OCTOBER 19, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE B1
KEIZERTIMES.COM
LInE
On
W iley
Imagine a full
league schedule
Close your eyes and imagine a world where Mc-
Nary and West Salem, both 4-0 in league-play, are
meeting this Friday for the Mountain Valley Confer-
ence championship.
Now open them and check back into reality.
After going 3-0 in Bend last Friday, McNary, West
Salem and Sprague have to be wishing they had
played a full league schedule this season.
Sure, those fi rst fi ve non-league games, many of
them against the state’s elite programs (Lake Oswego,
Sheldon, West Linn and Central Catholic) prepared
the Salem-Keizer teams for conference play and
maybe they are all better for it.
But couldn’t the same have been accomplished
with three non-league games? West Salem could
have still played Lake Oswego and Sheldon. McNary
could have still gone to West Linn and Tualatin.
What was the point of the Celtics traveling 300
miles to Tumwater, Wash. to lose 56-13?
McNary, which instead would have played win-
nable games against Summit (1-6) and Mountain
View (4-3), defi nitely didn’t save any on travel costs
by not taking an additional trip to Bend.
Next season the Celtics are scheduled to play two
games in Medford.
Then there’s the Mountain Valley Conference
championship, which the winner of McNary and
West Salem will probably claim, especially the Titans,
who thanks to a non-league game against Bend play
every team in the conference except Summit.
But without a full league schedule, is there really
an outright champion?
Who will at least take a giant step to fi nishing
atop the Mountain Valley Conference standings?
My picks:
McKay at Silverton
The Royal Scots followed up their fi rst win of the
season with a 35-7 loss to Dallas, who earned just its
second victory of the season. Now, McKay gets Sil-
verton, who opened the season 6-0 before falling to
Crescent Valley last Friday. Despite the loss, the Foxes
are still one of the best teams in 5A and should have
no problem with McKay.
Pick: Foxes 40, Royal Scots 14
South Albany at North Salem
The Vikings have dropped two games in a row
since earning their fi rst win at McKay. But the Red
Hawks come to North Salem on a four-game losing
streak, getting outscored 177 to 20.
Pick: Vikings 34, Red Hawks 17
Summit at South Salem
The Saxons, nursing a three-game losing streak
since coming from behind to defeat Sprague, host
1-6 Summit, who were just throttled at home by the
previously winless Olympians. While who will fi n-
ish atop the Mountain Valley Conference standings
is still in doubt, the Storm appear destined to be at
the bottom.
Pick: Saxons 40, Storm 14
Mountain View at Sprague
The Olympians didn’t just squeak out their fi rst
win of the season. They dominated Summit, which
makes me wonder how good any of the Bend
schools are. Mountain View also defeated Summit,
35-12 or by 12 less points than Sprague did. While
the Cougars are coming off an 18-point loss to West
Salem, Mountain View battled the Titans into the
third quarter. The Cougars defense just couldn’t
stop West Salem’s passing attack, allowing 475 yards
through the air. But Sprague doesn’t have the same
threat.
Pick: Cougars 35, Olympians 28
McNary at West Salem
Wow! What a difference two weeks makes. Af-
ter starting the season 0-5, the Celtics are riding a
two-game winning streak, defeating Sprague for
the fi rst time since 2014 and then winning 37-26 at
Bend, which entered the game 5-1 and No. 10 in the
OSAA power rankings.
Were the Lava Bears overrated or has McNary
made unbelievable progress? Probably a little of both.
At West Salem, the Celtics should fi nd out just how
good they are. The Titans, projected to be one of
the top teams in the state in the preseason, have had
disappointing showings against Lake Oswego and
Sheldon, but with a strong fi nish could still sneak
into the top 10 of the power rankings.
While McNary’s defense has shown improvement
over the past two weeks, West Salem’s speed and big
play threats, particularly Oregon State-bound receiv-
er Anthony Gould, provides a tough challenge for
the Celtics.
Pick: Titans 44, Celtics 30
Derek Wiley is the associate editor of the Keizertimes.
