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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JUNE 12, 2017
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Gary Henley | Sports Reporter
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STANLEY CUP FINALS
Penguins end Predators magical run
By JIM DIAMOND
Associated Press
AP Photo/Tony Dejak
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Pred-
ators’ amazing, improbable playoff
run finally is over.
After capturing the hearts of Nash-
ville’s country music stars and tens of
thousands more in and around Music
City, Nashville’s season ended at the
hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-0
in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final.
P.K. Subban, brought over from
Montreal in last summer’s block-
buster swap of All-Star defense-
men, said the loss stings and will for
a while. Then he made another bold
promise, not all that different from
his guarantee of a Game 3 win that
proved true.
Golden State Warriors forward
Draymond Green (23) fouls
Cleveland Cavaliers center
Tristan Thompson during the
second half of Game 4 of bas-
ketball’s NBA Finals in Cleve-
land on Friday.
“We’re going to be back here again
next year,” Subban said. “We’ve got a
lot of guys who are coming into their
own. ... I think we’re going to take a
lot of experience on this run and we’ll
be back again next year.”
Not many gave Nashville a
chance. The Predators were the bot-
tom seed in the West, seemingly
unlikely to advance out of the first
round much less be one of the last
two teams standing. But Peter Lavi-
olette’s fast-skating bunch with the
lockdown defense roared past Chi-
cago in a sweep to get things started
and shrugged off the home-ice advan-
tage of St. Louis and Anaheim on the
way to the first Final in the franchise’s
19-year history — much to the joy of
their catfish-tossing fans.
GUEST COLUMN
Cavaliers
coach Lue
pleased by
feisty turn
to Finals
By JOSH DUBOW
Associated Press
OAKLAND, Calif. — Seven
technical fouls, one flagrant foul,
stars LeBron James and Kevin
Durant jawing at each other and
several other dustups.
For Cleveland coach Tyronn
Lue, the physical turn the NBA
Finals took in Game 4 is just what
he wanted and is the recipe he
hopes the Cavaliers will follow
for the rest of the series against the
Golden State Warriors.
“Me personally, I liked it,”
Lue said Sunday. “I thought the
first two games
we were being
too nice. The
first three games,
helping guys up
off the floor, smil-
ing, talking to
guys and — yeah,
Tyronn Lue I didn’t like that.
So I think Game
4, talking trash, being physical,
whatever you got to do to try to get
that edge to win, you got to do it.”
The Cavs look to carry that
same mindset into Game 5 tonight,
when they once again try to stave
off elimination.
After two straight Golden State
blowouts to open the series and
a thrilling comeback in Game 3,
things turned feisty in Game 4 as
the teams that are meeting in a
third straight Finals showed some
animosity.
James said the Cavs were upset
about comments from Golden
State’s Draymond Green about
wanting to celebrate a title on
Cleveland’s floor for the second
time in three seasons.
The game started off with an
edge and things really took off in
the third quarter. It started when
Durant took exception to a blow to
the head from Kevin Love that led
to a flagrant foul and a face-to-face
confrontation with James.
It escalated late in the third after
a scramble to the floor for a loose
ball led to a jump ball. Cleveland’s
Iman Shumpert stood over Pachu-
lia and tried to grab the ball after
the whistle. Pachulia then deliv-
ered two swipes to Shumpert’s
groin area, leading to technical
fouls on both players.
“It was totally between the lines
and with the respect of the rules,”
Pachulia said of the physical play.
“Nothing has crossed the line. It’s
emotional. It’s possibly the last
game of the season, so you defi-
nitely don’t want to give up any-
thing easy. We know it’s not going
to be an easy game for us. We’re
going to earn it.”
UP NEXT: GAME 5
• Cleveland Cavaliers (1-3)
at Golden State Warriors (3-1)
• Today, 6 p.m. TV: ABC
SCOREBOARD
SPORTS SCHEDULE
TUESDAY
Junior State Baseball — Seaside at
Warrenton, 5 p.m.
