A8 The SpokeSman • TueSday, auguST 23, 2022
Sports+Outdoors
Fall sports begin official practices
BY BRIAN RATHBONE
CO Media Group
The fall high school sports season
kicked off August 15 with the first of-
ficial practices held across Oregon.
During the next couple of weeks,
teams will go through tryouts and
create their squads before kicking off
competition the final week of August.
“All the same feelings are there,”
said Bend High girls soccer coach Al-
yssa Dalgleish, who is entering her
second year leading the program.
“You’re excited, nervous, ready. You
kinda know what you have com-
ing back … incoming freshman you
never know what you have.”
The 2022 fall prep sports season is
new, yet familiar. New faces in famil-
iar uniforms. New conference align-
ment with all too familiar teams. All
with the return to sports normalcy
after two-plus years of uncertainty
caused by the pandemic.
“I think we are back to normal …
knock, knock, knock (on wood),” said
Mountain View football coach Brian
Crum. “That has been really nice for
continuity of the high school pro-
gram.
“We had spring football like it has
always been,” he added. “We had a
chance to go to our Linfield team
camp which was huge for growth. A
summer that allowed our guys to lift
in the weight room and improve. And
we are in fall camp. I think the last
two years are behind us. We will take
normalcy and how that helps kids as
long as we can have it.”
COVID-19 is not nearly as prom-
inent in high school sports as it was
this time a year ago.
As of now, there are no major
COVID-19 restrictions in place like
those that postponed the 2020 fall
season into spring 2021 and forced
the cancellation of practices and
games in 2021. And, there have not
dean guernsey/The Bulletin
Lily Castillo lunges to stop a shot during a Bend High girls soccer practice Tuesday.
been forest fires that polluted the air
quality this time last year and altered
practices and games.
For this year’s senior classes, it is
the first time since their freshman
years that they have enjoyed a proto-
typical start to the fall sports season.
“It is strange,” said Bend High girls
soccer player Jordan Welsh. “Fresh-
man year we had a normal soccer sea-
son, but that was about it.”
“It is taking us a little to warm up,”
added senior Brianna Vidali-Rood.
“But we are getting there.”
At this time a year ago, the Bend
High and Mountain View football
teams had COVID-19 outbreaks
on their first day of practice, forc-
ing some members of the teams into
quarantine during the first week of
practice.
A year later, they are able to hold
tryouts just as they did before the
pandemic.
“From that point on the whole
season was just juggling and trying
to catch up from that,” Crum said.
“From the beginning of the spring
until now, we are so much farther
ahead than we were. Leadership de-
velopment, weight room time, indi-
vidual scheme development, we are in
a much better place. It is good for our
kids and good for what we are going
to accomplish this year.”
Due to the addition last year of
Bend’s Caldera High, which is now
playing a varsity schedule for the first
time, this coming year will also have a
familiar return to the six largest Cen-
tral Oregon high schools competing
in the same conference as they last did
from 2013 to 2017.
The now four Bend-area high
schools (Bend, Summit, Mountain
View and Caldera) are rejoining the
two Redmond schools (Redmond
and Ridgeview) in the Class 5A Inter-
mountain Conference after four years
of being in different classifications
and leagues.
The longest distance the six schools
will have to travel for league play now
is the 17 or so miles between Bend
and Redmond, rather than having to
travel as far as Salem, The Dalles or
Pendleton for league games as they
had to do the past four years.
“Selfishly, it is a little nice to not
travel to Salem every week,” Dalgleish
said. “It’s nice to have us all in Central
Oregon.”
With practices now underway,
teams are building toward their regu-
lar-season openers that begin as early
as Aug. 25.
█
Reporter: 541-383-0307,
brathbone@bendbulletin.com
Bend schools set to join Redmond in 5A
BY BRIAN RATHBONE
CO Media Group
When Oregon high school
sports realigned conferences
and classifications eight
months ago, schools from
Central Oregon perhaps had
the most significant changes.
Due to the addition last
year of Bend’s Caldera High,
which is now playing a varsity
schedule for the first time,
this year all high schools in
Bend and Redmond will com-
pete in the same conference
as they last did from 2013 to
2017.
