WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 2015
Sports shorts
Big weekend boosts
Ducks to No. 1
EUGENE — After a
4-1 week which featured a
perfect game and an eight-
homer game, the Oregon
softball team
climbed to
No. 1 in
both top-25
polls for the
second straight year.
Last year’s appearance
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program history.
Oregon’s biggest games
last week both came in a
three-game series with No.
19 Washington.
Cheridan Hawkins tossed
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in Friday’s 8-0 run-rule win,
and after falling on Saturday,
Oregon’s bats responded in
record style as the Ducks
belted a program-record
eight home runs and tied
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home runs in the third inning
en route to a 15-6 win on
Sunday.
SPORTS
1B
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PENDLETON
Bucks receive power surge
The Bucks’
Kai Quinn
slides suc-
cessfully into
third Tuesday
as Daniel
Bribbs, of
La Grande,
waits for the
ball at Bob
White Field in
Pendleton.
Staff photo by
Kathy Aney
BASEBALL
Ovechkin joins
Gretzky, Lemieux
with 50th goal
WASHINGTON (AP)
— Alex Ovechkin scored
his NHL-leading 50th goal,
reaching that mark for the
sixth time and tying a team
record with the 472nd of his
career, and added an assist
to help the
FACES Washington
Capitals beat
the Carolina
Hurricanes 4-2
Tuesday night.
With his
team pushing
to make the
Ovechkin
playoffs, the
three-time NHL MVP got
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period, giving Washington a
2-0 lead when he took a pass
from Evgeny Kuznetsov and
sent a shot from just inside
the left circle past goalie
Cam Ward.
2QO\¿YHRWKHUSOD\HUV
reached the half-century
mark at least six times:
Wayne Gretzky and
Mike Bossy had nine
such seasons, and Mario
Lemieux, Marcel Dionne
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“Because I’m the
best player in this
draft.“
— Jameis Winston
Florida St. quarterback
when asked why he
should be the No. 1
pick in this year’s NFL
draft. Winston had just
fi nished wowing scouts
with his arm strength
and accuracy during
nearly an hour of throw-
ing drills at FSU’s pro
day for NFL scouts and
media on Tuesday.
THIS DATE IN SPORTS
1920 — The Ottawa
Senators defeat the Seattle
Metropolitans 6-1 to capture
the NHL Stanley Cup, three
games to two.
1972 ² 7KH ¿UVW SOD\
ers’strike in major league his-
tory lasts 12 days and cancels
86 games.
1985 — Villanova shocks
Georgetown with a 66-64
victory to win the NCAA
basketball title. The Wildcats,
led by Dwayne McClain’s 17
points, shot 79 percent from
WKH ¿HOG PDNLQJ RI
shots, and added 22 of 27
free throws.
1991 — Duke ends years
of frustration with a 72-65
victory over Kansas for its
¿UVW QDWLRQDO WLWOH LQ ¿YH
championship-game appear-
ances and nine trips to the
Final Four.
Contact us at 541-966-0838 or
sports@eastoregonian.com
Pendleton
8
La Grande
6
Morris homers twice as Pendleton beats La Grande
By ERIK SKOPIL
East Oregonian
The Pendleton baseball season
received a welcome nudge from na-
ture on Tuesday at Bob White Field.
Strong gusting winds aided the
struggling Buckaroo bats, lifting
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La Grande.
“This has been a tradition here
for 100 years or forever as long as
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a ball up in the air, it’s going to go
out,” Pendleton coach Greg Whitten
said.
Pendleton (3-7) had hit just one
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sent three over the fence Tuesday.
Sophomore Wyatt Morris hit his
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Pendleton a 4-3 lead. After the Ti-
gers took the lead in the sixth, it was
another bomb — this time a solo
shot from junior Quinn Cockburn
— that tied the score at 5-5.
La Grande pitcher Jake
Workinger picked up two outs fol-
lowing the Cockburn blast before
ing the bases to give the Buckaroos
WKHLU ¿UVW EDFNWREDFN ZLQV RI WKH
season.