Last week: 4-1, Overall: 24-13
KEIZERTIMES/Derek Wiley
Cousins Jose Luis Bravo, No. 2, Jovanie Bravo, No. 10, Miguel Bravo, No. 7, and Jesus Lopez, No. 20, played their fi nal home game at McNary
Tuesday with fellow seniors Kevin Hernandez, No. 9, and nrancisco Rios, No. 11.
Kicking cousins lead McNary
By DEREK WILEY
Of the Keizertimes
Like most coaches, Miguel Camarena
wants his McNary boys soccer team to feel
like a family.
With Miguel Bravo, Jose Luis Bravo, Jo-
vanie Bravo and Jesus Lopez, that’s been easy.
The four boys, all seniors, are cousins.
“We spend a lot of quality time together,”
Miguel said. “Christmas is really big for us,
Thanksgiving, New Years Eve. All our fam-
ilies get together. It’s really hard to keep us
away from each other. If one of us goes some-
where, that means all of us have to go to that
place.”
One of those places is the soccer fi eld,
where at Capital Fútbol Club, then 4-H
Chelsea and now McNary, the cousins have
played together since elementary school.
All four have been on McNary’s varsity
team since they were sophomores, with Mi-
guel even swinging between the varsity and
junior varsity as a freshman.
“Besides being good soccer players, they’re
quality young men,” Camarena said. “They’re
really good guys. And when you have quali-
ties like that, it’s always an asset to your pro-
gram, kids that are always willing to work.
They are key players for a program to be
where we’re at right now.”
They all started as defenders before Mi-
guel moved to the midfi eld and Jovanie to
forward by the time they were in high school.
“Our chemistry was good since we were
cousins and we played together all of the time
and knew how each other played,” Jose Luis
said.
But their playing days are coming to an
end.
The Celtics lost to Bend 2-1 on Tuesday in
their fi nal regular season home game.
Please see COUSINS, Page B2
How far they’ve come
Celtics fi ght
back to win
at #10 Bend
By DEREK WILEY
Of the Keizertimes
McNary (2-5) is not the same football
team it was a month ago.
That was made clear last Friday night in
Bend when after falling behind 12-0 the
Celtics roared back to win 37-26.
“A month ago, they might have cashed
in their chips,” McNary head coach Jeff
Auvinen said. “We’ve been working on
trying to answer the bell and trying to
respond when adversity happens and play
that next play. I think they responded re-
ally well.”
Senior Griffi n Oliveira started the
comeback, catching a touchdown pass
from Erik Barker.
“It almost felt like it was going to be
another one of those (blowout losses),”
Oliveira said. “Everyone put their head
down, but we came back and got a score.
There was some talking on the sidelines
and we decided that wasn’t how we want-
ed our season to go. We stepped up and
made some things happen.”
Thanks to a Nigel Harris interception
and touchdown on the fi nal play of the
fi rst half, the Celtics took a 21-19 lead into
halftime but they didn’t feel good about it.
“We were not very happy with how
we played in that fi rst half, giving up three
scores on defense, really being able to do
whatever we want on offense but not hav-
ing all 11 guys on the same page,” Auvinen
said.
“When we had our halftime talk, that’s
when we really stepped it up and took it
to a whole other level that we hadn’t taken
it to yet,” Oliveira said. “We were up two
but there was a lot of room to make way
more plays and we fi nally started making
those.”
Junior Walling, who fi nished with 133
total yards and three touchdowns, rushed
for two touchdowns in the third quarter
to extend the Celtics lead to 34-19.
Please see BEND, Page B2
KEIZERTIMES/Derek Wiley
Brian Schindler, left, and Devyn Schurr celebrate during a McNary football game earlier this sea-
son. The Celtics have won two games in a row after defeating Bend last nriday.
ATHLETE
of the Week
presented by
JUNIOR WALLING
McNary High School
McNary running back Junior Walling gained 133
total yards and scored three touchdowns as the
Celtics won 37-26 at Bend on nriday, Oct. 12.
At linebacker, Walling had 11 tackles, eight solo
and three assists, and two sacks, as the Celtics
held Bend to 96 yards rushing.