Sports
ON THE SLATE
April 13 results
PREP BASEBALL
A8
Saturday, April 16, 2022
REFLECTING ON 33 YEARS
La Grande 7, Pendleton/Griswold 5
Friday, April 15
(Games completed after print
deadline)
Mike Crawford recounts highlights of his time on Enterprise sidelines
COLLEGE SOFTBALL
By RONALD BOND
Eastern Oregon at Northwest (2), 2 p.m.
team lost its post player to fouls.
Enterprise did, and lost the final,
45-37.
Wallowa County Chieftain
PREP BASEBALL
La Grande at McLoughlin (2), 2 p.m.
Joseph/Enterprise/Wallowa at
Pendleton/Griswold JV (2), 3 p.m.
PREP SOFTBALL
Joseph/Enterprise/Wallowa at Vale (2),
1 p.m.
La Grande at McLoughlin (2), 2 p.m.
PREP TRACK & FIELD
Cove at River’s Edge, Umatilla, noon
La Grande, Elgin, Imbler, Powder Valley,
Union, Enterprise at Buck Track Classic
Invite, Pendleton, 2 p.m.
Saturday, April 16
COLLEGE SOFTBALL
Eastern Oregon at Northwest (2), 11 a.m.
COLLEGE WOMEN’S LACROSSE
Multnomah at Eastern Oregon, 1 p.m.
PREP BASEBALL
Union/Cove at Dufur/South Wasco
County (2), 11 a.m.
PREP SOFTBALL
Joseph/Enterprise/Wallowa at Grant
Union/Prairie City (2), noon
Echo/Stanfield at Union/Cove (2), 2 p.m.
Monday, April 18
PREP BASEBALL
Baker/Powder Valley (JV) at Joseph/
Enterprise/Wallowa, 4 p.m.
PREP GIRLS GOLF
La Grande at Baker, TBA
Tuesday, April 19
PREP BASEBALL
Union/Cove at Stanfield/Echo, 4 p.m.
PREP TENNIS
La Grande at McLoughlin, 3 p.m.
Wednesday, April 20
PREP BASEBALL
La Grande at Baker/Powder Valley (2),
2 p.m.
NTERPRISE — Mike
Crawford rode a wave of
emotions — as one would
expect — in the days and weeks
following his last game on the
sidelines for the Enterprise girls
basketball program.
Crawford, who retired at the
end of the season after 33 years
leading the Enterprise girls bas-
ketball program, said last month
he needed to shift his focus away
from the fact his time on the side-
lines is over.
The normal thing for Crawford
would be planning next season.
In fact, he said that on Feb. 27
as he was driving the bus back
from the Outlaws’ hard-fought
65-58 loss to Gervais a day earlier
in the first round of the 2A state
playoffs — the loss that ended his
career at 520-275 — he was for-
mulating lineups in his mind.
“I’m always thinking about
lineups and the team. I had com-
pletely put together next year’s
team in my mind,” he said.
E
The final year
His final team, which went
15-11 and was one win away
from the state tournament, took
some lumps early, but came
together to take third in the Blue
Mountain Conference, reach the
tournament title game, and over
the course of the season earn
wins over both Union, the even-
tual state champion, and Stan-
field, which took sixth.
The team’s pinnacle was on
Jan. 15 when it earned a 47-39
home win over the Bobcats.
“We played Union tough. And
actually in the Union Tournament,
when we played them the final day
Getting a program going
Ronald Bond/Wallowa County Chieftain, File
Enterprise girls basketball head coach Mike Crawford watches his team during
the second half of a game Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022. The coach retired following the
season, his 33rd with the program.
we played — I hadn’t seen us come
out on day two, in this case day
three, and play with some convic-
tion like we’re ready to attack. That
was day three, and we played to
the end,” he added of a December
matchup, a 45-36 loss in Union. “It
was a really good game, and then
going into the (league) season, the
first time when we played Union
at home was the day we beat them.
I knew we were good, I knew we
were good enough. We were good
enough to play with the teams in
the final eight.”
Outside looking in
Seeing teams Enterprise had
beaten make the state tourna-
ment, while the Outlaws were
stuck at home, is something
Crawford has witnessed before,
with one example that immedi-
ately jumped out being 2017.
“I’m sitting there in the first
round, watching the first game, it
was Imbler vs. Weston-McEwen.
We played Weston-McEwen
twice that year — we were not
in the same league — we had
beaten them at home by 20 and
beat them there by 10,” he said.
“We had beaten Imbler — we
split with Imbler. Here they are
in the final eight playing in the
first round and we’re not there.”
Crawford said there are
plenty of “what ifs” over the
course of 33 years, recalling a
blown 12-point fourth-quarter
lead in the 1997 state semifi-
nals against Santiam Chris-
tian when a timeout could have
stalled an SC rally — but Enter-
prise didn’t have one. SC went
on to roll in the state champion-
ship game, while Enterprise —
undefeated before that night —
settled for third.
Another was a back-and-
forth battle in the 2001 state title
game against Sherman, which
was a battle in the post he knew
would be determined by which
He said a conversation he has
had several times throughout the
years is about how to build a pro-
gram and how long it takes. For
Crawford, he said it was about
five years to get EHS where he
wanted it to be.
But once it’s in place, it’s hard
to slow down. And he believes
his eventual predecessor should
be able to keep rolling.
“I had a conversation with
Jordan (Klebaum-Johnston), the
coach at Union, about how you
go for 33 years doing the same
stuff,” he said. “You can say all
you want about, ‘They know
what we do,’ but it’s obvious to
me that they may know what we
do, but that doesn’t mean they
can stop it. We’ve always been
one of the higher scoring teams,
one of the more difficult to play
— maybe there’s something to it.
Old school’s not necessarily the
wrong school.”
When asked how he wanted
his teams to be defined, he said
that was actually a question he
asked his players.
“I (would) give them a paper
that I want them to fill out. And
the last thing that I put on there
was if you were somebody not
on this team watching this team,
what would you want them to
think of you? What would you
want them to say about you?”
he said. “I wanted them to
hustle, I wanted them to play
tough defense, I wanted them to
run offensively. Our offensive
game started predominantly off
defense, and I think we pretty
much did that.”
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