14A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2016
CONTACT US
FOLLOW US
facebook.com/
DailyAstorianSports
Gary Henley | Sports Reporter
ghenley@dailyastorian.com
ATHLETES
OF THE WEEK
WORLD SERIES 2016: CHICAGO VS. CLEVELAND
(For Oct. 17-22)
NEXT YEAR IS HERE
GIRLS
Kaitlyn Landwehr, Knappa
The senior all-league setter/
outside hitter had six digs, fi ve
kills, fi ve assists and three blocks
in Knappa’s season-ending defeat
to Delphian in the Northwest
League playoffs.
In two matches the day before
(a win over Faith Bible and a loss
to Gaston), Landwehr was 23-for-
24 serving, with 11 kills, 10 assists
and four blocks.
AP Photo/David J. Phillip
Members of the Chicago Cubs warm up during practice for the World Series against the Cleveland Indians on Monday in Cleveland.
BOYS
Fridtjof Fremstad, Astoria
The senior quarterback led the
Fishermen on an 84-yard scor-
ing drive with 3:02 remaining at
Scappoose Saturday, capping the
drive with a 22-yard TD toss to
Olaf Englund with 11 seconds left.
Fremstad also threw TD passes to
Samboy Tuimato and Ryan Palek
in Astoria’s league title-clinching
win over the Indians.
Royals top
Warriors
in playoff
The Daily Astorian
PORTLAND — The sea-
son came to a close for the War-
renton volleyball team Monday
night in Portland, where the Port-
land Christian Royals won a piv-
otal Game 3, on their way to a
four-game win over the Warriors,
25-10, 16-25, 25-22, 25-19, in a
Lewis & Clark League playoff.
“We were ahead 22-18 in the
third game, and they ended up
coming back and winning,” said
Warrenton coach Jim Hackwith.
“And that was the key game right
there. If we had won that one, it
may have turned out differently.”
As it was, Warrenton’s sea-
son ends at 10-10 overall, 5-6 in
league play. The Warriors won
a league playoff match at Catlin
Gabel last week.
Portland Christian — which
was 10-2 in league — advances to
the Sweet 16.
The Royals were eliminated
from the league playoffs last year
in a match at Warrenton, which
provided some incentive for Port-
land Christian, Hackwith said.
“That was a factor — I’m sure
they were going for us,” he said.
“But I’m glad we fi nished tough.
We had a good season, and it was
a good way to go out.”
In her last match as a Warrior,
Landree Miethe had 24 kills, with
a 2.46 passer rating.
Sierra Lyons had 18 digs.
Claire Bussert and Asia Lambert
added 17 apiece.
Michelle Arney and Lambert
had two ace serves each for the
Warriors, who fi nished the season
with just eight players on the var-
sity roster, with four seniors (Lam-
bert, Lyons, Miethe and Katelynn
Blodgett).
SCOREBOARD
PREP SCHEDULE
TODAY
Girls Soccer — Astoria at Scappoose,
4:15 p.m.; Seaside at Banks, 4:15 p.m.
Boys Soccer — Scappoose at Asto-
ria, 7:30 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
Cross Country — Cowapa League
Championships, Camp Rilea, 2 p.m.
Football — Naselle at Taholah, 6 p.m.
THURSDAY
Cross Country — 3A/2A/1A District 1
Championships, Tualatin Hills, 3:30 p.m.
FRIDAY
Football — Warrenton at Rainier, 7
p.m.; Knappa at Central Linn, 7 p.m.;
Ilwaco at North Beach, 7 p.m.
Lovable losers Cubs,
Indians meet in Series
By RONALD BLUM
AP Baseball Writer
C
LEVELAND — The last time the
Cleveland Indians won the World
Series, Dewey led Truman in the
polls. The Chicago Cubs’ last title
was 13 days after the fi rst Ford
Model T car was completed.
Lovable losers known for decades of
defeat meet in this year’s championship, a
combined 174 seasons of futility facing off
starting Tuesday night at Progressive Field.
