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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2018
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Gary Henley | Sports Reporter
ghenley@dailyastorian.com
Athletes of the Week
SAM
HEMSLEY
Astoria
XANH
QUANG
The Daily Astorian
CAM’RON
GRAHAM
James Graham/For The Daily Astorian
itting key baskets and scoring off steals, Hemsley sparked Astoria’s 41-30
H
win Jan. 19 over Seaside at the Brick House. It was Astoria’s first vic-
tory in the Clatsop Clash series since February 2012, and snapped a streak of
he two Clatsop County martial arts competitors, both 10 years old,
T
brought home four medals from the Ground Warrior Submission Chal-
lenge, held Jan. 20 at the Salem Armory. Quang won a gold medal in the
11 straight Seaside wins. Seaside held a 13-5 lead midway through the sec-
ond quarter, but Astoria finished the first half with a 9-1 run, capped by Sam
Hemsley’s bank shot in the closing seconds. The junior guard led Astoria with
a game-high 15 points. The Lady Fishermen are ranked 12th in the state at the
4A level.
No-Gi division, and a third-place bronze in the Gi competition. Graham was
second (silver medal) in the No-Gi category, and took home a bronze in the Gi
division. Both Graham and Quang have been competing for just over a year.
No-Gi Submission Grappling is a popular alternative to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It
is similar to Jiu-Jitsu, but without wearing a Gi (kimono), where the goal is to
obtain a submission using submission holds.
Jones, Thome,
Guerrero
and Hoffman
elected to
baseball Hall
SPORTS
IN BRIEF
No DH in the
lineup: Martinez
falls short of
Hall induction
By BEN WALKER
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Over 600
home runs. More than 600 saves.
A .300 career average.
In the age of baseball analyt-
ics, there’s still room in the Hall of
Fame for big, round numbers you
can count on.
Chipper Jones, Jim Thome,
Vladimir Guerrero and Trevor
Hoffman were rewarded Wednes-
day, easily elected in the newest
class headed for Cooperstown.
“I don’t know how you tab-
ulate or calculate WAR,” Jones
said, referring to a sabermetric stat
that didn’t exist for much of his
career.
“Yes, you can dig deeper,” he
said. But he added: “What I want
to see is batting average, on-base
percentage, runs produced.”
Designated hitter Edgar Mar-
tinez came close after a grass-
roots campaign to promote him.
Boosted by advanced metrics,
he’ll get his last chance on the bal-
lot next year.
Barry Bonds and Roger Cle-
mens, both tainted by the steroids
scandal, edged up but again fell far
short.
A switch-hitter who batted .303
with 468 home runs, Jones was an
eight-time All-Star third baseman
for the Atlanta Braves.
He was a force for most of the
Atlanta teams that won 14 straight
division titles — his election put
another member of those Braves
clubs in the Hall, along with pitch-
ers John Smoltz, Tom Glavine and
Greg Maddux, manager Bobby
Cox and general manager John
Schuerholz.
Of the four new members,
Jones was the only one to win
a World Series. He joined Ken
Griffey Jr. as the lone overall No.
1 draft picks to reach the Hall.
SCOREBOARD
PREP SPORTS SCHEDULE
THURSDAY
Girls basketball — Knappa at Verno-
nia, 6 p.m.
Boys basketball — Knappa at Ver-
nonia, 7:45 p.m.; Firm Foundation at
Naselle, 7 p.m.
FRIDAY
Boys basketball — Banks at Astoria,
6 p.m.; Tillamook at Seaside, 6 p.m.;
Warrenton at Catlin Gabel, 6 p.m.; Ilwa-
co at North Beach, 7 p.m.
Girls basketball — Banks at Astoria,
7:45 p.m.; Tillamook at Seaside, 7:45
p.m.; Warrenton at Catlin Gabel, 7:45
p.m.
SATURDAY
Girls basketball — Ilwaco at North
Beach, 7 p.m.; Lake Quinault at Naselle,
TBA
AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer
Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard dribbles against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Lillard scores 31 and Blazers
beat Timberwolves 123-114
By ANNE M. PETERSON
Associated Press
PORTLAND — Damian Lil-
lard figured Portland’s 43-point third
quarter against Minnesota might be
the best span for the Blazers in recent
memory.
Lillard had 31 points a day after
getting his third All-Star nod and the
Trail Blazers beat the Timberwolves
123-114 on Wednesday night.
He called that third quarter a
“showcase.” It was the most points
Portland has had in a single quarter all
season.
