SPORTS
FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 2017
1B
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Oregon
forward
Dillon
Brooks,
left, cel-
ebrates
with
Jordan
Bell after
a regional
semifinal
against
Michigan
in the
NCAA
men’s
college
basketball
tourna-
ment,
Thursday,
March 23,
2017, in
Kansas
City, Mo.
Oregon
won 69-68.
Men’s College Basketball
Ducks end Michigan’s run
Three-pointer at
buzzer won’t fall for
Wolverines
By ERIC OLSON
Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Tyler
Dorsey’s teammates call him “Mr.
March.”
Yeah, that fits.
Dorsey scored 20 points and made
the go-ahead layup with 1:08 left, and
third-seeded Oregon held on to end
No. 7 Michigan’s dramatic postseason
run with a 69-68 victory in a Midwest
Regional semifinal on Thursday night.
“We lean on him right now,” the
Ducks’ Dylan Ennis said. “He’s playing
his best basketball, and
this whole season,”
Sweet 16
it’s coming at the right
Michigan coach John
time.”
Beilein said, “but
Dorsey’s
recent
particularly this last
Michigan
Oregon
surge has been timely,
six weeks to be more
for sure. He’s scored
than a story. It was a
20 or more points in
great team. They were
six straight games, a
becoming a great team
stretch that has seen
before the story. We
Pac-12 player of the year Dillon weren’t sharp as we would have liked
Brooks struggle with his shot.
to have been today, but you have to
Oregon didn’t have the win secured credit Oregon with that.”
until Derrick Walton Jr., who had
Jordan Bell had a double-double
carried the Wolverines the last three for the Ducks, with 16 points and 13
weeks, was off with his long jumper rebounds. Brooks added 12 points and
just before the buzzer.
Ennis had 10.
For the Ducks (32-5), it’s on to the
Walton led the Wolverines with 20
Elite Eight for the second straight year. points, eight assists and five rebounds.
For the Wolverines (26-12), it was Zak Irvin had 14 of his 19 points in
the end of a wild ride.
the second half and DJ Wilson had 12
“The kids fought their hearts out points.
68
69
AP Photo/Charlie
Riedel
PENDLETON
Bulldogs win big at Track Classic
Hermiston boys,
girls each earn
team wins
By ERIC SINGER
East Oregonian
Twenty five high school
track teams from across Eastern
Oregon and southeast Wash-
ington descended on Pendleton
High School for the 26th annual
Buck Track Classic on Thursday
afternoon, most of which were
competing for the first time in the
2017 season.
It was the largest group of
competitors in the event’s history,
according to Pendleton assistant
coach Nicole Stewart, which made
for a great — and long — day of
competition for the local athletes.
The athletes were also lucky that
Mother Nature decided to be kind
to them, after a rainy weather earlier
in the week gave way to clear skies
and sunny weather for the meet.
“I was a little scared earlier (in
the week), but thankfully the sun
opened up,” Hermiston’s Tyler
Rohrman said of the weather. “I’m
just glad we’re running in the sun.”
Out of the 25 teams, the Herm-
iston Bulldogs walked away as
team champions in both the girls
and boys events with the help of
a strong performance in the sprint
events and in the field events on
Thursday.
On the girls side, Hermiston
earned a whopping 164.42 points
which was way ahead of second
place Nyssa (80.42) and third
place Pendleton (54.84). And for
the boys, Hermiston won with 141
points while La Grande followed
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Hayden Scott, of Weston-McEw-
en, and Hermiston’s Isaac San-
chez come around the final turn
of the 1,500-meter run on Thurs-
day at the Buck Track Classic.
Sanchez edged ahead of Scott
for the win, clocking 4:17.50.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Madison Wilson, of Hermiston, leads the pack in the 100-meter hurdles during Thursday’s Buck Track
Classic in Pendleton.
in second with 115 points, Weston-
McEwen (59) finished third and
Pendleton (52.5) in fourth.
Rohrman, who won the boys
100 meter hurdles by more than
half a second with a time of 15.33,
said that competing in a meet with
25 teams early in the season can pay
big dividends for the athletes.
“It helps you really get into track
season,” he said. “You go to a dual
meet and it’s just two teams, it goes
UMATILLA
by really fast, but here it teaches
you to manage your body, your time
and to know when to warm up.
“And to deal with the atmosphere
because this is totally different with
a lot more people here watching
and it’s a lot of what we’ll deal with
later in the season.”
In the running events, Hermiston
came away with wins in the boys
and girls 100 meters, girls 200
meters, girls 400 meters, boys 1500
meters, boys 110 meter hurdles,
girls 100 meter hurdles, both girls
relay races as well as the boys
4x100 relay.
And in the field, Hermiston
See TRACK/2B
Prep Roundup
Greb, Snodgrass claim titles at Big River Pendleton,
Three-way
playoff decides
boys’ champion
By MATT ENTRUP
East Oregonian
With its straightforward
layout and short fairways,
Big River Golf Course
proved deceptively tough for
participants at the Bulldog
Invitational on a sunny
Thursday by the banks of the
Columbia.
Without
too
many
hazards, the players’ mental
approach became amplified,
and those that overlooked the
par-70 course paid with high
scores. No golfers broke par,
and 75 was the lowest score
to be turned in.
Four golfers hit that mark
as Pendleton’s Haley Greb
won the girls’ title, and The
Dalles’s Chase Snodgrass
won a two-hole playoff
against Hermiston’s Jared
Thacker and Pendleton’s
Nathan Som for the boys’
title.
Snodgrass, a senior, hit
par on both extra holes while
Thacker and Som fell behind
with bogeys as they replayed
hole No. 1.
“I felt like I did what I
could with the game that I
had today,” said Thacker,
a senior. “I felt like I gave
away some strokes, but that’s
golf.”
He said after the way his
first tee shot went, he was
pretty happy to shoot 75 on a
day several players came into
the clubhouse complaining
about hard greens.
“It could have been a bad
day. I hit it out bounds and I
was like, ‘Aw shucks. Well,
come turn it around.’ And
that’s what I did,” he said.
“We were prepared but my
putting was a little off today,
but I also made some pretty
sweet ones. I was able to
knock in (two) birdies which
was pretty exciting for me.”
Som’s greatest challenge
of the round was pace of play
as a bottleneck had his group
doing a lot of waiting around.
He was in the second boys’
See GOLF/2B
Herim-
ston’s Jared
Thacker
hits from
the tee on
the second
playoff
hole in the
Bulldog
Invitation-
al at Big
River Golf
Course on
Thursday
in Umatilla.
Thacker fin-
ished tied
for second.
Staff photo by
Matt Entrup
Irrigon
softball stay
undefeated
Richards strikes out 14 for
Buckaroos to beat Southridge
East Oregonian
KENNEWICK, Wash. — Pendleton
junior Lauren Richards turned in another
stellar performance in the circle, and also
scored the game-winning run when her
catcher laid down a perfect squeeze bunt
in the top of the seventh inning as the
Buckaroos remained undefeated with a
3-1 win at Southridge on Thursday.
Richards allowed just one hit and
struck out 14 batters, and with the game
knotted at 1-1 going into the seventh she
came up and hit a lead-off double. Rylee
Gentner then was hit by a pitch to give
them runners on first and second, and
Aspen Garton moved both over with a
sacrifice bunt. Solomon followed with her
bunt RBI, and Gentner would add the final
See PREP/2B