SPORTS
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2015
7A
Collier earns Athlete of the Week award
Kimberly Elkins, Fr., Grays Harbor
basketball
Mady Hanna, So., Lower CC bas-
ketball
JEWELL
Luke Swearingen, Fr., Portland
CC basketball
Banks
Lexi Chung, Blue Mountain CC
basketball
Riley Gerlinger, Blue Mountain CC
basketball
Matt Hidalgo, Jr., Oregon track
Scappoose
Jonathan Clark, Warner-Pacific
track
Kenny Klippel, Western Oregon
track
Paul Revis, Western Oregon track
Lacey Updike, Mt. Hood basket-
ball
Tillamook
Trever Cooley, Linn-Benton bas-
ketball
Jordan Schriber, Western Oregon
basketball
Dylan Tohl, Pacific swimming
HOMETOWN
REPORT
by
G ARY H ENLEY
PORTLAND — Warren-
ton’s Emmi Collier was one
of two student-athletes from
Western Oregon University
honored Monday for their
athletic achievements the
previous week.
Collier and WOU men’s
basketball player Andy Avgi
were named Great North-
west Athletic Conference
(GNAC) Players of the Week
in their respective sports, as
announced by the league of-
fice.
A graduate of Warrenton
High School and now a ju-
nior on the WOU track &
field roster, Collier posted a
mark of 43 feet, 3.75 inches
in the shot put at the Husky
Invite, held Saturday at the
University of Washington.
The mark was just a quar-
ter inch shy of the provision-
al national qualifying stan-
dard. Collier ranks second
in the GNAC in the shot put
this season.
It was Collier’s first
weekly award from the con-
ference office, and Western
Oregon’s first since May,
when a pair of Wolves swept
the weekly honors.
“This is by far the coolest
thing to happen to me in my
college athletic career,” Col-
lier posted on her Facebook
page.
Western’s track & field
Submitted Photo
Members of the Western Oregon track team, following the recent Husky Invite indoor track meet, Jan. 17 in Seattle.
From left to right, assistant coach Matt Schryvers, Emmi Collier (Warrenton), Allison Cook (Coquille), Alex Green (New-
berg), Sam Moore (Newport) and Kenny Klippel (Scappoose).
teams return to action this
weekend at the Cougar In-
door, Friday and Saturday at
Washington State.
Lewis earns
Player of the Game
In other action involving
local athletes at the colle-
giate level, Seaside’s Kaitlin
Lewis recently scored Play-
er of the Game honors in a
win for the Lower Columbia
women’s basketball team.
Seventh-ranked
LCC
stunned No. 1-ranked Cen-
tralia 63-47 in an NWAC
Western Division showdown
Jan. 24 Ted M. Natt Court.
The victory put the Lady
Devils at the top of the divi-
sion at 7-0, 14-7 overall.
Lower Columbia took
advantage of some early
Centralia turnovers with 12
straight points, including six
from Lewis, LCC’s fresh-
man from Seaside.
Basketball: Knights sweep Warriors
WARRENTON — The
De La Salle basketball teams
swept a doubleheader from
Warrenton Tuesday night, in
Lewis & Clark League ac-
tion.
De La Salle opened with a
37-28 win over the Lady War-
riors in the girls’ game, send-
ing Warrenton to its seventh
straight defeat.
The Knights capped the
night with a 73-30 victory
over the Warrenton boys, as
De La Salle improved to 11-2
in league, and are currently
rated No. 7 in the Class 3A
OSAA rankings.
In her first start for the
Red Devils, Lewis had 14
points, six rebounds and four
assists.
Former Rainier standout
Kaylea Knox led LCC with
17 points, while Warrenton’s
Mady Hanna added five
points.
In a 50-39 win over South
Puget Sound Saturday, Lew-
is scored nine points with six
rebounds and two steals.