“I’d hit two pretty hard ones up
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Smith said. “I just tried to put a little
more on it. The wind helped a lot.”
“I always say it’s not how many
hits you get in a game, it’s when
you get them,” Whitten said of
Smith, who was 0-for-3 before the
go-ahead knock. “He’d smoked two
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and then got payback with a bas-
es-loaded double. That was great to
see.”
It has been a rough March for
Whitten and the Buckaroos. After
Staff photo by
the basketball team’s strong season
Kathy Aney
delayed spring preparations, Pend-
leton opened with a disappointing
1-7 start. The team’s worst loss
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RQ D ÀXNH SOD\ 6HQLRU VWDU $OH[
O’Rourke was smacked with a pitch
last week in a tournament in Boi-
se that may sideline the three-year
loading the bases on three consec- twice already, sent another towards starter for the season’s remainder.
utive walks. That brought shortstop 7LJHU FHQWHU ¿HOGHU (OL :LVGRP
Whitten lauded the play of Cock-
Caden Smith to the plate. Smith, This time the ball soared over Wis-
See BUCKS/2B
ZKR KDG ÀRZQ RXW WR FHQWHU ¿HOG dom’s head and into the wall, clear-
Pendle-
ton’s Ky-
ler Lunny
rounds
third after
a home
run by
teammate
Wyatt
Morris
who isn’t
far behind
during
Tuesday’s
game
against La
Grande at
Bob White
Field.
HERMISTON
Lions ace stymies Bulldogs
Hermiston shut
out by West Linn
Prep Roundup
Summit downs
Hermiston in
extra inning
By SAM BARBEE
EO Media Group
On a windswept day at Ar-
mand
Larive
Middle School
BASEBALL
and with scouts
in attendance,
West Linn se-
West Linn
nior
Karson
Lindell didn’t
disappoint.
He two-hit
the Hermiston
Bulldogs in a
Hermiston
13-0 decision
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in a non-league
baseball game Tuesday after-
noon.
“When you look around and
see the amount of scouts that are
here, that’s an indicator that the
NLG¶V SUHWW\ GDQJ JRRG´ ¿UVW
year Hermiston coach Lance
Hawkins said of Lindell. “I just
wish we battled a little bit more
even though (we were) kinda
outmatched. I’m not into lying to
anybody or the kids. I said, ‘We
gotta compete really hard today.’
“The guy pumped it pret-
ty good, and our guys went up
there and got their hacks. Were
we outmatched? Yeah, I think
EO Media Group
13
BEND — Summit rallied from
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10-9 in an eight-inning thriller Tues-
day.
Hermiston took an early 2-0 lead
and upped it to 5-0 after four and a
half innings of play, but Summit plat-
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SOFTBALL
two in the sixth, one
in the seventh and
one in the eighth to
earn the walk-off
Summit
victory.
Summit scored
the ten runs without
an extra base hit, but
was helped by three
Hermiston errors.
Hermiston
The loss is Herm-
iston’s (3-4) second
straight and fourth
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won three straight after losing two of
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Julissa Almaguer went four-plus
innings and struck out four in the no
decision. Mikayla Kopacz went 3-for-
5 with two doubles for the Bulldogs
and Ellery Jones chipped in with two
hits.
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when Jaime Hinkley walked and stole
See ROUNDUP/2B
10
0
Sam Barbee photo
Hermiston head coach Lance Hawkins walks off the mound
after an offi cial visit to pitcher RJ Robles during the third in-
ning of Hermiston’s 13-0 loss to West Linn on Tuesday at Ar-
mand Larive Middle School.
we were at times. When you got
a 15-year-old going against an
18-year-old in some cases, you
could tell they’ve never seen
anything like that. That’s a good
team. It should’ve been a little
closer, I think. But they’re a bet-
ter team than we are right now.
That’s all there is to it.”
The Bulldogs (5-3) certainly
didn’t help themselves. Bulldog
pitchers walked nine batters, hit
one, and committed four errors
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2) four extra runs. They also had
two runners picked off by Lindell
See BULLDOGS/2B
9