THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2015
Sports shorts
Colts bet on vets
INDIANAPOLIS (AP)
— The Colts are betting
big on
experience.
On
Tuesday,
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one of
the NFL’s
younger rosters with four
longtime NFL veterans
— wide receiver Andre
Johnson, outside linebacker
Trent Cole, running back
Frank Gore and defensive
end Kendall Langford — in
a free-agent spending spree.
Cole, Gore, Johnson
and Langford are joining
a team that has made three
straight playoff appearances,
won back-to-back division
crowns and advanced one
step deeper in the playoffs
in each of Andrew Luck’s
three seasons.
Gore and Johnson,
college teammates at Miami,
said they hoped to sign with
the same team in hopes
of winning a Super Bowl
together.
Ferrell to play ball
PHOENIX (AP) — Will
Ferrell plans to play ball in
spring training — and play
ball and play ball and play
ball.
The comedian plans to
play every
FACES position while
making appear-
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Arizona spring
training games
on Thursday.
He will play
for all 10 teams
Ferrell
involved, HBO
and Major League Baseball
announced Wednesday.
The star of “Anchorman:
The Legend of Ron Burgun-
dy,” ‘’Talladega Nights: The
Ballad of Ricky Bobby” and
“Elf,” among other movies,
will travel to the Phoenix
suburbs of Mesa, Tempe,
Scottsdale, Glendale and
Peoria via helicopter. The
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upcoming HBO special in
conjunction with the Funny
or Die website co-founded
by Ferrell.
“We didn’t bring
Sam here to be
a (trade) chip.
I’m the only Chip
here.“
SPORTS
HERMISTON/PENDLETON
Bulldogs elevate into semis
Hermiston advances with
win over rival Pendleton
Hermiston’s
Maddy Juul
shootst
the ball
guarded by
Pendleton’s
Kiana Sperl
and Kristin
Williams (20)
in the Bull-
dogs’ 48-30
win against
the Bucks on
Wednesday
in Corvallis.
By ERIK SKOPIL
East Oregonian
CORVALLIS — If Wednesday’s state quar-
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cation of how the Hermiston Bulldogs intend to
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better beware.
The top-seeded Bulldogs elevated their game
in the fourth meeting with their league foe, turn-
ing in a 48-30 drubbing to ad-
vance to Thursday evening’s
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sus hometown Corvallis.
Hermiston
All three regular-season
War on 84 rivalry games were
decided by nine points or less
but Wednesday, on the state’s
biggest stage, the Bulldogs (23-
3) delivered their best perfor-
Pendleton
mance versus the No. 9 Buck-
aroos (17-10). Hermiston held
Pendleton to 8-for-39 shooting,
forced 19 giveaways and used
a balanced scoring attack to put the Buckaroos
away early in the second half.
Neither side shot better than 21 percent from
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playing in the spacious Gill Coliseum. But the
Bulldogs found a more deft shooting touch in
the second and the Buckaroos’ struggles persist-
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Headings top-of-key jumper two minutes into
the second half and never fell below the 10-point
threshold for the remainder.
“I was super nervous,” said senior Abi Drot-
zmann, who scored 10 points. “I’ve been here
before but I was really nervous. I think after the
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played way harder than we ever have. I think we
elevated our game a lot.
“We’ve never played 100 percent against
See GIRLS HOOPS/2B
Staff photo by
E.J. Harris
48
30
PENDLETON
Buckaroos eliminated after marathon nail-biter
Pendleton struggles at line down stretch,
falls to Churchill in four overtimes
Pendleton’s
Wes Persinger
battles Chur-
chill’s Levi
Dean in the
Bucks’ 67-64
quadruple
overtime loss
to the Lancers
on Wednesday
in Corvallis.
minutes of action.
Churchill’s DJ Wright Becker
provided the deciding play for
CORVALLIS — The Bucka- the Lancers (17-12), cleaning up
roos earned four extra periods of a Hank Forrest miss to give the
basketball to down Churchill in Lancers a 65-64 lead with 55
Wednesday morning’s consola- seconds remaining in the fourth
extra period. Pendleton (18-8)
tion game.