Other local athletes per-
forming this winter at the
collegiate level:
ASTORIA
Jon Williams, So., Linfield swim-
ming
Dean Winters, Fr., Boise State
track
SEASIDE
Lucas Clark, So., Western Oregon
track
Kaitlin Lewis, Fr., Lower CC bas-
ketball
Brett Willyard, RFr., Oregon track
WARRENTON
Emmi Collier, Jr., Western Oregon
track
SCOREBOARD
PREP SCHEDULE
TODAY
Boys Basketball — Ilwaco at
Raymond, 7 p.m.
FRIDAY
Girls Basketball — Astoria
at Banks, 5:30 p.m.; Seaside at
Scappoose, 5:30 p.m.; Warren-
ton at Riverdale, 6 p.m.; Gaston
at Knappa, 6 p.m.; Jewell at C.S.
Lewis, 5:30 p.m.; Raymond at Il-
waco, 7 p.m.
Boys Basketball — Astoria
at Banks, 7:15 p.m.; Seaside at
Scappoose, 7:15 p.m.; Warrenton
at Riverdale, 7:45 p.m.; Gaston at
Valley Catholic
Gabe Taylor, U. of Portland bas-
ketball
Clatskanie
David Adkinson, Pacific wrestling
Rainier
Brandon Cataldo, Portland State
basketball
Kaylea Knox, Lower CC basketball
Vernonia
Austin Best-Cutright, Lower CC
basketball
Katerina Brejchova, Lower CC
basketball
Stephanie Castro, Chemeketa
basketball
Letters-of-intent:
Astoria
Bailey Haskell, Centralia softball
Banks
Dylan Bigsby, Eastern Oregon
football
Alyssa Chung, Clackamas volley-
ball
Madison Soper, Carroll College
softball
Emily Vandehey, Highline CC soc-
cer
Hannah VanDomelen, Clackamas
softball
Scappoose
David Krupsky, Western Oregon
football
Emily Muth, Dominican University
soccer
Knappa, 7:45 p.m.; Jewell at C.S.
Lewis, 7 p.m.
Swimming — Cowapa League
Championships, St. Helens, 4
p.m.
SATURDAY
Wrestling — Cowapa League
Championships, Banks, 10 a.m.
Blob: Study predicts massive shifts of West Coast marine species
Continued from Page 1A
Though things like the blob have
happened before — Bond says they
have reliable records back to 1980 and
a “good idea of what’s going on back
to 1950” — this particular blob was
“pretty extreme in terms of how much
warmer it was than normal and its mag-
nitude.”
When masses like the blob form,
they tend to stick around for a while.
Then they slowly get torn apart and
dispersed as weather patterns shift. The
same thing is happening to the blob
now. The warm waters we’re still see-
ing are a kind of “hangover from the
blob,” Bond said.
The horror itself is disappearing. For
now.
As Bond puts it, “The weird weath-
er we had in the winter of 2013 and
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The climate is built to contain these
kinds of variations.
“But on the other hand,” Bond con-
tinued, “I think we are seeing slow
warming of the oceans. In a way, we can
learn from these kinds of incidents about
the sort of changes we are expecting to
see as a part of climate change. ... We are
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Warming like this is on the way.”
Washington woes
According to a 2006 study focus-
ing on Washington state, the U.S. is
the largest source of greenhouse gas
emissions, a primary driver of climate
change. Washington contributes about
85 to 90 million tons each year to the
global total from energy use — about
0.3 percent of worldwide emissions,
according to some estimates.
This puts Washington’s yearly emis-
sions per capita per person at about 13.5
tons of CO2, more than the world aver-
age of 4 tons per person but lower than
the U.S. average of 20 tons per person.
For that, we can thank the dams, the
study’s authors said.
“This reliance on (electricity gen-
erated by dams), though damaging to
salmon and freshwater ecosystems,
means that Washington residents lead
somewhat less carbon-intensive lives
than most Americans,” the study says.
