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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 2018)
SPORTS WEEKEND, FEBRUARY 24-25, 2018 1B FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @EOSPORTS Prep Girls Basketball TigerScots bounced by Prospectors Weston-McEwen’s season ends in first round of playoffs East Oregonian JOHN DAY — What once was a very promising season came to a halt on Friday for the Weston- 2A First McEwen girls Round basketball team. The No. 13 seed Tiger- W-McEwen Scots traveled down to John Day to take on the No. 4 Grant Union Prospectors in Grant Union the first round of the Class 2A playoffs on Friday, and headed home with a 71-42 defeat. It was the second time the TigerScots dropped a game to the Prospectors this season, with Grant Union winning a non-league game 92-54 on Jan. 4 in Athena. The TigerScots’ season comes to an end with a 16-10 overall record. The Prospectors imrpove to 21-3 overall on the season, and advance to the 2A state tournament next weekend in Pendleton. They will take on No. 5 Faith Bible (25-2) in the quarterfinals at Pendleton High School on Mar. 1 at 3:15 p.m. 42 71 AP Photo/Mel Evans, File Bank records and other expense reports that are part of a federal probe into college basketball list a wide range of impermissible pay- ments from agents to at least two dozen players or their relatives, according to documents obtained by Yahoo Sports. NCAA president Mark Emmert said in a statement on Friday that the allegations “if true, point to systematic failures that must be fixed and fixed now if we want college sports in America.” College Corruption FBI probe documents list range of payments to top players By AARON BEARD AP Basketball Writer AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File In this 2017, file photo, North Carolina State’s Dennis Smith Jr. (4) drives to the basket during a game against Duke, in Durham, N.C. A balance sheet from December 2015 lists several payments un- der “Loan to Players,” including $43,500 to Dallas Mavericks guard Dennis Smith, who played one season at North Carolina State in 2016-17. New details of payments to athletes in a federal investigation that has lurked in the shadows since first rocking college basketball last fall mark the latest threat to the sport’s basic foundation, showing the breadth of alleged corruption. Bank records and other expense reports that are part of the investi- gation list a wide range of imper- missible payments from agents to at least two dozen players or their relatives, according to documents obtained by Yahoo Sports. The depth of the violations raises questions about the structure of college athletics, a business funded primarily through college football and basketball, including $19.6 billion in TV money for the NCAA Tournament over the past 22 years — a hoops extravaganza American sports fans know as March Madness. NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a statement Friday the alle- gations “if true, point to systematic failures that must be fixed and fixed now if we want college sports in America.” Yahoo said Friday that the documents obtained in discovery during the investigation link current players including Michigan State’s Miles Bridges, Duke’s Wendell Carter and Alabama’s Collin Sexton to potential benefits that would be violations of NCAA rules. Michigan State and Duke offi- cials said Friday they didn’t believe their players did anything wrong, and Alabama coach Avery Johnson said Sexton, who was held out of the season opener for violating NCAA See NCAA/3B The Eagle/Angel Carpenter Grant Union Prospector Kaylee Wright scores on a lay up over the Weston-McE- wen TigerScots in Friday night’s 2A first round play- off game in John Day. Grant Union won the game 71-42. HERMISTON Bulldogs #ChooseKindness for rivalry By ALEXIS MANSANAREZ East Oregonian Signs that read “Be Kind” and “You Are Loved” grace the hallways and front doors of Hermiston High. In the wake of the recent suicide of Hermiston student Jenna Thomas, messages of kindness and inclusiveness have covered the empty spaces of the school’s building. They even adorned t-shirts for Hermiston’s final regular season home games. Before the anticipated Pendleton-Hermiston double- header Tuesday, athletic director Larry Usher, along with other school and district officials, demonstrated kind- ness that came in the shape of said t-shirts, and cupcakes decorated with both Herm- iston and Pendleton logos that were given to students before the game. “Hermiston High School has experienced more than our fair share of tragedy in the last couple of years when it comes to our students,” Usher said. In 2016, 14-year-old Hermiston student James “JJ” Hurtado was murdered. And earlier this year, the school lost a recent alumnus with the death of Hayden Simon. With those losses in mind, Hermiston decided to use its resources to celebrate friendly sportsmanship. As Hermiston gets ready to move into the WIAA next season, the Bull- dogs have already said there will be no football games between the two schools next year, and no future basketball games are currently planned. So, when the two teams faced each other on the court for the last time in what may be a while, they wanted their message to be clear. “Along with our district leadership in Tricia Mooney and our building leadership, we made a choice to forgo some of the negative rhetoric that comes with a rivalry game and choose kindness instead,” Usher said. Photo courtesy of Hermiston ASB Twitter Before Tuesday’s Pendleton-Hermiston doubleheader at Hermiston High, #ChooseKindess t-shirts were dis- tributed to HHS students to promote a theme of inclu- siveness. Sports shorts Pendleton alum Robinson wins Big Sky championship in heptathlon One year after falling just one spot short, Pendleton alumnus Donte Robinson finally earned a Big Sky conference championship. Robinson, a junior track and field athlete at Port- land State, won the Big Sky Indoor championship in men’s heptathlon on Friday with 5,248 points across the six events. He was tied with Sacramento State’s Max Jette going into the final event, the 1,000 meter run, but Robinson’s time of 2:51.65 beat Jette by four seconds to take first. Robinson Robinson’s 5,248 points were a personal best, clearing his previous best of 5,230 set at last year’s Big Sky Championships, and he remains second all-time in PSU history. H trails only the 5,432 points earned by Nick Trubachik in 2010. Robinson also set personal bests in the 60-meter hurdles (8.31) and the pole vault (13-09). OSAA denies Salem-Keizer appeal, stays in league with Bend schools “The bobsled Gods are upset at us for something.” — Nick Cunningham One of two members of the U.S. the two-man bobsled team said as they prepare for the final day of bobsled competition. Barring some miracle Sunday, the U.S. men are going home without an Olympic bobsled medal for the first time in 12 years. The OSAA and hearings officer W. Michael Gillette denied an appeal from Salem-Keizer Public Schools on Friday, meaning the five Salem-area schools will join a league with three Bend schools beginning next school year. Salem-Keizer appealed the OSAA classification and districting committee’s decision to place the three Bend schools — Bend High, Mountain View and Summit — in the same Class 6A league as McKay, McNary, South Salem, Sprague and West Salem, arguing that the OSAA did not stick to its own rules such as minimizing travel time and costs, among others, when making up the classification proposals. The average round-trip travel from Salem to Bend will be 268 miles, or roughly five hours non-stop. THIS DATE IN SPORTS 1960 — Bill Cleary’s four goals lead the United States to a 9-1 victory over West Germany in the hockey cham- pionship round of the Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, Calif. 1980 — The United States hockey team wins the gold medal with a 4-2 victory over Finland at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y. 2002 — Svetlana Feofanova breaks the pole vault indoor world record for the fourth time this month, clearing 15 feet, 6 1/2 inches at the Gaz de France meet. Contact us at 541-966-0838 or sports@eastoregonian.com
