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About The Hood River news. (Hood River, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (March 7, 2015)
S PORTS www.hoodrivernews.com Hood River News, Saturday, March 7, 2015 Win over Crosshill Christian sends Horizon to state semis Hawks win 59-44, were scheduled to play rival Nixyaawii Friday afternoon in Baker City BAKER CITY — A business- like, first-round perfor mance Wednesday car ried Horizon Christian School into Friday’s semifinals of the Class 1A boys state basketball tournament. The top-ranked Hawks held Crosshill Christian (21-5) to 16 first-half points, en route to a 59- 44 win at Baker City High School. Horizon will play former Big Sky rival Nixyaawii Friday after- noon (results were too late for the print edition). “Well we got the first game out of the way,” Horizon Coach Dar- rin Lingel said matter-of-factly. “It was really important for the guys to come out with a lot of ef- fort. “Three things we’ve been fo- cusing on this year have been re- bounding, taking care of the ball a n d r u n n i n g o u r o f f e n s e. I thought we did a pretty good job of those overall in the game today.” Mason Bloomster led Horizon (25-3) with 17 points and 16 re- bounds. The 6-foot-4 senior post was equally effective at the de- fensive end, with three blocked s h o t s. T h e b l o c k s c a m e o n Crosshill’s 6-5 post Dalton Cubitt, who had all three of his shots re- jected by Bloomster and finished with zero points. “Mason really stepped up for us as he’s done all year long,” outside of a 3-3 tie early on. Hori- Lingel said of the Big Sky Con- zon’s defense forced Crosshill ference’s player of the year. “An- into six first-quarter turnovers other double-double; I thought he en route to a 14-6 lead. Horizon stepped up and played very, very built on the lead in the second well.” quarter behind a balanced scor- Bloomster had plenty of help ing attack. Typical of the contri- defensively, butions were e s p e c i a l ly those from se- from senior nior Jared R y a n D av i s, wh o Aldrich. He scored, had an was as- assist and a signed to steal as the g u a r d Hawks entered Crosshill’s the l o c ke r top scorer room with a 28- DARRIN LINGEL Matthew 16 a dv a n - Gille when tage. Davis fin- the Hawks ished with 11 were in a man-to-man defense. points, four assists and three Gille finished with nine points, s t e a l s. His l ay u p but was 2 for 15 from the field. with 5:58 remaining gave Hori- Aldrich did his part on the of- zon its largest lead of the game, fensive end as well, shooting 3 for 50-33. 4 from the field and 3 for 3 from “Jared really was involved in the free-throw line for nine the game and got other team- points. Crosshill’s most effective mates involved, which is very im- offensive production came from portant for us, especially early in long range, as the Eagles made a basketball game,” Lingel said. n i n e t h re e - p o i n t e r s. S e n i o r Horizon enjoyed a sizable scor- guard David Brockman led his ing advantage inside. Senior team in scoring with 16 points, wings Nick Andersen and Wes including four threes. Teammate Johnston helped the Hawks Ethan Talmage added 12 points outscore Crosshill 34-8 in the — all coming from behind the paint, with seven and six points, arc. respectively. Horizon led the entire game “We just know that we can take ‘It’s nice to get the first game out of the way — the jitters out of the way — and just play basketball’ advantage of the inside game,” Lingel said. “Today we were very effective in doing that.” Crosshill from Turner near Salem stayed close behind the long ball throughout the contest. The Hawk defenders were help- ing off just enough on dribble penetration to give the Eagle shooters the slightest amount of space on kick-out passes. “We did lose their No. 3 shoot- er - Brockman ... a few times in the second half,” Lingel said. “He got open for some threes. And No. 11 (Talmage) got open and hurt us early with a few threes. We had to make some adjust- ments in the second half.” Also of note was the play of sophomore reserve Luke Holste, who made the most of his 11 min- utes to go 3-for-4 from the field and score six points. Lingel said: “It’s nice to get the first game out of the way — the jitters out of the way — and just play basketball. We look forward to continuing on, one game at a time.” Horizon is pursuing its fourth straight finals appearance. The Hawks won the championship in 2012 (vs. McKenzie) and finished second the past two seasons (to City Christian in 2013 and Co- lumbia Christian a year ago). LaSalle 75, HRV 70 A7 Kegler’s Corner By JEFF OLSON The Dudes Win County League Team of the Week Spencer Johnisee, +116 (764) Jeff Chenier, +98 (752) Aaron Troxel, +90 (744) Ed Busick, +88 (739) Nina Kruckenberg, +85 (655) 3,654 total pins with handicap The Thursday Hood River Coun- ty league had its championship roll off last week at Orchard Lanes and The Dudes trio emerged victorious over The Incredibowls team in the battle for the title in this fun league. Bowling for the champs were Matt Monbouquette, Patrick Hughes and Jeremy Ziegler. We want to extend our thanks to the County league for bowling with us this season. We miss you already and can’t wait to see you again next fall. Last week’s league play produced another diverse Team of the Week of bowlers who shot the most pins over their averages. This team is comprised of young stars and some famous names in Hood River bowl- ing. Leading everybody in league ac- tion last week was Your Rental Cen- ter’s emerging star Spencer Johnisee who has been on quite a tear for the past month making the fab five for the first time in his brief career and again last