Sports
Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore.
Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011
Conference Champs!
(Photo by Darcy Wallace, Illinois Valley News)
Seniors Jesse Bethke, Alex Hess, Roger Hults, Curtis Paulson and Jim Buck prior to the IVHS Cougar basketball victory against St. Mary’s Feb. 8.
The “Brotherhood” clinch
By Darcy Wallace
IVN Staff Writer
For years, Cascade Christian’s boys’ basketball team
consistently dominated the 3A Southern Cacade League.
Few others could beat them, let alone come close to chal-
lenging their position.
But this year, Illinois Valley High School brought Cas-
cade Christian’s league winning streak to an abrupt end
Friday, Feb. 11, during a 58-54 showdown in Medford.
It was the second time this season that the Cou-
gar boys’ basketball team beat Cascade Christian, shak-
ing up the pecking order in the 3A Southern Cascade league.
“I guess you could call it a game of runs,” said boys’ basket-
ball coach Jeff Winters. “We’d get seven points, then they’d run
up seven. But these guys have been there before. They don’t give
up.”
The Cascade Christian Challengers hosted Friday’s
game, a physical, back-and-forth game where both teams
racked up fouls in the effort to overcome the other. Cougar
fans and family members filled the visitor’s section in support.
The “Brotherhood” scored first in the game, but
that didn’t damper the enthusiasm of the rowdy Cascade
Christian crowd. At the end of the first quarter, the Challengers
led the Cougars 14-15.
The stakes picked up in the second quarter, with both
teams trading points. Illinois Valley scored several points
in a row, only to watch Cascade Christian catch up again.
Though Illinois Valley missed some scoring oppor-
tunities, they capitalized on foul shots, an area that was
a major part of Cascade Christian’s undoing in the end.
“We converted seven out of nine [foul shots] and they
only made about five out of 13,” Winters said. “That’s one thing
we work on all the time that’s showing some improvement.”
At the half, the Cougars led 27-25 after the Chal-
lengers fell behind, then caught up again during the sec-
ond quarter. In the third quarter, Cascade Christian took
the lead again as the intensity continued ramping up.
But the final quarter would spell the end of Cascade Chris-
tian’s league championship run, their players missing key foul
shots while Illinois Valley’s Roger Hults sunk the last few in a row.
After a grueling three-and-a-half quarters, the Cougars finally
managed to clinch a four-point lead, asserting themselves as
league champions.
“Somehow, they always pick it up at the end,” Winters said.
“They don’t want to lose. They have heart, they have the will and
when it gets late in the game they just dig down deep and come back.”
Challenger fans could only watch as they saw their
league-winning streak come to a sudden, disappoint-
ing end. For Cougar seniors, it was a moment of triumph.
“It was one of those things where as soon as the buzzer
goes off you’re standing there thinking, ‘Wow, we just went
undefeated in conference games,’ ” said Curtis Paulson. “We
won because we’re aggressive and we held our composure.”
“The basketball gods were on our side,” Winters said. “You
definitely have to have some luck to win as many games as
we’ve won.”
The Challengers lost to Ashland on Saturday, Feb. 12,
meaning they’ll go into playoffs coming off of four straight
losses. They are scheduled to host Lakeview on Wednesday,
Feb. 16, and Illinois Valley will play the winner of that game.
“The past few years they’ve always been the top dogs,”
Paulson said. “Now, they’re coming in and they’re not at
the top anymore, and it’s going to get to them I think.”
But that doesn’t mean the Cougars will be any less
aggressive against either Lakeview or Cascade Chris-
tian in their first playoff match-up on Friday, Feb. 18.
According to Athletic Secretary Robin Jackson, gates will
open at 6 p.m., with the first 40 Illinois Valley students and the
first 40 adult fans receiving free T-shirts. Team boosters note that
Illinois Valley students will be out of school on game day, but
are optimistic that a large number of fans will turn out, anyway.
“We want to get all our fans out there,” Winters
said. “We have a good community response to sports.
If you took away the student section [of Cascade Chris-
tian] we might have had more fans than they did.”
Lorna Byrne basketball
teams get one loss, one win
By Darcy Wallace
IVN Staff Writer
Lorna Byrne Mid-
dle School seventh- and
eighth-grade girls’ basket-
ball teams traveled to Lin-
coln Savage Middle School
on Wednesday, Feb. 9.
The
seventh-grade
team, comprised mostly
of sixth-grade students,
lost a tough match to an
advanced Lincoln Sav-
age squad, falling 8-29.
But Viking eighth-
graders had better luck
against their Lincoln Sav-
age counterparts, winning
39-32 in a game that start-
ed slow, but took off in the
second half, according to
middle school basketball
coach Aaron Mathews.
“Alex Laflamme led
the way with 14 points,”
Mathews said. “Brittney
Burns scored ten and
McKayla Yoman eight.”
Jaycee Frederickson
got four points in the fourth
quarter, another contribu-
tion to the Vikings’ victory.
Wednesday’s matches
bring the seventh-grade
team record to 1-5 and
the eighth-graders to 3-3
overall so far. Lorna By-
rne hosted White Moun-
tain on Monday, Feb. 14
and will go to St. Mary’s
on Wednesday, Feb. 16.
(Photo by Darcy Wallace, Illinois Valley News)
Lorna Byrne’s Alex Laflamme and Brittany Burns fight for the ball Monday, Feb. 16
against White Mountain.