SPORTS
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2016
1B
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College Football
One Duck released from hospital
Strength coach suspended
after workouts hospitalized
three Oregon players
By KAREEM COPELAND
Associated Press
AP Photo/Thomas Boyd, File
In this Oct. 8, 2016, fi le photo, Autzen Stadium is shown
as Oregon plays Washington in an NCAA college foot-
ball game in Eugene, Ore.
EUGENE — The University of
Oregon suspended football strength and
conditioning coach Irele Oderinde one
month without pay after three players
were hospitalized following a series of
intense workouts last week.
The school announced the decision
in a statement Tuesday evening and
detailed a review of the incident. It added
that all future workouts have been modi-
fi ed and the strength and conditioning
coach will now report to director of
performance and sports science Andrew
Murray instead of coach Willie Taggart,
who apologized in the statement.
Oregon’s statement detailed that
players began an off-season conditioning
program last Tuesday after six weeks
away from “football-related activities”
MISSION
Prep Swimming
Eagles soaring to best start
Nixyaawii girls
last undefeated
1A team
Buckaroos,
Bulldogs
tie for win
Local swimmers open
season with splash
By MATT ENTRUP
East Oregonian
Nixyaawii’s basketball fans
have been spoiled in recent
years.
Since Jeremy Maddern’s fi rst
season as head coach in 2006-
07, no girls’ team in Umatilla
County has won as often as the
Golden Eagles.
Of the 279 times the Eagles
have taken the court in Maddern’s
11 seasons, 205 ended with wins
for a .735 winning percentage.
Only
Hermiston’s
.728
(209-78) challenges the Golden
Eagles over that stretch, and only
Condon/Wheeler’s .758 (216-
69) is better among teams in the
East Oregonian’s distribution
range.
So it comes as no surprise that
fast starts are nothing new to the
Golden Eagles, which won their
only 1A state championship in
2011.
But despite six seasons of
at least 20 wins, no Maddern-
coached Golden Eagles team has
been able to make it this far into
the season without suffering a
loss.
With every win the 12-0
Golden Eagles are re-writing
program history. They overtook
the previous record for a season-
opening win streak set by the
2007-08 team with a Jan. 5 win
over Echo the took them to 9-0.
Maddern said he was a little
surprised to learn eight games
was the longest they’d made it
before their fi rst loss, and it’s
easy to see why. Last season
the Golden Eagles won 17 of
their fi rst 18 games, but dropped
the season opener to Country
Christian. In the championship
season of 2011, Nixyaawii won
12 of its fi rst 13, but only its
fi rst four in a row. The season
before the Golden Eagles won
13 of their fi rst 14, but lost in the
second game of the season. After
losing their ninth game in 2008,
Nixyaawii would win 24 of its
fi rst 25.
As far as their place in
program history is concerned,
the current convocation of
Eagles aren’t too impressed with
themselves. At least not yet.
“Our goal is to get to state,”
said junior Kaitlynn Melton after
practice Tuesday, then corrected
herself.
“To win state.”
and Oderinde led those workouts.
Three days into the sessions one
player complained of “muscle-soreness
and displayed other symptoms of
potential exercise-related injury.” The
medical staff took “appropriate action”
and two other players later complained
of the same symptoms.
“I have visited with the three young
men involved in the incidents in the past
few days and I have been in constant
contact with their families, offering
my sincere apologies,” Taggart said
See DUCKS/2B
East Oregonian
MADRAS — With canceled meets
becoming the norm, the start of the
2016-17 season never seemed like it
would never come for the Pendleton and
Hermiston swim teams.
When they fi nally got the chance to
compete on Saturday, 46 days after the
offi cial open of the OSAA season and
more than two months after their fi rst
practice, the Buckaroos and Bulldogs took
advantage of it.
The boys’ teams tied to win the Madras
Meet with 70 points each, and Pendleton’s
girls fi nished second with 77 points. Hood
River won with 109.
Pendleton’s combined team score of
147 was also fi rst.
A total 12 local athletes reached the
podium in all of their four events, and
Pendleton senior Jon Jennings was top
point earner among locals with wins in
the 200-yard freestyle and 100 butterfl y, as
well as swimming legs of the 200 and 400
See SWIMMING/2B
Prep Basketball
Pirates take
down Vikings
Mashos scores 16 to lead
Riverside over Umatilla
East Oregonian
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
In this fi le photo from January 5, 2017, Nixyaawii’s Milan Schimmel (24) dishes off a pass
during a game in Mission against Echo. Nixyaawii has won its fi rst 12 games this season for
the best start in program history.
