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A10 THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JANuARY 2, 2019 CONTACT US FOLLOW US Gary Henley | Sports Reporter ghenley@dailyastorian.com facebook.com/ DailyAstorianSports SCOREBOARD TODAY Girls basketball — Warrenton at Clatskanie, 6 p.m. Boys basketball — Warrenton at Clatskanie, 7:30 p.m.; Ilwaco at Ocosta, 7 p.m. THURSDAY Girls Basketball — Ocosta at Ilwaco, 7 p.m. Swimming — Seaside at Taft, 4 p.m. Lillard rallies Trail Blazers in OT to beat Kings 113-108 By MICHAEL WAGAMAN Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Damian Lillard woke up Tues- day morning feeling out of sorts and didn’t get much bet- ter through the first three quar- ters against Sacramento. When Portland needed him the most, however, their All-Star guard came through in a big way. It wasn’t necessarily Michael Jordan dropping 38 on Utah in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals, but it was more than enough to help the Trail Blazers kick off the new year the right way. Lillard shook off a slug- gish night to score five of his 25 points in overtime, and the Portland rallied after blowing a 14-point halftime lead to beat the Sacramento Kings 113-108 on Tuesday night. “They outplayed us for most of the second half,” a weary Lillard said. “At that point you have to come together as a group and kind of forget about everything that’s happened. You have to make plays happen from that point on to pull out a game and I thought we did a great job of that.” Jusuf Nurkic had 24 points and a career-high 23 rebounds to help Portland to its fourth straight win over Sacramento. CJ McCollum added 16 points, and Maurice Harkless had 11 points and nine rebounds. “The effort it took to come back and win in overtime, I was really impressed with our guys,” Blazers coach Terry Stotts said. “To make a comeback like that you have to be good at both ends, and we were.” Lillard wasn’t much of a fac- tor until late in the fourth quarter when he scored seven of Port- land’s final nine points, includ- ing a layup with 15.5 seconds remaining to force overtime. The Blazers dominated after that while outscoring the Kings 10-5 in the overtime. Lillard made three free throws and a 20-foot jumper to spark Port- land’s finish and erase an other- wise rough night shooting from its backcourt tandem of Lillard and McCollum. Lillard went 8 of 21 from the floor. McCollum shot 8 of 19. “I woke up this morning feeling a little beat up, a little bit tired,” Lillard said. “But I’ve been a lot more sick.” AP Photo/Ted S. Warren Seattle Seahawks’ Chris Carson carries against the Arizona Cardinals. For Seahawks, playoff run started in Week 3 By TIM BOOTH Associated Press R ENTON, Wash. — Pete Car- roll and Brian Schottenheimer sat together and decided with their team winless after two games there needed to be a change. What the Seattle Seahawks were try- ing to do on offense wasn’t working. “He and I sat down and kind of had a little heart-to-heart,” said Schotten- heimer, Seattle’s first-year offensive coordinator. “There were things that he and I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page about. It wasn’t just the run- ning game, it was he and I continuing to build our relationship and it was an awe- some meeting. It probably lasted about an hour and we talked about a ton of differ- ent stuff. I know I came out of that meet- ing feeling really good just about the direction where we wanted to go.” The direction has been clear for more UP NEXT: NFC WILD CARD • Seattle Seahawks (10-6) at Dallas Cowboys (10-6) • Saturday, 5:15 p.m. TV: FOX than three months as the Seahawks went from a team searching for answers to a team back in the postseason after a one- year absence from the playoffs. And it was the decisions made before playing Dallas in Week 3 where the switch was made and Seattle started on its path that has the Seahawks headed to face the Cowboys on Saturday night in an NFC wild-card game. The conversation between Carroll and Schottenheimer made clear Seattle was going back to the fundamentals of how it wanted to be offensively. They were going to make running the ball the prior- ity and let Russell Wilson be a playmaker around the running success. The result: Seattle ended the season as the best run team in the NFL, and with Wilson having one of the best seasons of his career making big plays in the pass- ing game. “I don’t think you’d always sit there and say we’re going to make this philos- ophy and go do this, and then you think you’re going to be the best in the league at it,” Schottenheimer said. Throughout last offseason, Seattle preached it was returning to the basic offensive fundamentals that led them to consecutive NFC titles. They were going to be bullies running the football behind the trio of Chris Carson, Mike Davis and Rashaad Penny. But for the first two weeks of the sea- son, Schottenheimer and Carroll got too far ahead of themselves. They tried to see how much the Seahawks could rely on Wilson, rather than relying on the run game. The result was a pair of ugly losses to Denver and Chicago, and Wilson run- ning for his life getting sacked 12 times in those first two games. Washington Huskies’ slow start in Rose Bowl is familiar, unwelcome By DAN GREENSPAN Associated Press UP NEXT: BLAZERS • Oklahoma Thunder (23-13) at Portland Trail Blazers (22-16) • Friday, 7:30 p.m. TV: ESPN AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli Sacramento Kings guard Bogdan Bogdanovic, left, defends against Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard. PASADENA, Calif. — The sec- ond half of the Rose Bowl showed No. 9 Washington is more than capable of competing with the top programs in college football. Unfortunately for the Huskies, another slow start against a mar- quee nonconference opponent proved to be the difference in their 28-23 loss to No. 5 Ohio State on Tuesday. “If we had five more minutes we would have won that game,” Washington center Nick Har- ris said. “Just kind of ran out of time, and we got to start faster. We can’t have those hiccups in the first half.” Washington’s third consecutive appearance in a New Year’s Six bowl game played out much like losses to Alabama in the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Peach Bowl in 2016 and to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl last sea- son. The Huskies fell behind the Buckeyes 28-3 in the third quarter before rallying with three touch- downs in the fourth. Led by 204 yards passing from senior quarterback Jake Brown- ing and 97 yards rushing with two AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill Washington running back Myles Gaskin scores over Ohio State cornerback Kendall Sheffield. short touchdown runs from senior running back Myles Gaskin, Wash- ington outgained Ohio State 293- 92 in the second half. In the fourth quarter, the yardage edge was 170- 15 in favor of the Pac-12 champi- ons, forcing Ohio State to have to recover an onside kick with 42 sec- onds remaining to stave off what could have been the biggest come- back in the 105-year history of the Rose Bowl. The sense of regret was all too familiar for Washington (10- 4), which trailed by 21 points in the first half of that 35-28 loss to the Nittany Lions last season. A year earlier, the Crimson Tide put Washington in a 17-7 halftime hole en route to a smothering 24-7 loss, and even this season’s opener against Auburn saw the Huskies trailing by nine points twice in the second quarter before falling 21-16 in the neutral site game in Atlanta. Pulisic to join Chelsea as most expensive American player Associated Press DORTMUND, Germany — Christian Pulisic became the most expensive American soc- cer player in history after com- pleting a transfer to English club Chelsea from Borussia Dortmund today. Chelsea paid $73 million for the 20-year-old United States winger, who will be loaned back to Dortmund for the rest of this season. The German club won’t have to pay Chelsea for the loan. The fee is easily the biggest paid for an American player, surpassing the reported $22.5 million spent by German team Wolfsburg for John Brooks in 2017. “It was always Christian’s big dream to play in the Pre- mier League,” Dortmund sport- ing director Michael Zorc said. “That certainly has to do with his American origins, and so it wasn’t possible for us to extend his contract.” Pulisic’s contract with Dort- mund was due to expire at the end of next season. “It is a privilege to have signed for such a legendary club,” Pulisic said of the Lon- don team that has won five Pre- mier League titles since 2005.
