S PORTS
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Hood River News, Saturday, April 11 2015
A7
Eagles softball weathers last-
minute comeback by Century
Wells and Winans help fend off the Jaguars, 3-2, in Hood River
By BEN MITCHELL
News staff writer
HRV survived a seventh-inning rally by Centu-
ry High during a Wednesday afternoon game in
Hood River, sliding by the Jaguars, 3-2.
After the Eagles scored runs in the bottom of
the first and second innings to go up 2-0, Century
responded in the top of the seventh with two run-
ners advancing off a hard ground ball single to
left field and a passed ball that knotted the game
up, 2-2.
In the bottom of the seventh, with Breanna
Weekly on first base, Jessica DeHart on second,
and with two outs, Kelsey Wells prevented the
game from going into extra innings with a fly ball
single to center field that allowed DeHart to ad-
vance from second to home and gave the Eagles
the 3-2 win.
Kelsey Wells lead HRV with two hits and one
RBI in three at-bats. Zoe Munn (1 for 4) and Make-
na Zeller (1 for 3) followed with other two hits for
HRV, making four total — all singles. Scoring run-
ners for the Eagles were Zeller, DeHart, and Week-
ly.
Kaylin Winans pitched all seven innings for
HRV, striking out three, walking four, and giving
up five hits. Infielder Breanna Weekly led the
team in putouts with nine.
On Thursday, HRV’s three-game win streak
ended with a 17-6 loss at Barlow; full results not
available as of press time. HRV’s current overall
record is 5-7.
HRV will host La Salle Monday, April 13 at 5
p.m. to play out the remainder of a March 31st
game that was postponed due to rain. La Salle was
up batting in the third inning and up on the Ea-
gles, 6-0, when the game was called. The Eagles
will then travel to Central Oregon on Wednesday
to face Redmond in a 4:30 p.m. game for the last
nonleague matchup of the season.
KAYLIN WINANS
throws a pitch
during
Wednesday’s
game against the
Century Jaguars.
Winans pitched
all seven innings
for HRV, six of
which were
scoreless.
Photo by Ben Mitchell
HRV 24, Valley Catholic 0
Boys lax enjoys blowout
against Valley Catholic
HRV now on three-game win streak
By BEN MITCHELL
News staff writer
Photo by Ben Mitchell
TORSENN BROWN looks for an open net earlier this season. The attacker led HRV in its 24-0 win over Valley Catholic with five goals and four assists.
The Eagles racked up a case of goals against Valley Catholic in
what was a lopsided affair Wednesday evening with HRV routing
the Valiants, 24-0, in Beaverton.
It’s Matt Luchsinger’s first year as head coach of the HRV
squad, but he served as assistant coach for three years before that
and said that to his recollection, he’s never seen the Eagles
outscore an opponent like that.
“HRV went out and played a high level of lacrosse,” he said.
“Guys were not just looking to score, but looking to make plays
and find the open man, which is really good to see.”
HRV put up five goals in the first quarter, then added another
10 before the half to make it 15-0, which Lusinger said triggers a
“mercy rule” that creates a running clock, meaning the clock
doesn’t stop when the ball goes out of bounds, during penalties,
after scoring, etc. The Eagles scored four in the third to go 19-0
and then five in the fourth quarter for the final score of 24-zip.
A caveat regarding the 24-0 drubbing: according to Luchsinger,
this is Valley Catholic’s first lacrosse season, with Luchsinger
mentioning that the team supposedly practiced on their own for
a month and a half to prove to the school they were committed to
having a team.
“I give those guys a ton of credit,” he said.
Long stick middie Alex Ellifritz had 12 ground balls — “that’s
huge right there,” Luchsinger noted — Charlie Cohn won a ma-
jority of the faceoffs for HRV. Attack Torsenn Brown led the team
with five goals and four assists and senior Kiefer Kreps, who’s en-
joying his first season playing attack after being a “long-pole (de-
fender)” for the past few years, had five as well, Luchsinger said.
