B2
SPORTS
East Oregonian
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Bucks crown 3 champs, win Joe Stewart Invite
By ANNIE FOWLER
East Oregonian
Pendleton crowned three cham-
pions Saturday at the Joe Stewart
Invitational at Rex Putnam High
School in Milwaukie.
The Bucks, who got titles
from Alex Rendon (132), Shawn
Yeager (160) and Aiden Patter-
son (170), rolled up 222.5 points,
while second-place Tigard had
156.
Rendon pinned Julian Watkins
of Madison in 3:13 in the cham-
pionship match. Rendon pinned
all four of his opponents, includ-
ing Zakariye Sabriye of Madison
in 39 seconds in the quarterfinals.
Rendon was named Outstand-
ing Wrestler of the tournament
for the lower weights.
Yeager earned a 3-2 decision
over Dade Kimmel of Reynolds
in the title bout.
Yeager pinned his first oppo-
nent in 35 seconds, then beat
Shadrach Porter of Gladstone 9-2
in the semifinals.
Aiden Patterson recorded a
13-6 decision over teammate
Isaac Urbina in the finals.
Patterson advanced to the
finals with one pin and two major
decisions, while Urbina had a
bye, a pin and a 16-0 technical
fall.
Placing second for the Bucks
were Collin Primus at 106, Chris
Chambers (138) and Kirk Liscom
(182).
Primus lost a 6-4 decision to
Brenden Dudley of Stevenson,
while Chambers injury defaulted
PREP ROUNDUP
Heppner girls
take down top
BMC team
East Oregonian
Heppner handed the Blue Mountain Conference’s No.
1 team its first league loss Saturday night.
The Mustangs upended host Grant Union 63-52
behind Sydney Wilson’s 24 points.
“They (Grant Union) are a very tough team,” Hep-
pner coach Robert Wilson said.
“They’re really aggressive in their defense. Our
girls played really hard. We forced them to make some
tough shots. We came out and played some good team
basketball.”
The Mustangs (15-6, 7-2) hold the No. 3 spot in the
BMC standings.
BAKER 58, MAC-HI 16 — The visiting Bull-
dogs went on a 23-0 run in the second quarter to seal a
Greater Oregon League victory over the Pioneers.
Marion Monsen and Emma Leber each had four
points to lead the Pioneers (1-18, 0-4 GOL). Mac-Hi
will play at Touchet, Wash., in a nonleague game
Tuesday.
ECHO 53, SHERMAN COUNTY 31 — The Cou-
gars ended a two-game slide with a Big Sky League
road win over the Huskies.
Echo improved to 7-3 in league play with the win,
and sit third in the league standings.
Echo broke open the game in the second quarter,
outscoring the Huskies 25-4.
Tylene Skillman posted a team-high 20 points for
Echo, while Faith McCarty had 16.
The Cougars (9-10 overall) will host Stanfield on
Tuesday in a nonleague game.
ELGIN 48, HELIX 39 — Annie Wood scored a
team-high 16 points, but it wasn’t enough for the host
Grizzlies to escape the Huskies in Old Oregon League
action.
Arianna Krol added 15 points for Helix.
The Grizzlies (4-14, 1-7 OOL) travel to Nixyaawii
on Friday for an OOL game.
WALLOWA 47, NIXYAAWII 41 — The Golden
Eagles fell to 2-5 in Old Oregon League play with a
road loss to the Cougars.
Nixyaawii (9-9 overall) will host Helix on Friday.
Boys hoops
SHERMAN COUNTY 62, ECHO 38 — The
Huskies extended the Cougars’ losing streak to seven
games with a home win in Big Sky League action.
Charlie White shot 60 percent from the floor and led
Echo with 15 points. Braden MacPherson added eight
points.
Echo (2-18, 1-11 BSL) hosts Stanfield on Tuesday in
nonleague play.
BAKER 47, MAC-HI 31 — The Pioneers’ four-
game win streak came to a halt with a home loss to
the league-leading Bulldogs in Greater Oregon League
play.