But that number — 13.5 tons per
person — continues to grow and is pro-
jected to swell over the next 25 years as
the population grows.
With climate change, researchers ex-
pect a laundry list of changes in Wash-
ington: more frequent and more severe
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more acidic oceans, seasonal drought,
DAMIAN MULINIX — EO Media Group
Scientists say that unusually warm ocean conditions in 2014 are a preview of conditions that will become routine as the Pacific retains more atmospheric
heat. This will impact migratory patterns and other aspects of existence for salmon like these that returned to spawn in a Southwest Washington river.
hot and dry summers, cold winters.
In such a slippery environment, cer-
tain species will thrive, some will leave
as others move in. Some will vanish.
Some are already on the move.
they generate may barely register on
Washington’s overall net earnings,
making up a small percentage of what
keeps the state moving. In commu-
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Fisheries in a
processing have been a traditional way
changing climate
of life and remain vital to the econo-
A recent study published in Prog- mies of many small towns, those earn-
ress in Oceanography predicts massive ings loom large.
shifts of West Coast marine species —
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everything from sharks to salmon — larger here than salmon.
northwards an average of 30 kilometers
The phrase “climate change” is not
per decade.
directly referenced in the discussions
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cies will follow the conditions they’re salmon seasons each year in a process
adapted to,” said Richard Brodeur, a called North of Falcon, said Doug Mill-
NOAA Fisheries senior scientist at the ward, of the Washington Department of
Northwest Fisheries Science Center and Fish and Wildlife and a member of the
co-author of the study.
Salmon Technical Team that informs the
As the species shift — not neces- North of Falcon process.
sarily in lockstep, prey and predator
Still, the vast suite of data they
together — there will be “winners and examine each year tells the story of
losers that we cannot foresee,” he said. climate change: rising temperatures,
And what it means for Washington’s RFHDQ DFLGL¿FDWLRQ KDELWDW ORVV DQG
FRPPHUFLDODQGUHFUHDWLRQDO¿VKHULHVLV gain, ocean health, stream and river
anyone’s guess.
health, salmon health.
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millions of dollars of personal income said. “Even if it’s not stated as such.”
Changing life cycles
Researchers know a lot about what
needs to happen in freshwater to help
salmon thrive and they say the quality
of freshwater habitats could make or
break future runs. The ocean is a dif-
ferent story. A warmer, less productive
ocean — the blob was just a taste — is
a huge unknown.
“What’s hard is that we can’t tease
apart the physical and biological factors
in the ocean that well,” said Lisa Cro-
zier, a research biologist with NOAA’s
Northwest Fisheries Science Center. “In
changing scenarios, we have no idea
what ocean survival is going to be like.”
Numerous agencies and groups
have focused attention on freshwater
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and Crozier says this work is even more
important in the face of climate change.
Freshwater is where salmon spawn and
it’s where some species could retreat if
ocean conditions become unbearable.
Steelhead and sockeye salmon, for ex-
ample, have the option to become en-
tirely freshwater residents, Crozier said.
Salmon, in general, are adaptable
and have survived drastic climate shifts
before. Crozier has already seen chang-
es in how some sockeye populations
are changing the timing and location of
their migrations. Some of these changes
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ÀH[LEOHEXW&UR]LHUDQGRWKHUUHVHDUFK-
ers have seen what they believe are evo-
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“If we could remove the human im-
pacts” — dams, pollution, harvest —
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“All these things are things we’ve done
which push them in the same direction
climate change is pushing them.”
Scientists like Crozier believe salm-
on will remain off the West Coast for
years to come, but their life cycles
may take on a different shape. In some
places, they are already changing. And
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¿QGDEXQGDQFHWKH\PD\KDYHWRORRN
in new places.
James Gustave Speth, dean of the
school of forestry and environmental
studies at Yale University and former
chairman of the President’s Council on
Environmental Quality, said in the early
2000s, “The world we have known is
history.”