Starting goalie Dallen Olmstead played the first quarter and
didn’t see much action, with no shots on goal from Valley
Catholic. That gave Luchsinger the opportunity to pull Olmstead
and give Mikey Hall, a sophomore, a chance to play in net, who
saved the four shots sent to him.
The team is now at 3-1 on the season and next plays at home on
Saturday, April 11 at 2 p.m. against Bend.
HRV baseball shuts
out Wilsonville
Eagles sit at 10th in OSAA
By BEN MITCHELL
News staff writer
Eagles baseball enjoyed their first non-
tournament shutout of the season in a low-
scoring affair against Wilsonville, where
HRV came out on top, 1-0.
The game, held in Wilsonville, was the
lowest-scoring contest in total runs between
HRV and any opponent this season — with
the Eagles getting a chance to showcase their
defense they’ve been putting together over
the past several games.
Leading that defense were two athletes
whose names have been cropping up lately
on the stat sheets: senior pitcher Ryan Ward
and sophomore catcher Adam Cameron, who
coach Eric Harjo said “worked great togeth-
er to limit Wilsonville’s bats to four hits.”
Ward earned the win for HRV on the
mound, pitching all seven innings, allowing
only the aforementioned four hits and strik-
ing out seven batters. Cameron helped with
seven putouts and an assist, behind first
baseman Montana Kurahara, who had nine.
“Our defense was on point and the work
we’re putting in defensively is paying off,”
Harjo said.
The Eagles’ offense scoring-wise was
quiet, with Kellan Duffy the only player
crossing home plate, helped by Cameron’s
lone RBI single in the top of the fourth in-
ning. HRV still managed a total of five hits;
in addition to Cameron, hits came from
Chase Lariza, Patrick Harvey, Duffy, and
Ward — all singles achieved over three at
bats apiece.
As of Friday morning, HRV has won four
out of their last six games and is currently
sitting at 10th in the 5A OSAA rankings with
an overall record of 7-5. The Eagles were
scheduled to have one last nonleague contest
on Friday versus Mountain View at 4:30 p.m.
— results not available for press time — be-
fore league action kicks off April 18 with a
doubleheader at Pendleton.
Photo by Ben Mitchell
MEMBERS of the girls lax team battle for possession of a ground ball during Wednsday’s game against OES.
Girls lax tested in tough outing against OES Aardvarks
By BEN MITCHELL
News staff writer
Hood River Valley had a tough matchup Wednesday evening
with the league-leading Oregon Episcopal School Aardvarks,
and the Eagles ended up experiencing their worst loss of the
season, in what was ultimately a 15-3 decision.
“They’ve got a tough team, they’ve got some people who have
already signed or verbally committed to D1 schools,” said
coach Andrew McElderry. After Wednesday’s game, OES was
listed as having the second-fewest goals allowed (10) out of all
39 teams in the Oregon Girls Lacrosse Association.
The Eagles had difficulty rallying from a flurry of early scor-
ing by the Aardvarks, who drew first blood just 20 seconds into
the competition. HRV was able to get as close as 2-1 with 16 min-
utes remaining in the half, but never led as OES then went on
a tear, scoring six unanswered goals. By halftime, the score was
11-2.
Erin Mayer led the Eagles in the goals and draw control cat-
egories with two each. HRV’s other goal came from Riley
Bauer, who scored in the first half of play. Victoria Kohner-
Flanagan led the team in ground balls, with five. On defense,
goalie Ella Rand stopped seven of 22 shots on net. In total, HRV
had nine shots against OES.
The loss may have been the worst of the season, but
McElderry said they worked on some fundamentals during the
game and experienced some “great ball possession” and was
able to slow the Aardvark offense in the second half, as well as
starting and finishing the game “with a great attitude.”
HRV next goes on a two-game road trip, facing off against
Newberg on Saturday, April 11 at 11:30 a.m. and Cleveland on
Tuesday, April 14 at 7:45 p.m.
JV team has remained undefeated through five games.