Cleveland’s last title was in 1948, when 16
teams from the East Coast to St. Louis com-
peted in a just-integrated sport. The Cubs are
trying to win for the fi rst time since 1908 , a
dead ball-era matchup at a time home runs
were rarities along with telephones.
No player is alive from the last champion-
ship Cubs or even the last to make a Series
appearance — Tuesday marks the 25,948th
day since the Cubs’ Game 7 loss to Detroit in
1945. One player remains from the 1948 Indi-
ans, 95-year-old Eddie Robinson.
“It seems like it’s just forever,” Robinson
said Monday from his home in Fort Worth,
Texas. “When we got home from Boston,
there was a monumental parade. It just looked
like everybody in Cleveland came out on
Euclid Avenue.”
‘Win the Inning!’
One team’s fans will let loose with the
celebration of a lifetime. But while history
weighs on the supporters, Cubs manager Joe
Maddon focuses his players with a now-cen-
tered battle cry of “Win the Inning!”
“Air conditioning is popular right now.
So is color TV,” he said. “You’ve just got to
change with the times.”
Both teams worked out under cloudy skies
as the new 59-by-221-foot scoreboard behind
the left-fi eld seats — the largest in the major
leagues — trumpeted the Sisyphean matchup.
While the Cubs play in Wrigley Field, the
102-year-old brick-and-ivy jewel on Chica-
go’s North Side, the Indians are in a 22-year-
old throwback-style ballpark originally called
Jacobs Field.
Led by Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo,
the Cubs led the major leagues with 103 wins
during the regular season, then beat San Fran-
cisco and Los Angeles in the playoffs. But
since the playoffs expanded in 1995, only four
teams with the best regular-season record won
the title: the 1998 and 2009 New York Yan-
kees, and the 2007 and 2013 Boston Red Sox.
“I promise you, our guys are going to be
in the present tense,” Maddon said. “I think
we all have a tremendous amount of respect
for history and what’s happened before us or
not happened before us. But, you know, you
go in that room right now, they’re very young.
Really not impacted by a lot of the lore.”
Jon Lester, 7-1 in his career against Cleve-
land, starts for the Cubs and Corey Kluber
opens for the Indians. Lester is 2-0 with a 0.86
ERA in three postseason starts this year and
3-0 with a 0.43 ERA in a trio of Series out-
ings. He learned to prepare from watching
Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett in Boston.
“They prepared the same way for this start
as they would for a regular start during the
season,” he said.
Kluber pitched shutout ball twice in the
playoffs before allowing two runs in fi ve
innings in Game 4 at Toronto. His father, Jim,
was born in Cleveland and rooted for the Indi-
ans growing up in suburban Highland Heights.
“I think every parent is excited if their kid
has a chance to play in the World Series,” said
the 30-year-old right-hander, who could win
his second AL Cy Young Award in three years.
Across the street
The Series starts just after a ceremony
across the street when LeBron James and the
Cavaliers receive championship rings before
their opener celebrating this year’s NBA title,
the fi rst for Cleveland’s big league teams since
the NFL’s Browns in 1964.
“It’s a pretty neat set of circumstances,”
said Indians reliever Andrew Miller, the ALCS
MVP. “Obviously the fans wish they had won
quite a bit previously, but I think the Cubs are
even going to overshadow us in that history.”
While Chicago has many famous fans,
among them Bill Murray and Hillary Clin-
ton, Cleveland is rooted on by Tom Hanks
and Drew Carey. The Indians’ losing history
received nationwide attention in the 1989 fi lm
“Major League,” featuring Charlie Sheen as
Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn.
Blazers stay true to process for 2016-17
By ANNE M. PETERSON
AP Sports Writer
PORTLAND — No longer the
NBA’s surprising overachievers,
Damian Lillard says the Trail Blazers
need to stay true to the process.
Portland went 44-38 last season
despite losing four starters to free
agency the previous summer. The
team got the fi fth seed in the West-
ern Conference and played past the
injury-depleted Los Angeles Clippers
into the second round of the playoffs.
With greater expectations, the
Blazers embark on this season hoping
to build on the last.
