The Hood River news., April 15, 2015, Image 7

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Hood River News, Wednesday, April 15, 2015
A7
‘Foot on the throttle’
After Walker’s no-hitter, HRV looks to leagues with great expectations
NO HITS FOR YOU!
By MIKE WEBER
For the News
Following a stellar preseason baseball schedule, the
Hood River Valley High School Eagles are now focusing
on the Columbia River Conference season and the team
feels confident that they’ll be league title contenders
this year.
Senior pitcher Kam Walker tossed a no-hitter to help
lead the No. 8-ranked Eagles (8-5) to a 10-0 home win
Friday over the Mountain View Cougars (3-7). It was
the final nonleague contest for coach Erich Harjo’s Ea-
gles, who begin CRC play Saturday versus the Pendle-
ton Buckaroos (4-9), who are ranked 14th as of Tuesday
morning. The noon doubleheader at Pendleton High
School marks the beginning of a 12-game league sched-
ule that concludes May 15.
“I think our guys are really excited about the oppor-
tunity they have to possibly win the league title this
year,” said Harjo. “We’ve worked extremely hard to get
our pitchers primed and ready to go. If our pitching
continues to be as good as it has been then we’ll be in
position to win lots of league games this year. Every-
thing is looking much better for us now than it has in
previous years.”
In the one-sided contest versus Mountain View, the
Eagles played spectacular in every aspect of the game,
and dominating it from start-to-finish. HRV jumped in
front 4-0 in the first inning as Willie Ishizaka’s two-RBI
single and Ryan Ward’s RBI single helped provide the
Eagle with the early momentum. HRV batted around
its lineup while sending all nine batters to the plate in
the opening frame.
Kam Walker
throws a pitch dur-
ing Friday’s game
at home against
Mountain View.
Walker pitched a
no-hitter for the
first time in his
career leading HRV
to a 10-0 win.
Photo by Ben Mitchell
See EAGLES, Page A8
FitzSimons, Bergemann: Nat’l Champs
Hood River’s Tucker FitzSimons and Hannah Bergemann once again grab national titles at Copper Mt.
By CORY ROESELER
For the News
Hood River skiers Hannah Bergemann and Tucker FitzSimons
both won USASA gold at the United States of America Snowboard
and Freeski Association Nationals last week at Copper Mountain,
Colo. For Bergemann, defending national titles in women’s 14-up
rail jam and women’s 16-18 slopestyle meant that she now claims
a total of six national wins in the various USASA freeski disci-
plines, including halfpipe and skiercross.
For FitzSimons, the men’s 14-up rail jam victory represented
sweet payoff for a year of hard work in training up on Mt. Hood.
Bergemann, FitzSimons and a handful of others from Hood River
represented the Mt. Hood Series, one of 31 regions participating
in the world’s largest freestyle ski event, measured by number of
participants. Trey Roeseler placed seventh (of 75 competitors) in
the men’s 13-15 slopestyle qualifier round, which advanced him to
the finals in a highly-competitive talent pool in that discipline.
Bergemann’s rail jam runs featured a back-swap on the down-
rail early, a 270-out (of the single-kink) and a switch-lip-on to the
down-rail later in the heat, all of which sealed the win against the
nation’s best 14-up women. In slopestyle, an unfortunate injury
closed the course for much of the morning, and the girls were de-
nied valuable practice runs on competition day. Going in cold,
Bergemann opted to go with a conservative run that omitted her
big 540 spins. Instead, her 360s on the 30-50 foot big-side jumps
placed her decisively ahead of No. 2 and fellow Mt. Hood Series
competitor, Mahlee Petri. Bergemann’s score of 75.75 placed her
so far ahead of the other girls, she wished she’d competed in the
open women category, for which cash prizes are awarded.
FitzSimons demonstrated his characteristic razor-sharp
switch-ups, two-pretz-two, and precision “tranny” rail slides to
claim rail jam victory in a 14-up men’s final heat stacked with tal-
ent. He had progressed with new tricks and disciplined execution
while others succumbed to a testosterone-driven huck-fest. Many
in the 14-up final heat decided to hike up above the standard start
line and try high-risk, disaster 450-on (to steel rails) in hopes of
getting lucky with more than just incidental contact with the far
end of a rail. FitzSimons stuck to his game plan. He executed well
and impressed the judges enough to earn the win with technical
dominance.
On Tuesday, FitzSimons capped his Nationals performance
with a finals-qualifying slope style run that included a switch-up
over a 7-foot tall rooftop rail, followed by a switch 7 to switch 10
combination.
Roeseler improvised his USASA slopestyle finals jump run
after coming off the rail section “regular.” He’d intended to exit
the rails switch (backward), and the judges frown on reverts
(changing ski orientation while actually skiing). The improvised
9 (hundred)-to-switch-7 (20) combo resulted in a fall, but he recov-
ered with a scrappy switch 5 to 9 run in the second round, enough
to finish 10th in the 13-15 men’s slopestyle finale. In addition to
slopestyle, Roeseler competed in the halfpipe and rail jam events
in which he finished 11th and 28th, respectively.
Hood River locals Sammy Stevenson, Ollie Stevenson, Jackson
West, and Myles Taylor also competed at USASA Freeski Nation-
als. Ollie Stevenson placed 17th, Sammy Stevenson placed 20th,
West placed 29th, and Taylor placed 35th in the men’s 13-15
slopestyle event. West overcame a painful fall in the 10-13 boy’s
rail jam final heat to continue on and finish seventh out of 36 in
that event.
Both Bergemann and FitzSimons participated on the HRVHS
Freestyle Ski Team this year and both were Oregon State High
School Champions in multiple events. Both work at 2nd Wind
Sports in Hood River. Currently an HRV senior, Bergemann plans
to attend Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash.,
next fall.
Photo by Michael FitzSimons
TUCKER FITZSIMONS AND HANNAH BERGEMANN show off their hardware after their wins at the USASA National
Championships last week in Copper Mountain, Colo.
ALL-STATE
HONORS
Horizon Christian Hawks boys bas-
ketball team players Mason
Bloomster and Jared Davis recent-
ly received All-State honors from
the 1A Oregon Basketball Coaches
Association for their performance
this past season. Bloomster, a se-
nior, was named First Team All
State, while Davis, also a senior,
was named Second Team. Davis
and Bloomster were both instru-
mental in leading the Hawks
through a remarkable season in
which they were ranked No. 1 in
1A, finished with a 27-4 record, a
14-0 league record, and third in
the state tournament.
File photos by Adam Lapierre
MASON BLOOMSTER
JARED DAVIS