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THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, July 30, 2019
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Six new champs in Coast Invitational
By GARY HENLEY
The Astorian
W
ARRENTON — It was some
sort of record Saturday at the
Astoria Golf & Country Club,
where six first-time champions were
crowned in all six divisions of the Ore-
gon Coast Invitational.
Pretty impressive, considering the
annual tournament has been around
since 1910.
A few previous champions came
close to winning again, but all came up
short in Saturday’s championship flight
finals.
A few of the new champions had
waited a long time for their titles,
including Super Senior winner Gaylord
Davis and Women’s Seniors champ
Mary Jacobs.
The men’s Seniors champion, Tom
Mulflur, avenged a tough loss to his
opponent of two years ago to win Satur-
day’s final, while Jim Alder of Pumpkin
Ridge Golf Club was a first-time cham-
pion in the Junior/Seniors division.
Twenty-year-old Jon Holzgang of
Tigard had a big week on the North
Coast. He earned medalist honors in the
qualifying round a week earlier in the
Grand Champions division, then won
the match play title Saturday against
former champ Anthony Arvidson.
And the third time was the charm
for 33-year-old Gretchen Johnson, who
had the feel-good victory of the tourna-
ment, winning the Women’s title over
11-time champion Lara Tennant after
coming close the last two years.
“This is my third year playing in
(the OCI),” said Johnson, who trailed
for most of Saturday’s match with Ten-
nant. “I was medalist and got to the
finals my first year, and couldn’t quite
close the door. And last year, I was up
in the semis and in a good position, but
couldn’t close it out. This year I was
fortunate enough to come out on top.”
She held a 1-up lead through the first
three holes, before Tennant pulled even
on the fourth, then led (by as much as
3-up) for the remainder of the morning
round.
Johnson trimmed her deficit to
1-down over the first six holes of the
afternoon round, and the two were even
for most of holes 25 through 30.
Johnson took a 1-up lead on the 13th
hole (31st overall), but nearly lost it on
the 16th.
Tennant’s second shot rolled within
feet of the cup, while Johnson’s second
shot landed on the side of a sand trap.
Her shot out of the bunker was still
farther away than Tennant’s ball, but
Johnson hit a long putt from the edge
of the green, while Tennant narrowly
missed her putt, leaving Johnson with
her 1-up lead still intact.
Johnson hit another nice putt on 17,
then was able to play the 18th safely to
By GARY HENLEY
The Astorian
Gary Henley/The Astorian
Gretchen Johnson raises her hat to the crowd, following her championship win over
Lara Tennant, left. See more photos online at DailyAstorian.com/sports
end the match.
“I had two great up-and-downs on
16 and 17,” Johnson said. “I had kind
of a ‘hanger lie’ on 16 that I thought
would go right, but I closed it a little
bit and pugged it left,” into the bunker.
“Then I hit a pretty good bunker
shot, and a 20-footer for par,” she said.
“Then on 17 I thought I hit a great iron,
but the wind pushed it over the green. I
had a pretty good chip after that, then
made another eight- or 10-footer.”
Even Johnson had to admit, it was
“pretty clutch.”
Johnson has been clutch the last two
weeks, after scoring a win over Amanda
Jacobs in the final of the Pacific North-
west Golf Association’s mid-amateur
tournament, held at Arrowhead Golf
Club in Molalla.
“I was fortunate enough to come out
on top against my best friend (Jacobs),”
Johnson said. “It’s been a couple weeks
of some good competition.”
Johnson used a hole-in-one on
the 12th hole to win in Molalla. She
topped Jacobs again in a Friday semifi-
nal to reach the title match of the Coast
Invitational.
Johnson had been the runner-up
the last two year’s of the mid-amateur
event as well.
In the men’s Grand Champions final,
Arvidson (the 2013 OCI champion) and
Holzgang traded the lead or were even
for much of the morning round, before
Holzgang took the lead — for good —
on the 17th.
A freshman golfer last season at
Northwest Christian University in
Eugene, Holzgang held leads of 2-up or
3-up for most of the afternoon round,
before ending the match with a 4-up
lead on the 34th hole.
In Junior/Seniors play, Alder
defeated Jim Parks of Evergreen Golf
for his first OCI title.
