A8 The SpokeSman • TueSday, ocTober 18, 2022
Sports+Outdoors
PREP FOOTBALL
Central Oregon
Prep football
roundup
Senior quarterback
hogan carmichael tossed
four touchdown passes to
three different receivers
to push Summit’s (6-1,
3-0 Intermountain con-
ference) winning streak
to six games and secure
a playoff spot with a 35-0
win over Redmond (2-5,
0-3). Senior charlie ozolin
caught eight passes for
174 yards and two touch-
downs, seniors ethan
carlson and junior Tadhg
brown each caught touch-
down passes as well.
also clinching a playoff
spot was Mountain View
(5-2, 3-0) with a 44-13 win
over Ridgeview (2-5, 0-3).
The cougars jumped out
to a 30-0 lead in the first
half with junior quarter-
back connor crum pass-
ing for two of his three
touchdown passes. Senior
wideout Greyson harms
caught and passed for a
touchdowns
after dropping its
first game of the season
last week, Bend High
returned to its dominat-
ing form with a 41-0 win
over Caldera (2-5, 1-2
Imc). The Lava bears (6-
1, 2-1) tallied 417 yards
of offense while hold-
ing caldera to just two
yards of offense. Senior
running back malakai
nutter scored twice on
the ground, as did senior
quarterback Logan ma-
linowski. Senior wideout
blake Groshong caught a
55-yard touchdown from
malinowski.
Crook County (3-4,
1-2 Special district 5)
dropped its second con-
secutive game, falling
42-14 to La Grande.…
after starting the season
off with three consecutive
wins, Madras (3-4, 0-3
Sd 5) has dropped four
consecutive games. Fri-
day, the White buffalo fell
41-13 to Baker.… Since
losing its second game
of the season, La Pine
(6-1, 5-0 mVc) has rolled
off five consecutive wins
and are now a win away
against creswell from
claiming the 3a mountain
Valley conference title.
The hawks won on the
road 52-26 against elmira.
during the winning streak,
the hawks have averaged
42 points per game.… It
was nearly an upset for
culver (3-4, 2-2 Tri-river)
in a non-league matchup
against undefeated Low-
ell. but the bulldogs’ up-
set effort came up short,
falling 30-26.… Gilchrist
(1-5) picked up its first win
of the season with a 27-12
win on the road against
days creek.
ryan brennecke/The bulletin
Sisters’ Justin DeSmet (23) breaks away from a Pleasant Hill defender during the first half Friday night at Sisters.
PLAYING FOR THE PLAYOFFS
Sisters football back in playoff hunt for first time since 2016
BY BRIAN RATHBONE
CO Media Group
SISTERS — The Outlaws gathered af-
ter beating Pleasant Hill 31-7 in an im-
portant Class 3A Mountain Valley foot-
ball clash and were a tad … unsatisfied?
Sisters believes it left many points on
the table during the Friday night home
game.
“Honestly, I think our team could have
played a lot better tonight,” said junior
running back Justin DeSmet. “We should
have 60 points on the board.”
After the still-convincing win in which
Sisters (5-2 overall, 3-1 MVC) forced five
Pleasant Hill (3-4, 1-3) turnovers, the
Outlaws are on the brink of clinching
one of the conference’s three automatic
qualifying spots — far from where the
program was a year ago.
“The boys are very hungry,” said Sis-
ters coach Clayton Hall. “They have a
goal of making it to the playoffs. We have
the goal to win our last three games, and
we got the first one tonight.”
Last season, the Outlaws finished 1-6
and were outscored by opponents 258-
89. Now with a win on the road against
either Siuslaw this Friday or Harrisburg
Oct. 28, Sisters will be postseason-bound
for the first time since 2016.
“This team is based on having a lot of
seniors and we know how to play with
ryan brennecke/The bulletin
Sisters’ Kayle Mock finds himself wide open for a touchdown catch during the first half
against Pleasant Hill on Friday night at Sisters.
one another,” said senior quarterback
Easton Moore, one of 12 seniors on the
32-man roster. “This year is going pretty
great — I can’t wait for playoffs.”
Against the Billies, the Outlaws forced
three fumbles — one of them on special
teams — while DeSmet and sophomore
Hudson Beck each had an interception.
Outside of one scoring drive late in the
first half, Pleasant Hill had little success
moving the ball on offense.
After giving up an average of 32 points
per game last year, the Outlaws have held
opponents to 15 points per contest this
season.
“The defense has been playing very,
very well,” Hall said. “I thought the boys
played hard all night tonight.”
While the Outlaws believe that the of-
fense did not have its best game despite
scoring 31 points — which would have
been a season high last fall — they were
still able to find the end zone four times.