“When we watch film and when
we’re in training camp and stuff like
that, if we could just watch that whole
quarter, they’d say, ‘This is how we
want to play, this is how the ball
needs to move, this is how we need
to screen, this is the pace we need to
have. And what’s going to allow us to
do that is defending the way we did,’”
said Lillard, who had 13 of his points
during the period.
CJ McCollum added 28 points
in Portland’s seventh straight win at
home, longest streak of the season.
Lillard made six 3-pointers and the
Blazers had 17 3s in the game, one
shy of their season high.
UP NEXT: BLAZERS
• Portland Trail Blazers (26-22)
at Dallas Mavericks (16-32)
• Friday, 5:30 p.m. TV: NSNW
Andrew Wiggins had 24 points
for the Timberwolves, who had won
seven of their last nine games but
trailed by 19 points early in the fourth
quarter.
Lillard was named as an All-Star
reserve Tuesday. He also spoke to
reporters before the game about mak-
ing the team after being snubbed in
past years.
“It’s not my first All-Star game.
But I did have to make this one hap-
pen. Everybody knows that the last
two years I felt like I should have
made it and I didn’t. But I just had to
keep on playing, stay with it and stay
positive,” he said.
Minnesota didn’t have Jimmy But-
ler, who missed a third straight game
with a sore right knee. Jamal Craw-
ford returned after missing two games
with a strained big toe on his left foot.
“We’ve got to be able to play
through any situation,” Karl-Anthony
Towns said. “Jimmy’s an amazing
player, one of the best in the league so
when you lose him it puts a huge task
at hand for us bit we’ve got to be able
to go out there next man up and get
the job done.”
The Timberwolves were coming
off a 126-118 victory over the Clip-
pers in Los Angeles on Monday night.
Wiggins scored a season-high 40
points in the win that snapped a four-
game road skid.
The Trail Blazers lost 104-101 in
Denver on Tuesday, snapping a three-
game winning streak.
Minnesota led by eight points
early, but Lillard’s 3-pointer got the
Blazers within 27-25 late in the open-
ing quarter. Portland finally caught up
with the Timberwolves at the end of
the half, pulling into a 54-all tie after
Al-Farouq Aminu’s 3-pointer and a
pair of free throws from Lillard.
Lillard and Aminu each hit
3-pointers to push Portland’s lead to
63-60. Aminu’s dunk extended it to
76-68 midway through the third quar-
ter. Lillard’s two 3s put the Blazers up
88-74.
“We played the kind of game we
wanted to play, from the effort stand-
point and focus,” Lillard said.
The Timberwolves won the first
two meetings of this season’s series,
both at home.
SEATTLE — Edgar Martinez
toiled for six years in the minors
before finally becoming a major
league regular in 1989.
He certainly knows all about
waiting — and his bid for the Base-
ball Hall of Fame has been no
different.
The former Seattle Mariners
designated hitter and third baseman
fell short again Wednesday, finish-
ing with 70.4 percent of the vote in
his ninth try. Players need 75 per-
cent from the Baseball Writers’
Association of America to make it
to Cooperstown, and next year will
be Martinez’s last on the ballot.
But it was the second consecu-
tive year that yielded a significant
jump for Martinez in his attempt
to join Frank Thomas as the only
inducted players who were primar-
ily designated hitters.
“Getting 70.4 percent is a big
improvement and all I can think
right now is that it’s looking good
for next year,” Martinez said on
a conference call about 90 min-
utes after the announcement that
he wasn’t included in the class of
2018. “It would have been great to
get in this year, but it looks good
for next year.”
Woods confident
his back will hold
out this time
SAN DIEGO — Tiger Woods
is more confident than ever that
his return to the PGA Tour will be
different this time.
It’s not so much how he plays,
but rather for how long.
“I have no more pain in my
back,” Woods said Wednesday.
That wasn’t the case a year
ago. Woods was coming off the
longest break of his career follow-
ing two back surgeries when he
played the Hero World Challenge
and showed promise by making
24 birdies against an 18-man field
with no cut. But then he missed the
36-hole cut at Torrey Pines, and
lasted one round in Dubai before
withdrawing with back spasms.
Fusion surgery on his lower
back followed two months later,
and now Woods is on the same
track as he was last year — with
one exception.
“I was trying to manage the
disk and the vertebrae,” Woods
said after his pro-am round in the
Farmers Insurance Open. “But it’s
all finished now. It’s fused, and the
quality of life is infinitely better
than it was last year at this point.”
— Associated Press