The men’s Seniors championship
flight was a rematch of the 2017 final
between Mulflur and Astoria Golf’s
Bret Stevens.
Stevens won the 2017 match, which
went 20 holes, and Mulflur won Satur-
day’s rematch on the 18th.
Still, it was a good week for Stevens,
who had wins over Robert Tennant and
No. 1 seed Paul Gulick to reach Satur-
day’s final.
The Super Seniors came down to a
match between two Astoria Golf mem-
bers, Jack Cartwright and Gaylord
Davis.
Seeking his eighth overall title in
the Coast Invitational, Cartwright
had a big week with wins over Fred
Hamel, Russ Taggard and John Lewis
to reach the title match, but Davis had
a better day Saturday for his first OCI
championship.
Davis also had the top score (a
2-under par 70) in qualifying, then
topped the No. 2 seed Cartwright in
Saturday’s final.
And exactly 100 years after a golfer
named Frances Jacobs won the 1919
Women’s championship, Mary Jacobs
of Waverley Golf won the 2019 Wom-
en’s Seniors title with a victory over
No. 1 seed Wendy Storlie in Saturday’s
final.
Wagner gets $54 million deal with Seahawks
By TIM BOOTH
Associated Press
RENTON, Wash. — Rather than hear-
ing it through an intermediary, Bobby Wag-
ner wanted to be told directly where he was
viewed to have shortcomings.
Why his employer valued him at only a
certain number. What restrictions the Seattle
Seahawks faced in fitting him into their long-
term plans.
None of that is easy to hear at times. But
when the All-Pro middle linebacker of the
Seahawks decided to handle his own contract
negotiations, he knew sitting and listening —
without getting emotional and upset — was
going to be part of the job.
“My goal was to challenge myself and if
anything I want players to leave wanting to
educate themselves. Whether they want to
do it themselves or have an agent, no mat-
ter what the situation is, you got to know the
business and you got to educate yourself to
what’s in your contract, how they got there,
how they got to those numbers,” Wagner said
on Sunday.
“I feel like there’s two negotiations:
there’s one between the GM and the agent
and there’s the agent and the player, because
you’re not in that room. You might miss some
things that’s not being talked about. My thing
is, how I looked at it, I didn’t want them to
say all the bad stuff to the agent, I wanted
them to say it to my face. I could take it.”
Wagner was back fully practicing with
the Seahawks on Sunday, two days after fin-
ishing up his $54 million, three-year exten-
sion with the Seahawks that on a yearly aver-
age basis makes him the highest-paid middle
linebacker in the NFL.
The $85 million, five-year deal C.J. Mos-
ley signed with the New York Jets in the off-
Warriors
0-for-2
in state
tourney
AP Photo/Rick Scuteri
Bobby Wagner reacts during a game against
the Arizona Cardinals.
season reset the entire market and challenged
the Seahawks to create a compensation pack-
age that rewarded one of the top players in
the game at his position.
The sides finally hammered out the final
details on Friday, ending a long and eye-open-
ing education for Wagner in the process of
how a deal gets done.
“Being the highest-paid was dope,” Wag-
ner said drawing laughter. “It was dope but
my thing was to just make sure we got a deal
done and that’s kind of what I was really
focused on was getting a deal done and just
trying to do better than the last one. In every-
thing in life you want to be better, so I wanted
to do better than my last deal and I feel like I
accomplished that.”
Wagner said his decision to represent him-
self wasn’t meant to be a slight on agents and
their role in contract negotiations. But enter-
ing his third deal with Seattle, Wagner sought
the challenge of learning how the system
works and figuring out for himself what he
wanted and how to get it done. The personal
education was more important than any state-
ment he may have been making.
“This was me trying to educate myself
before I get out there in the real world and
actually have some real world experience,”
Wagner said.
“Not everybody’s going to sugarcoat stuff,
not everybody’s going to tell you stuff that
you want to hear and you’ve got to be able
to handle that. So that’s kind of what it was
for me.”
One person thrilled with Wagner’s con-
tract situation being settled was coach Pete
Carroll. The first two days of training camp
seemed awkward with Wagner a spectator,
especially the first day when he came to the
practice field without his jersey. Carroll noted
the distraction of the contract hanging over
Wagner and said he would be eased into the
start of camp.