Moore found sophomore wideout
Kayle Mock for the game’s only score in
the first quarter. Junior running back
Tony Gonzalez had two short touch-
down runs, one in the second quarter for
a 14-7 lead and another on the opening
drive of the third quarter to give Sisters
a 21-7 advantage. Senior kicker Brody
Duey booted in a 27-yard field goal.
Then DeSmet capped off the blowout
with a 55-yard touchdown run late in the
fourth quarter.
For a team coming off a disappointing
2021 season, after the Outlaws stomped
Burns 23-0 to open this season, belief
started to sink in.
“We realized that we have a good
bunch of athletes and that we can do
this,” DeSmet said. “That first win at
Burns gave us that spark and it has been
a fire since then.”
Since that opening victory — aside
from a 26-14 loss to MVC-leading La
Pine, and a 29-14 loss to 4A Madras —
the Outlaws have been rolling.
Now they head on the road to take
on defending state-champion Siuslaw,
which handed Sisters a 50-0 loss last sea-
son. A win over the Vikings would clinch
a postseason berth, and could give the
Outlaws a home playoff game.
“I think it is going to be a pretty even
match,” Hall said. “We have something to
prove this year.”
█
Reporter: 541-383-0307,
brathbone@bendbulletin.com
PREP BOYS SOCCER
Lava Bears clinch playoff
spot with win over Ridgeview
BY BRIAN RATHBONE
CO Media Group
REDMOND — With a 3-1
victory Thursday afternoon
against Ridgeview, the Bend
High boys soccer team not
only won its fourth consecutive
game, but it also punched its
ticket to the playoffs. The Lava
Bears are guaranteed to finish
no lower than second place in
the Intermountain Conference.
This is the first season that
the Lava Bears are postseason
bound since 2018, when they
made it to the first round of the
Class 6A playoffs.
“We knew how big this game
was,” said Bend High coach
Nils Eriksson. “The kids have
worked hard; it is a good group
of guys. It is fun to see how we
have grown as a program the
past few years.”
During the previous three
seasons, the Lava Bears went a
combined 7-26-2, including a
winless season in 2019.
“The past years we have al-
ways had the heart and always
wanted to make the playoffs,”
said senior midfielder Tommy
Anderson. “We would just come
up short and never had it in us
to make the playoffs. This year,
there is something different, we
are a little more experienced
and want it more.”
Perhaps the win to sweep the
Ravens this year proved how
different the Lava Bears are in
2022. Bend (8-3-1, 6-1-1 IMC)
would have to rally from an
early deficit for the victory in
Thursday’s matchup between
two teams ranked in OSAA’s Top
10. Bend is ranked seventh in
5A. Ridgeview is ranked ninth.
Ridgeview (9-4, 4-4) took
an early lead within the first
10 minutes of the match when
sophomore forward Oliver
Thompson scored. For much of
the first 40 minutes, the Ravens
were the aggressors, creating
more threatening scoring op-
portunities.
That changed after Bend
junior forward Luke Murphy
evened the score in the 33rd
minute, hitting a goal on a
counter. After that, the Lava
Bears looked like a different
team and took control.
“We started talking more and
communicating better,” Eriks-
son said. “The kids took charge
on the field. They were coaching
each other on the field. The kids
did a good job directing each
other better in the second half.”
In the second half, the Lava
Bears turned a 1-1 tie into a
two-goal advantage. Bend took
the lead in the 65th minute
when Anderson set up senior
midfielder Leamon Rich’s goal.
Then, in the 71st minute, An-
derson scored to put the game
out of reach.
“We were giving them a
lot of opportunities from our
own mistakes,” said Ander-
son, who finished with a goal
and an assist. “It clicked in that
we needed to start playing our
game. There was a realization
ryan brennecke/The bulletin
Bend’s Luke Murphy (29) and Ridgeview’s Collin McWhortor (2) fight for possession of the ball during the
first half of the 5A matchup Thursday in Redmond.
after we got scored on that this
game was really big and we
needed to secure this win to get
second in the conference. This
was a really big ‘dub.’ ”
Even with the loss, Ridgeview
is still in the OSAA’s Top 10 and
very much alive in the postsea-
son hunt. The Ravens need a
win over either Mountain View
or Redmond to secure the third
automatic playoff bid.
Eriksson predicts that who-
ever makes the postseason,
along with Bend High and
Summit, will be tough to beat in
the playoffs.
“It’s rewarding to see that
Central Oregon soccer is on
the rise overall,” Eriksson said.
“Whoever gets in as the third
team is going to be competitive.”
█
Reporter: 541-383-0307,
brathbone@bendbulletin.com