Page 4B
SPORTS
East Oregonian
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
The Hermiston Bulldogs get pumped up before the start of the their 42-15 win over Pendleton on Friday in Pendleton.
BULLDOGS: Pile up 505 total yards of offense ZABRANSKY: The
2002 Hermiston alum
now lives in Boise
Continued from 1B
just commit to the run game,
and we can throw it when we
need to.”
As it turns out, Hermiston
wouldn’t need to throw that
often. James finished the
night 4-for-8 for 142 yards
and three touchdowns.
The Bulldogs ate up the
first 12 minutes as Pendleton
struggled to get anything
going. Keaton Mikami
played a big role in that,
and sacked Pendleton quar-
terback Nick Bower twice,
while Jonathon Hinkle
wrapped Bower up to force
one of many Pendleton
three-and-outs just a few
plays later.
“He played great tonight,”
Faaeteete said of Mikami’s
performance. “He got off
that block and contained the
passer and made some great
hits on the quarterback. It
was just good.”
There was plenty that was
just good on Friday night.
James went on to rush
191 yards and two touch-
downs. Hinkle had 15
carries for 141 yards and
one touchdown.
“There was good play
calling all night, and just
players making big plays,”
James said after the win and
earning the Great American
Rivalry Series MVP.
Senior Joey Gutierrez got
in on the action and took a
short pass from James and
ran it over 70 yards to put
the Bulldogs up 29-15 going
into the fourth quarter.
“I just got to score,”
Gutierrez recalls thinking as
he moved down the field. “I
saw no body in front of me
and I was just thinking in my
head, keep going because I
started to cramp at the 20,
but I just had to keep going.”
Hermiston also kept
going and going. The Bull-
dogs wore down the Buck-
aroos defense and racked
up 505 total offensive yards
— 363 on the ground and
142 in the air. Their physi-
cality and improvement on
defense gave Pendleton little
if any chances.
“Going into the game
we didn’t except their front
five to be that physical and
they were able to dominate
our front seven,” Pendleton
head coach Erik Davis said.
“That’s pretty obvious that
they were able to run at
will. We were able to shut
down their big passing
game but when you can’t
do both facets of the game
usually you don’t come out
successful.”
Bower went 23-for-40
for 206 yards and two touch-
downs.
The Bucks were able to
take advantage of the few
mistakes Hermiston made,
and worked their way 68
yards — with the help of a
well executed fake punt —
Continued from 1B
trying to tackle Bisnett and
Lambert and get dragged 10
yards in the defensive back-
field. Those were always
exciting though. You prep
for those games, your focus
was 100 percent for those
games first and foremost,
and if you didn’t win that
game it didn’t really matter
what the rest of the season
looked like.”
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Hermiston quarterback Andrew James gains yardage before Pendleton’s Ian Ban-
nister brought him down Friday at the Round-Up Grounds.
Arch
rivals
Hermis-
ton and
Pendle-
ton faced
off for
their last
confer-
ence
game
Friday
at the
Round-
Up
Grounds.
Staff photo by
Kathy Aney
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Pendleton’s Nick Bower breaks away from Hermiston’s
Keaton Mikami in the Bulldogs’ 42-15 win against the
Bucks on Friday in Pendleton.
into the end zone for a score.
Cam Sandford’s three-yard
touchdown reception kept
the game close for the next
quarter and a half.
Pendleton
entered
halftime down 14-8, and
fired a 63-yard connection
from Bower to Sandford to
take a one-point lead after
a successful two=point
conversion. That was the
last successful drive the
Bucks would have.
After Gutierrez’s touch-
down pass put the game
back in Hermiston’s favor,
he came back on defense to
make a game-changing play
that he attributed to luck.
“It was a lucky play,”
he said. “I’d say but it was
where I was supposed to
be. Thank the guy for not
catching it, because I did.”
From there Hermiston ran
away with the game. Hinkle
ran in his lone rushing
touchdown —
24 yards on a third down.
James sprinted 54 yards
down the field to extend
the Bulldogs’ lead into
the game-ending score of
42-15. It was the cherry on
top of Hermiston’s OSAA
Farewell Tour.