THURSDAY
Junior State Baseball — Warrenton
at Neah-Kah-Nie, 5:30 p.m.
AP Photo/Timothy J. Gonzalez
Tennessee’s Christian Coleman, center, beats Houston’s Cameron Burrell, left, and North Carolina A&T’s Christopher Belceher,
right, to win the men’s 100 meters on the third day of the NCAA outdoor college track and field championships in Eugene Friday
Coleman’s won in 10.04 seconds, Burrell finished second and Belcher third.
Thrills, spills and stories from Eugene
By NEIL BRANSON
For The Daily Astorian
E
UGENE — With any athletic com-
petition there are stories within the
big story. Personal and team com-
petitions, disappointments to be exorcised,
records to be set and no end of surprises.
At this year’s NCAA Track and Field
Championships last week in Eugene there
was no end to the tales to be told.
Gender Equity. This is Year 2 of a for-
mat that gives the two genders their separate
stages. In the past years, a few women’s and
men’s events would be contested each of
the four days of the meet. This year’s com-
petition alternated with the men’s events on
Wednesday and Friday while the women had
Thursday and Saturday as their stage.
The benefits are numerous for both ath-
letes, coaches and fans. Athletes can have
a full day away from the track between the
assigned dates, coaches can have that day to
speak to their respective teams without hav-
ing to be in two places at one time, and the
fans get to see two championship meets and
teams crowned.
Quick Starts. After posting the third
fastest time in prelims (38.86 seconds), a
quartet of University of Houston men set
school and Hayward Field records in the
400-meter relay, winning in 38.34. The
next day, the Wildcat Women of Kentucky
matched Huston’s performance in the 400
relay, setting field and school records by
winning in 42.51.
Double the Fun. Christian Coleman of
Tennessee became only the second man to
win both NCAA sprint titles winning the
100 meters in 10:04 and the half-lap (200
meters) in 20.25. In the prelim, Coleman set
an NCAA record in the century race at 9.82.
The other double sprint winner was another
Volunteer, 2004 Olympic 100 Gold Medal-
ist, Justin Gatlin. In the field, Filip Mihalje-
vic won a rare double by taking the shot put
title with a toss of 69 feet, 10¼ inches, and
followed that up with a University of Vir-
ginia school record in the discus at 209-9.
Surprise Firsts. Running the 25 laps of
a 10K is a test in perseverance and patience.
Showing the best of both, University of San
Francisco senior Charlotte Taylor first fol-
lowed prerace favorite Anna Roher of Notre
Dame through 3,200 meters and when Roher
fell off the pace, Taylor stayed on the heels
of New Mexico’s Alice Wright until the last
400. At that point she powered away with a
68-second lap to secure a six-second victory,
32:38.57 to 32:42.64. The scoreboard mon-
itor showed her crossing the finish line with
a huge smile and look of complete surprise.
Taylor is the University of San Francisco’s
first NCAA Track and Field Champion.
Nerves. Qualifying for the finals in sprint
events is a monumental challenge. In the
semis there are three heats with the top two
finishers and the next two fastest times from
all three races moving on to race again.
Duck sprint sensations Ariana Washington
(defending NCAA champion) and Deajah
Stevens placed third and fourth in the first
heat. All they could do was wait and watch
as times were posted for the other heats. A
measure of tension was relieved when the
winning time in Heat 2 was slower than their
times and Heat 3 proved to be no threat.
Both ladies said, “we will correct our mis-
takes and be ready for Saturday.”
High & Low. Freshmen teammates
Emmanuel Korir and Michael Saruni of Tex-
as-El Paso were leading the pack in the 800
when, with a bit less than 200 meters to go,
Saruni took a spill. After other runners, with
some acrobatic skills, avoided the mishap,
he got up and watched as his teammate pow-
ered off the Bowerman Curve to capture the
win in 1:45.03. To the standing applause
of the crowd, Saruni jogged home to finish
in 2:15.56. The beauty was in the competi-
tion and the crowd acknowledging the heart
of Saruni. Ten minutes later, Robert Grant
of Texas A&M caught the sixth hurdle in
the 400-meter hurdles and took a hard spill.
