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.