Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Page A-9
Baseball and softball start season with win
Jason McMillen
IVN Contributing Writer
Both the boys’ baseball and girls’
softball team of the Illinois Valley
High School won their first games
last week. The boys’ varsity team
won 9-8 against Gold Beach High
School and the softball team won 17-
5 in the fifth inning against Ashland.
It should be noted that the girls’
varsity team played against Ashland’s
JV team and as such the game was
not ranked. For both games the
weather was more or less amicable.
“Morale is high,” Jessie Dugas,
the boys’ coach, said, “The boys
feel like they should have done a
BEAVERS . . .
Continued from A-3
Lamberty’s layup pulled
Bluejays within 54-48 with
6:42 left, putting Creighton’s
bench on its feet. Hanson
and Mikayla Pivec each hit
jumpers to answer for the
Beavers.
Marissa Janning’s jumper
got Creighton back within
single digits, but Kolbie
Orum’s baseline jumper gave
the Beavers a 60-50 lead with
3:04 to go.
After a pair of Creighton
free throws, Marie Gulich
made consecutive layups for
a 64-52 Oregon State lead
— and the Bluejays couldn’t
catch up.
Lamberty said when the
Creighton came within six,
the team believed they were
going to win.
“We all looked at each
other and we even said when
we huddled up, ‘We can
do this. This game is still
ours. We’ve come back from
deficits bigger than this with
less time,’” she said.
little better. They pulled off the win
in the bottom of the seventh. We
were leading by a lot more than that
earlier in the game but Gold Beach
battled back and some things went
their way and they were able to tie
the game in the sixth.” Overall, the
boys stole 19 bases and shows that
the team is playing very aggressively.
This proves that Dugas’ tactics for
the season, mentioned in his last
interview with the Illinois Valley
News, was not merely idle talk.
Bryce Bruner, a pitcher on the team,
pitched well with eight out of the
nine strikeouts against the opposition.
The boys are going to play
against Gold Beach Wednesday,
March 22 and in the mean time they
Oregon State eked
out a 56-55 victory over
surprisingly tenacious Long
Beach State in the opening
round. The 49ers’ chance
at becoming the first-ever
No. 15 seed to defeat a No.
2 seed were dashed when
Raven Benton’s shot from out
front with five seconds left
bounced off the back rim.
The Bluejays routed
10th-seeded Toledo 76-49 in
the opening round. Janning
scored 15 points in less than
six minutes to start the game
and finished 19.
Creighton was making
its sixth overall NCAA
Tournament appearance
and first since 2013, when
they played into the second
round. The Bluejays’ seeding
matched its best in school
history.
“We trailed nine times at
half this year and won, which
is one of the things that I love
about our team, which is we
are resilient and we compete
and we fight and tonight
was no different,” Creighton
coach Jim Flanery said. “We
played from behind the whole
night, but we were never out
of the game.
The Beavers, who had
a distinct size advantage,
jumped out to a 13-6 lead in
the first quarter on Gulich’s
jumper. Hanson’s 3-pointer
gave Oregon State a 22-14
lead.
The Bluejays got within
23-17 but Hanson and
Breanna Brown each hit
layups to extend it again
and the Beavers went into
halftime with a 39-27 lead.
Hanson led all scorers with
11 points.
Wiese, a senior and
one of the players who
helped bring Oregon State
to national prominence, hit a
step-back 3-pointer to put the
Beavers up 48-35.
Gulich finished with 12
points and 12 rebounds.
The Beavers claimed the
Pac-12 regular season title
but fell in the conference
tournament final to Stanford.
BIG PICTURE
Creighton: The Bluejays
beat the Beavers 70-62 in Las
Vegas the last time they met
in 2013. It was Creighton’s
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have a game against Glendale. Dugas
said that beating the opposition from
Glendale will not be an easy task
because they have a great coach and a
good program but the Illinois Valley
boys’ baseball team is going into
the game with a good mindset and
are going to, in the words of Dugas,
“compete heavily and see what
happens.”
Beth Boatman, the coach of the
girls’ softball team, said that they
scored eight runs in the first inning,
five in the second and then two in
the fourth with another two in the
fifth. “It was a pretty good game,”
Boatman reported, “There was a
couple of errors but they recovered
from it.” Mallory Menning, the
pitcher who pitched the whole game,
obtained eight strike outs.
The girls are scheduled to play
against Glendale Tuesday, March
21, and their next home game will
be Friday, March 24, against Gold
Beach.
After the game it was apparent
to Boatman that this year’s team
will not suffer like last year’s from a
poor batting average. “We struggled
a bit with good solid hits last year,”
Boatman said on the topic, “The girls
just seem like right out of the gate
they’re hitting, hitting, hitting. We
went through the lineup in that first
inning and as long as they can keep
their batting going and stay focused
then we’re going to be OK.”
fourth straight win in five
total meetings. The Bluejays
cracked the AP rankings for a
week at the end of the season
at No. 23 after claiming a
share of the Big East regular-
season title. They had not
been ranked in the AP Top 25
since 1992.
Oregon State: The
seniors are Oregon State’s
first class to have gone to
the NCAA Tournament in
each of their four years. The
game marked the seniors’
final appearance at Gill,
where they finished 60-6. ...
A booster donated free tickets
for the first 600 students
through the door.
WIESE’S FINALE:
Wiese put her name in
Oregon State’s record book
several times over the course
of her career. She broke
the Pac-12 career record
for 3-pointers earlier this
season, surpassing Stanford’s
Candice Wiggins, and
currently has 373. She also
set Oregon State’s career
assist record this season and
now has 624.
SECOND SENIOR
DAY: In addition to Wiese
and Hanson, Orum is also a
senior and Breanna Brown is
graduating but still has a year
of eligibility left.
“That ovation at the
end. That gives you chills.
It gives me chills right now
just thinking about it. That’s
all a coach can hope for these
girls,” Rueck said.
UP NEXT:
Oregon State: The
Beavers move on to play
Florida State in the Sweet 16.
Mikayla Pivec