week with an- other stellar performance. This time he fashioned a nice scratch 225 game and 578 series in the Monday night Industrial league finishing up 116 pins over his average. Has Spencer found the secret to this great game? Stay tuned. Also joining Spencer on the big five for the second time in the past month was Jeff Chenier. Jeff has been a top bowler around here for years after moving from Seattle where he excelled at the game since he was a kid. The master carpenter put all the pieces together last week in the high powered Fraternal league where he popped a spiffy See BOWL, Page A8 SPORTS BRIEFS DALLAS BUCKLEY, a senior, goes up for a three-pointer during Tuesday’s game. Buck- ley led HRV in both points and rebounds with 17 and seven, re- spectively. Little League field cleanup days HRV Little League is looking for volunteers to help clean up valley baseball fields in preparation for the upcoming season. The follow- ing are cleanup dates: Odell field cleanup: March 14, 8:30 a.m. Main Contact: Nathan Stanton. Hood River field cleanup: March 21, 8:30 a.m. Main Contact: Nathan Duckwall. Parkdale field cleanup: TBA (one session already completed). Main Contact: Mychal Lucas. Photo by Ben Mitchell HRV falls just short of post-season bid By BEN MITCHELL News staff writer One of the best seasons in re- cent memory for the Hood River Valley boys basketball program came to end Tuesday night, when the Eagles nar rowly lost to LaSalle Catholic College Prepara- tory, 75-70, as well as lost their chance to make the post season for the first time in two decades. The play-in contest was a game where so much went right for the Eagles, thanks in large part to a barrage of three-balls that seemed to fall effortlessly, especially in the first quarter, when HRV hit five of what would ultimately be the team’s 14 buckets from behind the arc. However, HRV’s shooting fal- tered in the fourth quarter, and the LaSalle Falcons, who had struggled at the beginning of the game, tightened up both their shooting and their defense to sneak a come-from behind win after trailing the Eagles for all but the final six-and-a-half minutes of the game. “T hey just had a lot of weapons,” HRV Coach Steve Note- boom said of the Falcons. “We just couldn’t stop all of them.” HRV got off to a fast start in the first quarter, scoring nine unan- swered points thanks to a trio of three-pointers. LaSalle seemed disjointed, missing passes, miss- ing shots, and committing turnovers as the legions of Eagles fans who showed up to the game roared their approval. “The crowd was great,” Note- boom said. “We kind of fed off their energy.” Noteboom explained that senior guards Austin Clarke and Kam Walker had been assigned to chase LaSalle’s lead scorer, 6-7 post Kee- ston Smith. The strategy appeared to catch the Falcons off guard, Noteboom said, and resulted in Smith scoring only three points in the first quarter. HRV scored 24 points in the first quarter, thanks in large part to ju- nior center Dallas Buckley’s 11 points that were scored off of three three-pointers and a two. LaSalle, however, was able to rally after the 9-0 run by HRV, and scored 17 of their own to close out the quarter. Things quieted down somewhat for the both teams in the second quarter, with HRV and LaSalle netting 15 points apiece to make the score 39-32 at the half, with HRV limiting LaSalle’s Smith to a total of five points. However, after being contained for the entire half, Smith broke free and erupted in the third quar- ter, scoring 16 of LaSalle’s 25 points. HRV was able to keep pace with 21, but their seven-point lead had now shrunk to three, with a score of 60-57 at the end of the third. In the fourth quarter, HRV’s hot-shooting slowed down in the fourth, with a field goal apiece from Buckley and Scottie Ziegner and a pair of threes. And while the Falcons had the exact same scoring from the field in the fourth quarter — a pair of twos and a pair of threes — they had far greater opportunities at the free-throw line than HRV did. LaSalle grabbed its first lead, 63-62, with 6:30 left in the quarter, and while there were a handful of lead changes, the Falcons finally pulled away with less than two minutes left to go up 71-70 and See EAGLES, Page A8 Majors baseball, minors base- ball/softball tryouts A reminder, if your son or daughter is between age 7-12 as of Jan. 1, 2015, and they would like to play minors baseball (ages 7-11), minors softball (ages 7-11), or ma- jors baseball (ages 10-12), you will need to attend tryouts this Satur- day, March 7 or Monday, March 9 at the Hood River Valley High School varsity baseball field. Girls ages 7-11 wanting to play softball this year should arrive by 9:45 a.m. for tryouts starting at 10 a.m. Boys ages 7-11 wanting to play baseball this year should arrive by 10:15 a.m. for tryouts starting at 10:30 a.m. Boys ages 10-12 wanting to play baseball this year should arrive by noon for tryouts starting at 12:30 p.m. Tryouts MAY last as long as 2 hours depending on the amount of players trying out. Ma- jors teams will be chosen on March 9 and players notified by their new manager by March 14. Minors teams will be chosen and players notified by their new man- ager by or before March 21. Open- ing day ceremonies: Saturday, April 18, 10:30 a.m. at the HRVHS varsity baseball field. Youth football committee Photo by Ben Mitchell KAYDEN GIBBS, a senior, makes a cut around a LaSalle player. Gibbs finished with seven points and three rebounds for the Eagles. Youth Football Action Commit- tee Meeting on Thursday March 12 at 7 p.m. at Hood River Valley High School in Room H-15. All par- ents or community members in- terested in becoming involved are encouraged to attend.