“We just want to play
great football going into the
playoffs,” Faaeteete said. “It
was a great rivalry game,
a great battle early on and
our guys just outlasted and
outworked and it was just
a fun effort by anybody. As
we get ready for whoever
we’re playing next, we’re
just going to prepare like
we normally do. Dot our I’s,
cross our T’s and have some
fun.”
Hermiston will have to
wait until Saturday to find
out who it will play in the
first round of the postseason,
and Pendleton is hoping it
can squeak through with its
No. 14 ranking.
———
Contact Alexis at aman-
sanarez@eastoregonian.com
or 541-564-4542. Follow her
on Twitter @almansanarez.
EO: What does it mean
to you to be inducted
into the Great American
Rivalry Series’ Hall of
Fame?
JZ: “Oh this is a pretty
cool honor. I don’t quite
know the history behind
this precisely, but I know
the history behind this
rivalry and it’s a long-ten-
ured and pretty heated,
pretty ferocious rivalry.
These guys have always
been a good opponent for
us Bulldogs. You get ready
primarily to try to win a
state title when you start
out, but this is as big of a
game as any for any sport.
That’s almost 100 years
of playing each other and
that’s extremely unique.
There’s not a lot of rivalries
like that in America maybe,
so it’s bittersweet to get
this award on the last time
these guys play each other
but I’m pretty honored and
humbled to receive it here.”
EO: After your foot-
ball career ended, what
did you get into?
JZ: “For the past 10
years my home base was
in Houston, Texas, where I
followed (my) pro football
career for five years and
then got into a career in
the oil and gas industry.
But I moved back to Boise
in January and opened a
real estate company called
Zabransky & Clark Real
Estate. I’m onto my third
career and hopefully this
one will stick for longer
than five or six years.”
EO: What are your
thoughts on this 2017
Hermiston team and how
Friday’s game is playing
out?
JZ: “I didn’t really
know a lot about this team,
but this is about twice as
many kids as we had on the
field when I was playing.
But they’re playing well
and the offense moved the
ball well for the first quar-
ter-plus. The running game
is good, but I’d like to see
a few more deep passes.
You know as a quarterback
I always like to see those
explosive plays, but it’s
been an entertaining game.
I’m really impressed with
Pendleton’s QB, too. The
kid throws it well, he threw
a swing pass right on the
money and a good deep
ball, people don’t realize
how tough those throws are
to make and he does it well
and he’s impressed me.”
EO: Are you still
involved with the sport of
football at all?
JZ: I have a couple of
clients in Boise that I do
some skill development
stuff, so I stay around
the game. Also I color
commentate for AM630
The Fan Game of the Week
in Boise. I try to stay around
it as much as possible.”
EO: Looking back
on your athletic career,
could you have dreamed
of having the experiences
you did coming from a
small town in Eastern
Oregon?
JZ: “When I was a little
kid I dreamt of being a
professional athlete. I told
my mom when I was seven
when she dropped me off
at Mighty Mites (youth
football) practice ‘Hey I’m
going to play professional
sports’ and she was like
‘oh that’s so nice.’ And as
I started getting closer and
closer to graduating high
school it became fairly real
that I was a pretty decent
athlete and that I might
get a shot at the next level,
but you go from being a
big fish in a small pond to
a small fish in a big pond
and you do that again and
again from college to the
pros and you can’t fear the
challenge. You just have
to go in and work as hard
as you could. That was
something that was never
an issue, hard work was not
something that was foreign
to me and as long as a man
applies that and puts his
head down and is coach-
able they’ve got a shot. It’s
not always about the fastest
guy on the field or the
strongest, a lot of the time
it’s grit and determination
that will succeed. I knew I
had a chance, but to write
that sort of a script and to
finish off my college career
the way that it did? No,
I couldn’t have foreseen
anything like that. It’s crazy
how it all turned out like it
did, kind of capped off my
college career at the ESPY
awards and winning those
two awards and putting my
college life to bed per se, it
was so unique.”