12A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2018
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Gary Henley | Sports Reporter
ghenley@dailyastorian.com
SPORTS
IN BRIEF
Trail Blazers use
2nd-half charge
to get past Pacers
INDIANAPOLIS — The Port-
land Trail Blazers may not need to
rely exclusively on their dynamic
duo to throw scoring punches any
longer.
Their new supporting cast
trades jabs pretty well, too, and
it could make a real difference to
their long-term prospects.
UP NEXT: BLAZERS
• Portland Trail Blazers (4-2)
at Houston Rockets (1-4)
• Today, 5 p.m. TV: NSNW
With Damian Lillard strug-
gling Monday and C.J. McCollum
scoring just 17 points, the Blazers
got 17 points from Zach Collins
and the first career double-dou-
ble from former Purdue star Caleb
Swanigan to put away the Indiana
Pacers 103-93.
“They’ve been great for us all
season. They’ve been keeping
us alive all season,” McCollum
said, referring to Portland’s bench.
“They’re the difference between
us being an average team and a
really good team.”
Photos courtesy BuffaloBills.com
Jordan Poyer looks to put the finishing touches on a run by Tom Brady in the first half of Monday night’s football game in Buffalo.
Patriots top Poyer and the Bills, 25-6
The Daily Astorian
Biles, Americans
roll at world
championships
DOHA, Qatar — The jugger-
naut led by Simone Biles keeps
right on rolling, kidney stone or no
kidney stone.
The U.S. women’s gymnas-
tics team cruised to a gold medal
at the world gymnastics champion-
ships on Tuesday, extending a run
of dominance that only seems to be
picking up momentum.
The Americans posted a team
score of 171.629 in winning their
fourth straight world title, well clear
of silver medalist Russia and bronze
medalist China. The 8.766 margin
of victory is the largest at a major
international competition since the
U.S.’s streak began in 2011. The
gap between first and second was
more than two times the margin
between second and eighth.
Even a couple of rare mis-
steps by Biles, the reigning Olym-
pic champion, did little to slow the
Americans and their 21-year-old
star. Biles is dealing with a kidney
stone diagnosed last week and is
attempting to fight through the pain.
— Associated Press
SCOREBOARD
PREP SPORTS SCHEDULE
TODAY
Boys soccer — Seaside at Stayton,
5 p.m.
B
Astoria’s Jordan Poyer ponders a tough loss to New England on
Monday Night Football, despite a great game for the Buffalo defense.
UFFALO, N.Y. — The Buffalo defense lived up to expectations,
but the Bills’ offense failed to show up Monday night at New Era
Field, where the New England Patriots posted a 25-6 win over
the Bills.
New England led 9-3 at halftime
and 12-6 heading into the fourth
UP NEXT: BILLS
quarter, but a few late mistakes by
• Chicago Bears (4-3)
the Bills and a defensive score for the
at Buffalo Bills (2-6)
Patriots dropped Buffalo to its sixth
• Sunday, 10 a.m. TV: FOX
loss of the season.
Astoria’s Jordan Poyer had three
tackles for the Bills, who were host-
ing their first Monday Night Football game since 2008.
For the season, Poyer is the third-leading tackler on the Buffalo
defense, with 42 combined stops. The former all-state quarterback and
defensive back for the Fishermen has a team-leading two interceptions
for the Bills.
Seahawks playing with confidence, freedom
By TIM BOOTH
Associated Press
RENTON, Wash. — Seattle coach
Pete Carroll has found a bigger mean-
ing behind an audacious fourth quar-
ter decision by rookie Michael Dick-
son to run on fourth down out of his
own end zone, a play that somehow
managed to net a first down.
The Seahawks are playing with
a style Carroll wants to see and the
freedom to try things that might oth-
erwise seem foolish — like a punter
running on fourth-and-8 at his own 3
rather than taking a safety like he was
supposed to.
The result is that the Seahawks
UP NEXT: SEAHAWKS
• Los Angeles Chargers (5-2)
at Seattle Seahawks (4-3)
• Sunday, 1:05 p.m. TV: CBS
having won four of five after Sun-
day’s 28-14 victory over Detroit, with
six of the final nine games at home
and Seattle in the thick of the NFC
playoff conversation at midseason.
“I like to think he showed you
our mentality that we trust our guys
and we work hard and work at it that
you’re going to get faced with oppor-
tunities, and I like our guys to be able
to improvise well and find the ways to
make special things happen,” Carroll
said Monday. “We always look for
guys who have special qualities and
part of that is, the guys who have the
background and courage and faculties
to make those kinds of decisions.”
Dickson’s 9-yard run with 2:18
remaining aside, the Seahawks once
again used the formula that has
worked for the past five games: play
strong defense; control the ball offen-
sively with the run; let Russell Wil-
son use the pass game efficiently and
not as the primary vehicle for Seat-
tle’s offense.
Seattle held promising young
Detroit running back Kerryon John-
son to 22 yards rushing on just eight
carries and limited the Lions to just
34 yards total on the ground. The Sea-
hawks ran 42 times for 176 yards —
including Dickson’s run — and had
the ball for nearly 35 minutes. Wilson
also posted the first perfect passer-rat-
ing game in Seahawks history while
completing 14 of 17 passes for 248
yards and three touchdowns.
Wilson’s 17 pass attempts matched
the second-fewest of his career. The
only time he threw less came in his
rookie season when he was 7 of 13
passing against Arizona in a game
Seattle won 58-0. He didn’t need to
carry the offensive load through the
air because of the success Seattle was
having on the ground.