“If a guy is going to get paid you want it to
be a guy like this. He just stands for so much
positive, so much good,” Carroll said.
NOTES: Seattle brought back former
defensive back DeShawn Shead on a one-
year deal. Shead played last year with Detroit
after spending his first six seasons in the
league with Seattle. Shead felt he was still
recovering last year from a major knee injury
suffered in the 2016 playoffs with Seattle. No
longer in rehab mode and with the chance to
get into football shape, Shead said he feels
as if he’s back to his pre-injury status. “I was
telling everybody this, ‘I’m back home,’”
Shead said. Carroll said Shead will initially
work at safety, but could be used at corner-
back as well.
For the second day in a row, the
Warrenton Warriors faced another
outstanding 5A pitcher in the Junior
Baseball state tournament, held Fri-
day through Sunday in Corvallis.
After losing a 7-0, two-hitter to
West Albany in the first round, the
Warriors were held hitless in a 3-0
loss to host Crescent Valley in a Sat-
urday morning contest.
Raider pitcher Ethan Jenssen
struck out 14 batters, walked one and
did not give up a hit in leading Cres-
cent Valley to the consolation win.
Warrenton pitcher Austin Little
gave a pretty good account of himself
as well, allowing eight hits with nine
strikeouts and one walk.
Crescent Valley — a quarterfinal-
ist at the 5A level last spring — clung
to a 1-0 lead through six innings
before tacking on two insurance runs
in the seventh.
“I think it was just a case of us
running out of gas,” said Warrenton
coach Lennie Wolfe. “Over the last
two weeks, we were one of just a cou-
ple teams still playing. And we’ve got
a small roster going up against some
pretty good 5A programs.”
All in all, he said, “I could not be
happier with how the spring and sum-
mer seasons went. Would we liked
to have won today? Sure. But even
had we played (Sunday), my assess-
ment of our program would still be
the same.
“We’ve got some young players
on the way who saw a lot of action
this summer, and I’m real excited
about the pitching we’ll have back
next spring,” Wolfe said. “One week-
end doesn’t define our season. We
still finished the summer 12-6, and
we were playing some tough 5A
programs.”
Jenssen and the Raiders took a
slim 1-0 lead into the seventh inning,
when Jenssen led off with a bunt base
hit, stole second, and scored on Noah
Dewey’s base hit to left.
Crescent Valley added one more
run, plenty for Jenssen to close out
the no-hitter.
Bulldogs 7, Warriors 0
After their successful playoff run
in the spring season, the Warrenton
baseball program opened the summer
season playoffs with a loss to West
Albany in a Friday afternoon game in
Corvallis.
Three Bulldog pitchers struck out
17 batters and combined on a two-hit
shutout, helping West Albany to a 7-0
win over the Warriors in a first round
game of the Junior Baseball state
tournament at Crescent Valley High
School.
Bulldog pitchers Chase Reynolds,
Wyatt Javage and Porter Phillips
allowed two hits (Jake Morrow and a
double by Austin Little) and walked
four, but 17 of Warrenton’s 21 outs
were strikeouts.
The Warriors did not help them-
selves defensively, committing seven
errors.
Warrenton starter Devin Jack-
son “pitched well — we just didn’t
help him,” said Warrior coach Lennie
Wolfe. “And of our 17 strikeouts, 10
were called third strikes. We did not
swing the bats.”
Reynolds started and pitched three
innings, before giving way to Javage,
who also pitched three innings. Both
struck out seven.
Offensively, West Albany opened
the scoring in the top of the first,
putting two runners on base follow-
ing a Warrior error and a single by
Reynolds.
Phillips followed with a two-run
double to center field, and Simon
Mathios continued the two-out rally
with a double to left to plate Phillips
for a 3-0 lead.
In the bottom of the first, Warren-
ton’s Gabe Breitmeyer drew a one-
out walk and Morrow singled to cen-
ter, but Breitmeyer was thrown out
at the plate on Morrow’s base hit,
in one of the Warriors’ few scoring
opportunities.
The Bulldogs tacked on a run in
the third, a double by Nathan Mar-
shall that scored Michael Cale.