The fact that they failed to do would come away empty-hand-
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so in each made the 67-
sessions and Churchill
64 four-overtime defeat
split two trips to the free
all the more excruciat-
throw line to provide the
ing for Pendleton and its
Churchill
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The loss eliminates
state playoff win in four
the Buckaroos from the
and a half decades at the
state tournament, ends its
Class 5A state basketball
season and again sends
tournament at Gill Coli-
them
eastward-bound
Pendleton
seum.
without a state tourna-
“Those are fun games
ment victory.
for the fans, fun games
“It’s a good experi-
for the winning team,”
ence for the kids. It’s
Pendleton coach Brian Broaddus
been a good season. But, even-
said. “Not so much for us.”
The back-and-forth battle see- tually when you get to this level,
sawed through 16 lead changes, you’ve got to make those plays,”
15 ties and countless end-of-peri- Broaddus said.
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od heroics that preserved play for
what would prove a marathon 48
See BOYS HOOPS/2B
By ERIK SKOPIL
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J.
Harris
67
— Chip Kelly
Philadelphia Eagles
head coach, who has
full control of player
personnel, dismissing
the notion that the team
could trade recently ac-
quired quarterback Sam
Bradford in a package
designed to move up far
enough in the NFL draft
to select Oregon QB
Marcus Mariota.
64
THIS DATE IN SPORTS
1966 — Chicago’s Bobby
Hull scores his 51st goal to
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to score more than 50 goals
in a season.
2002 — Siena (17-18)
with an 81-77 victory over
Alcorn State in the play-in
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47 years to win an NCAA
men’s basketball tourna-
ment game with a losing
record.
2005 — Bode Miller
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in 22 years to win skiing’s
overall World Cup title. He
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maining challenger, Benja-
min Raich of Austria, in the
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to capture the crown. The
last non-Europeans to win
the overall championship
were Americans Phil Mahre
and Tamara McKinney in
1983.
Contact us at 541-966-0838 or
sports@eastoregonian.com
1B
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College Basketball
Eagles oust Mountaineers from bracket
Oklahoma Wesleyan
tops Eastern Oregon
at national tourney
East Oregonian
SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Aira-
shay Rogers sank a buzzer-beat-
ing three-pointer for the Eastern
Oregon women’s basketball
team, but there wasn’t much cel-
ebrated by the Mountaineers on
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the NAIA Division II Women’s
Basketball National Champion-
ships.
Rogers’ triple came too late
and Oklahoma Wesleyan held
on for a 60-57 win that was their
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tournament appearances at the
Tyson Events Center.
The Eagles (27-6) were led
NAIA DII TOURNAMENT
Okla. Wesleyan
60
Eastern Ore.
57
by Nichole Tate with 21 points
on 8-of-14 shooting. The senior
guard also collected nine re-
bounds on the night, while also
dishing out six dimes and four
steals.
Tate was one of three Okla-
homa Wesleyan players, Pa-
tience Gitau (11) and Susan Ag-
esen (10) to go for double-digit
scoring on the night.
Rogers lead Eastern (26-
7) with 15 points and seven
boards to go along with Made-
line Laan’s 12 points and seven
rebounds. Maloree Moss added
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assists and three steals.
The Mountaineers led 29-28
to start the second half, but the
Eagles opened on an 11-3 run
that gave them their largest lead
of the game at 39-32 with 14:39
to play.
Eastern took its largest lead
at 29-20 with 4:03 to play in the
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shots of the half as the Eagles
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Eastern Oregon failed to
capitalize from beyond the arc
all night, ending the day going
5-for-29 (17.2 percent), and was
19 for 62 (31.1 percent) from
two-point range. With the loss,
the Mountaineers’ season comes
to a close. They also fell to 3-6
in opening round games of the
national championship with the
defeat.
MILTON-FREEWATER
Mac-Hi creates
hall of fame
East Oregonian
McLoughlin High School will cele-
brate the creation of its Hall of Fame by
inducting an inaugural seven-member
class at a ceremony in April.
The
recipients’
achievements cov-
er a broad spectrum
from the arts/enter-
tainment, business,
athletics,
lifetime
achievement, busi-
ness and medicine/science categories.
Three class members will be hon-
ored for their role in Pioneers athletics,
among other achievements — 1952
graduate Jerry Crimins, longtime wres-
tling coach Jerry Ewing, and 1964
graduate John Zerba.
Crimins continues to hold the
See MAC-HI/2B