“It’s something we’ll have to con-
tinue to push ourselves to do, but I
think we just grow on what we started
last year,” Lillard said. “You continue
to stay true to the small things that we
committed to last year and get bet-
ter that way. I don’t think you come
back and say, ‘It’s a new year, let’s go
change this and change that.”’
The Blazers fell to the Warriors in
the Western Conference semifi nals,
and this season Golden State again
looks to be the team to beat with the
addition of Kevin Durant. The Blaz-
ers counter with a deep bench and
should vie again for the Northwest
Division title.
“We have a lot of players who can
have an impact to fi nish games. The
fi rst three years, we were relying on
the starters. Last year, the depth was
versatile and helped us get through
the season, and we improved on that
this year,” coach Terry Stotts said.
“We look at the season as a continua-
tion of last season.”
Lillard averaged a career-high
25.1 points in the regular season,
becoming the third Portland player
AP Photo/Alex Gallardo
Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard (0) shoots between Los An-
geles Lakers forward Brandon Ingram (14) and center Timofey Mozgov
(20), of Russia, during the first half of an NBA preseason basketball
game in Los Angeles. No longer the NBA’s surprising overachievers,
Lillard says the Trail Blazers need to stay true to the process.
ever to average more than 25. He also
averaged 6.8 assists.
Backcourt teammate CJ McCol-
lum averaged 20.8 points in his fi rst
year as a starter, giving the Blaz-
ers their fi rst backcourt duo with an
average of 20 or more points apiece
in a single season. He was named the
league’s Most Improved Player.
Mason Plumlee returns as the start-
ing center, with Al-Farouq Aminu at
power forward. Maurice Harkless and
offseason addition Evan Turner have
been competing in training camp for
the other starting nod.
Other things to consider as the
Trail Blazers prepare to open the
season:
NEWCOMERS: Portland signed
Turner and free agent forward Fes-
tus Ezeli, while trading for guard
Shabazz Napier and rookie forward
Jake Layman. Ezeli played last sea-
son for the Warriors and averaged
seven points and 5.6 assists.
Turner, who agreed to a four-
year, $70 million contract, is adjust-
ing to his new team in the presea-
son. Last year with the Celtics, the
6-foot-7 wing averaged 10.5 points,
4.9 rebounds and 4.4 assists as Bos-
ton’s sixth man.
Lillard recently offered Turner
some advice: “I said to him, ‘Don’t
worry about what this person thinks
or what that person is saying. We
want you to play. You’re a play-
maker and you score the ball. ... We
need you to play off your instincts.
That’s what you do well. That’s what
you do well in practice. We want you
to do it in a game so we can adjust
to what you do and learn that way
instead of you trying to get used to
us all the time.”’
ROAD TRIP!: The Trail Blazers
once again embarked on a presea-
son team-bonding excursion to San
Diego. The trip south was started by
Lillard and McCollum in 2015. The
team worked out at San Diego State
and shared meals. “I always knew
they were cool guys and they had
good chemistry,” Ezeli said. “But I
didn’t know the team was this tight.”
DEFENSE: Stotts has always
emphasized defensive improvement,
and this season is no different. The
Blazers ranked 20th in the league for
points allowed per game, 16th for
opponents’ fi eld-goal percentage and
17th for opponents’ points per shot.
INJURY UPDATE: Center
Meyers Leonard has returned to the
court ahead of schedule following
shoulder surgery. Noah Vonleh has
also returned from a procedure on
his thigh. But the Blazers continue
to wait on Ezeli, who had a left knee
procedure in August. There is no
timeline for his return, and the Blaz-
ers are acting cautiously.
MULTITALENTED: Lillard’s
fi rst rap album “The Letter O” was
released Friday. Lillard, who musi-
cally goes by Dame D.O.L.L.A.,
worked with artists including Jamie
Foxx, Raphael Saadiq and Lil
Wayne. His fi rst single is the song
“Hero,” with Saadiq. Lillard has
been involved with music since com-
ing to the Blazers: He hosts the pop-
ular freestyle challenge (hash)4Bar-
Friday on Instagram, and the video
for his song “Bigger than Us” pre-
miered on TNT in January.