After the other runners had crossed the finish
line, Grant got up and jogged across the fin-
ish line, knowing that his team was in a tight
battle with Florida for the team title.
Family. Sisters Alexis and Victoria
Weeks of Arkansas shared the pole-vault
runway Thursday, with Alexis placing sec-
ond and Victoria sixth. During the compe-
tition it was announced that both were get-
ting married this summer, Alexis to her high
school sweetheart and Victoria to a decath-
lete on the Arkansas team. Close as they
are, it will not be a double-ring ceremony.
Catch me if you can. In the men’s stee-
plechase, in what can often be a very tactical
race in a championship meet, Edwin Kibi-
chly of Louisville took out fast and never
relinquished the lead, sending the mes-
sage early that if you want this champion-
ship more than me, you better be ready to
race and race hard. Lap by lap he pressed
the pace and coming into the penultimate lap
he created a gap that none could cover. He
won in 8:28.40 with Darren Fahy (George-
town) and Dylan Blankenbaker (Oklahoma)
waging a fierce battle for second, with Fahy
holding off Dylan 8:31.08 to 8:31.17.
Next Year. The Oregon men, normally a
perennial contender for at least a trophy, if
not the team championship, finished a dis-
tant ninth. They lacked depth and high-
end competitors. The team took a devastat-
ing blow when 17-time NCAA Champion
Edward Cheserek, who would have been
the favorite in both the 5K and 10K races,
was pulled from the West Regional quali-
fying meet with a back strain. Those who
did compete did not pull out the usual home
crowd-inspired places that would have pro-
pelled the crowed to a frenzy and the team
to a higher finish.
Redemption. The men’s team race
between Texas A&M and Florida came
down to the 1,600 relay, last event of the
meet. A&M had nipped Florida in the
NCAA Indoor Championships by one-half
point. Both schools had teams in the 1,600
with seven points separating the Gators and
Aggies. Florida needed to finish no lower
than fifth to secure the win. The Lone Star
State school did all it could by winning
the relay in 2:59.98, but Florida worked its
magic by coming in fourth at 3:02.16.
Frenzy. With plenty of sprint power the
Oregon women were a force to behold. First
scorer for Oregon was Katie Rainsberger
in the 1,500, as she got the crowd on their
feet as four ladies powered down the last
100 meters side by side. Rainsberger wound
up fourth to earn 5 points. Continuing on,
all was well with the ladies picking up 16
points in the 800 as Raevyn Rogers won her
third outdoor title and Brooke Feldmeier,
who was not predicted to score in this meet,
came in third. In the 100 another 13 points
were added. All that happy anticipation
changed in a heartbeat when Deajah Ste-
vens, an Olympic finalist in the 200, stum-
bled and fell some 15 meters from the finish.
Ariana Washington added eight points by
finishing second in that 200. The crowd was
stunned with Stevens’ stumble, but the ladies
gathered themselves for the 1,600 relay that
gave them their chance to win it all.
Trailing Georgia by 8.5 points, a sec-
ond-place finish in the relay meant a run-
ner-up finish in the team race. Fitting, it
came down to the last 100 meters with Rog-
ers holding off USC anchor Kendall Ellis,
3:23.13 to 3:23.35. Both times were under
the collegiate record of 3:23.75 set by Texas
in 2004. It was pandemonium for the Duck
faithful, yet with protests filed, the team and
fans had to wait an hour before all was set-
tled. The wait was worth it.
First. With the win Oregon became the
first women’s team to win the Tripe Crown
of NCAA Championships in cross country,
indoor and outdoor track and field. They
were a big surprise in cross country; the
indoor title looked like a lock from the start
last March; and this latest title took all the
competitive zeal the team could muster and
thus was so sweet.
Before the last relay, Oregon coach Rob-
ert Johnson told the four women “We’re
built for this.” He was right, and it appears
they are in good stead to win a few more
titles.
Neil Branson is an educator and former
cross country coach at Seaside High School.