A second loss to Country
Christian last season, this one in
the state semifi nals by a 58-37
score, has been a big motivator
for the team ever since.
“We were pretty upset about
it,” Melton said. “I think we
came into that game scared,
more scared than we should
have. I think we could have beat
them last season if we would
have put our minds to it and I
think that just motivates us even
more this year.”
Nixyaawii, No. 4 this week
in the OSAA rankings, earned
a modicum of revenge with a
54-51 win at Country Christian
in the second game this season.
“That was our toughest
game,” said junior Mary Stewart,
the returning league player of the
year who led the team with 30
points that night. “We wanted
that really bad.”
“I think just going through
that battle and winning it, it was
psychological like, ‘Oh we are
pretty good, we’re one of the
elite teams,’” Maddern said.
“We did a really good job of just
matching their physicality which
we hadn’t in years past. That was
a great test for us.”
Since then it’s been relatively
See EAGLES/2B
BOARDMAN — As a senior and
a team captain, Lacey Mashos is often
counted on to lead her Riverside Pirates
team game-in and
Girls Hoops game-out.
Tuesday
night’s
game against league-
rival Umatilla was
an example of that,
Umatilla
as Mashos tallied a
team-high 16 points
and also contributed six
steals and four assists
as Riverside downed
Riverside
Umatilla 40-27 in an
Eastern Oregon League
contest.
All in all, seven
players got in the score-
book for Riverside (8-4, 2-1 EOL) and the
team was plus-eight in the turnover cate-
See PREPS/2B
27
40
Sports shorts
Paul injures thumb, out 6-8 weeks
LOS ANGELES (AP) Chris Paul will undergo
surgery on Wednesday to repair a torn ligament
in his left thumb and is expected to miss six to
eight weeks.
The Clippers said Tuesday that their All-Star
guard will continue to undergo
treatment and evaluation by the
club’s medical staff.
Paul was injured on a fi rst-half
play involving Oklahoma City’s
Russell Westbrook in Monday’s
victory over the Thunder. Paul
didn’t return in the second half.
Paul
The Clippers are 26-9 in 36
games with Paul in the lineup this season. He
is averaging 17.5 points, 9.7 assists and 5.3
rebounds, and leads the NBA with 2.25 steals
per game. He missed a total of seven games last
month and this month with hamstring issues.
The Clippers are 7-0 in 2017, equaling their
best start to a calendar year since 1974.
“Whoever is behind this
should be fi red, nothing
to do with football.
Where’s NCAA?
How about protecting
athletes instead of your
paychecks!“
— Joe Thomas
Cleveland Browns All-Pro offen-
sive lineman on Twitter respond-
ing to the hospitalization of three
University of Oregon football
players after intense offseason
workouts.
AP source: Bautista stays in
Toronto on 1-year contract
TORONTO (AP) — A person with knowl-
edge of the negotiations tells The Associated
Press that free agent outfi elder Jose Bautista is
staying with the Toronto Blue Jays after agreeing
to an $18 million, one-year contract
with mutual options for more
years.
The 36-year-old Bautista hit
22 homers with 69 RBIs last
year while batting .234 in an
injury-plagued season.
Bautista is a fan favorite in
Bautista
Toronto. After the Blue Jays
ended a 22-year playoff drought with their AL
East title in 2015, Bautista hit a memorable
three-run homer in Game 5 of the AL Division
Series against Texas.
He did not accept Toronto’s $17.2 million
qualifying offer this offseason, instead deciding
to test the open market.
THIS DATE IN SPORTS
1996 — Baseball owners
break with more than a
century of tradition by unani-
mously approving interleague
play in 1997.
2003 — Michelle Kwan
wins her sixth straight title,
and seventh overall, at the
U.S. Figure Skating Champi-
onships. Michael Weiss gets
his third U.S. men’s title.
2015 — Russell Wilson
hits Jermaine Kearse for a
35-yard touchdown 3:19
into overtime to lift the
Seattle Seahawks to an
improbable 28-22 victory
over Green Bay in the NFC
championship game.
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