The now four Bend-area
high schools (Bend, Summit,
Mountain View and Caldera)
are rejoining the two Red-
mond schools (Redmond and
Ridgeview) in the Class 5A
Intermountain Conference
after four years of being in
different classifications and
leagues.
Bend, Summit and Moun-
tain View spent the last four
years in Class 6A.
While there were teams
that had some troubles repli-
cating the same success they
enjoyed before moving up to
6A in 2018, the Summit girls
cross-country and Summit
boys soccer teams spent the
last four years thriving and
winning state championships
in Oregon’s highest classifi-
cation.
This fall, those same teams
are moving down a classifi-
cation.
“It is what it is. There is
not much we can do about it
now,” said Summit boys soc-
cer coach Joe LoCascio.
“We just have to prepare
now for this season. We are
already, as a program, past
last season. We now have a 5A
campaign that we have to take
care of.”
In its three complete sea-
sons in Class 6A, Summit
boys soccer reached three
state title games and won the
state championship last year
to cap an undefeated season.
The Summit girls
cross-country team won all
the Class 5A team titles be-
tween 2008 and 2017.
The Storm wasted little
time claiming the throne as
dean guernsey/The Bulletin
Claire McDonald, from left, Barrett Justema and Ella Thorsett run in Bend’s Discovery Park during Summit High School’s cross-country practice
Wednesday.
dean guernsey/The Bulletin
Summit High’s Grayson Barker, left, and Bowen Teuber fight for the ball during boys soccer practices Wednes-
day.
the state’s top cross-country
team, winning Class 6A state
titles in all three chances it
had.
Summit narrowly beat Je-
suit for the 6A title last fall by
three points and did so with-
out a single runner finishing
in the top five (but four in the
top 10).
Based on its runners’ times,
Summit would have had the
top four placers in the 5A
state championship meet.
“Of course there is a little
disappointment because it is
fun to go to the line with the
biggest and deepest schools,”
said Summit cross-country
coach Kari Strang. “We are
just going into the mindset
to make the best we can of
it. Fortunately, we still have
strong competition in the (In-
termountain Conference) and
we are thankful for that.”
Rumors of the potential
move from 6A to 5A started
long before the executive
board of the Oregon School
Activities Association voted
to approve it last December.
Still, when the move became
official it had mixed reviews.
“At first I was really up-
set because last year we had
a super close finish at state
and we wanted to come
back and get it one last time
against Jesuit,” said senior
Ella Thorsett, who won the
4A cross-country state title as
a freshman at Sisters in 2019
and was Summit’s highest
placer at last year’s 6A state
meet.
“But we are still going to go
to a lot of invitationals. Obvi-
ously it is going to affect state
but we also have some races
past state that we can still
look forward to. So I’ve come
to terms with it.”
Summit senior Bar-
rett Justema said that there
might not be a sport bet-
ter suited to handle change
than cross-country. While
most sports’ seasons end af-
ter the state championship,
cross-country has regional
and national meets that the
Storm compete in yearly.
Summit won the 2018 na-
tional title and finished sec-
ond in 2019.
“I think we have the lucki-
est sport to have (the change)
in,” Justema said. “We still get
to race against the big schools
and in a way it helps us see
our bigger goals of regionals
and nationals. State is still a
huge goal, but (the change)
helps us focus on different
things as well.”
Similarly, LoCascio said that
the timing worked out nicely
for the Summit boys soccer
program. Last year’s state ti-
tle team was a hungry squad
loaded with seniors who had
played in multiple 6A title
games before finally breaking
through to claim the champi-
onship in dominating fashion.
“It would have been much
harder to take that group last
year and then have them play-
ing in 5A, that would have
been a challenge for them,”
LoCascio said. “This is so dif-
ferent now you can’t really
compare the two. The mes-
sage this year has been re-cre-
ate, reinvent, and not repli-
cate and not even look back at
last year.”
Even still, championships
are not won on paper. Teams
and athletes must meet the
challenges that the season
brings. Games have to be
played and races have to be
run to claim championships,
which is no easy task in any
classification.
“I don’t look at anyone on
our schedule and go, ‘We
should have a training session
because we are going to beat
them in the first half,’ ” Lo-
Cascio said. “That is just not
how the sport goes. Anything
can happen.”
█
Reporter: 541-383-0307,
brathbone@bendbulletin.com