “It’s a longevity thing.
I got my 500th win. That’s
kind of rarefi ed stuff . It’s
‘How do you have a con-
cept or a feeling for what
that means when it is about
you?’”
Younger said Crawford
was nominated, in part,
because of his lengthy and
successful career at EHS.
“The Federation awards,
a big part of it is their lon-
gevity, their commitment
to their school and their
community,” Younger said.
“Mike is being recognized
for his many years of out-
standing service to the
Enterprise community in
basketball.”
Crawford, a staple
of Northeastern Oregon
hoops, has racked up more
than 500 career wins with
See, Coach/Page 7A
SPORTS SHORT
Four from EOU named All-Americans at NAIA track and field championships
By DAVIS CARBAUGH
The Observer
GULF SHORES, Alabama —
The Eastern Oregon University
men’s and women’s track and fi eld
teams concluded the 2021 season
at the NAIA track and fi eld cham-
pionships with four athletes
earning All-American status,
including Maggie Ledbetter
earning the honor in two events.
Ledbetter earned her fi rst
All-American honors in the shot
put on Thursday, May 27. The
sophomore threw a distance of 45
feet, 2-1/4 inches, a personal best,
on her third throw to fi nish in
eighth place.
The junior from Cove was
back in action May 28 to com-
pete in the discus. On her second
attempt, Ledbetter secured a top-
eight fi nish with a toss of 145-6,
earning her second All-American
nod.
TJ Davis also earned
All-American status for the
Mounties in the decathlon, while
Moses McAninch and Karianne
Zollman each earned the honor in
the javelin throw.
McAninch and Zollman were
the fi rst two of the quartet to
garner All-American status as
both fi nished sixth in the javelin.
McAninch hit a mark of 199-1 on
his third throw of the event. His
mark is also a personal best and
now the third best mark in EOU
history for the outdoor season.
Zollman picked her sixth place
fi nish with a mark of 141-4. She
earned a top-eight fi nish by hit-
ting her mark on the fi rst throw
of the competition. Her mark is a
personal best and is the third best
mark in program history.
In the decathlon, Davis fi n-
ished in the top 10 of each event
and had a pair of top-fi ve fi nishes
over the two-day span. His best
fi nish was in the 110-meter high
hurdles, where he won the race
with a time of 14.94 seconds.
For the three-day meet, the
Mountaineers fi nished with fi ve
points on the men’s side to tie
for 59th overall. On the women’s
side, Eastern scored six points
and tied for 41st overall.
Connor Bracken/Eastern Oregon University, File
Eastern Oregon University’s Maggie Ledbetter, shown competing in the weight
throw last season, earned All-American honors in the shot put and discus at the
May 2021 NAIA Track and Field Championships in Gulf Shores, Alabama.