Mac-Hi (12-7, 2-2 GOL) takes a break from league
action for a nonleague game at Touchet, Wash., on
Tuesday.
GRANT UNION 47, HEPPNER 46 — The Mus-
tangs finally met their match.
The Prospectors handed visiting Heppner its first
Blue Mountain Conference loss.
Trent Smith led the Mustangs with 17 points, while
Tyler Carter chipped in nine.
Despite the loss, Heppner (14-7, 8-1 BMC) remains
atop the conference standings. The Mustangs will play
at Enterprise on Friday.
NIXYAAWII 48, WALLOWA 38 — The Golden
Eagles rebounded from Friday’s nonleague loss to
Kittitas with an Old Oregon League win against the
Cougars.
Nixyaawii (17-2, 7-0), which remains unbeaten in
Old Oregon League action, will play at Pine Eagle on
Thursday.
ELGIN 56, HELIX 55 — The last few seconds cost
the Grizzlies an Old Oregon League win against the
Huskies.
Helix led the first three quarters, but coach Zach
Orem said they “came out flat” in the fourth to allow
the Huskies to take a five-point lead.
The Grizzlies, who have lost nine in a row, con-
verted all of their free throws down the stretch, but
missed a shot off an offensive rebound that would have
put them back out front.
“We’ve been struggling these past couple of weeks,”
Orem said.
“It was nice to be able to get a good game in toward
the end of the season.”
Helix (4-14, 0-8 OOL) travels to Nixyaawii on
Friday.
to Emilio Jimenez of Tigard.
Joseph Mercado of Reynolds
earned an 18-3 technical fall over
Liscom.
Also for Pendleton, Aiden
Henderson was third (195), Kel-
len Hanson was fourth (113), Josh
Whaley was fifth (160), Travis
McGee was fifth (285), and Kyle
Liscom was sixth (152).
Knights crown two
champs in Idaho
Irrigon put three men in the
finals, and crowned two cham-
pions, at the R.D. Brown Invita-
tional on Saturday in New Plym-
outh, Idaho.
Senior Alex Miranda-Walls
improved to 36-0 on the sea-
son after beating Caleb Twait
of Meridian 8-3 to win the 170-
pound title.
Miranda-Walls beat Layne
Murdock of Parma 7-2 in the
quarterfinals, then followed with
an 11-2 major decision over Sam
Sessou-Djokoto of Capital in the
semis.
Kaleb Kendrick won the 285-
pound title with a 2-0 decision
over Moses Estrada of Capital.
Kendrick pinned Caysen Call
of Soda Springs in 1:45 in the
quarterfinals, then beat Anto-
nio Godina of Parma 4-2 in the
semifinals.
Irrigon’s
Josue
Aguilera
reached the 195-pound title match,
but was pinned by Nyssa’s Bryan
Flores in a time of 5:18.
Kyler Shelton placed third for
the Knights at 126 pounds, while
Reece Sheller was fourth at 220.
The Knights placed sixth in
the team standings with 95 points.
Meridian (Idaho) won the team
title with 238 points. Nyssa was
second with 168.
On Friday, the Knights lost a
pair of nonleague duals to host
Ontario and Mac-Hi.
Ontario beat Irrigon 48-34.
Miranda-Walls posted a 13-2
major decision over Ruben
Chavez, while Sheller pinned
Cristeon Rodriguez in 14 seconds
at 220.
The Tigers took advantage of
three forfeits by the Knights.
Irrigon had a 24-17 lead over
Mac-Hi before the Pioneers won
four of the final five matches for a
37-30 victory.
Richland pulls away in second half to beat Hermiston
Freshman Mia Hernan-
dez is starting to get more
comfortable with the Herm-
iston offense since her move
from Sunnyside just before
Christmas.
Hernandez had 10 points
on Saturday, and Jordan
Thomas added 12 points and
hauled down six rebounds,
but the Bulldogs still came
up short in a 68-58 Mid-Co-
lumbia Conference road loss
to Richland.
“Mia is starting to get
comfortable,”
Hermiston
coach Juan Rodriguez said.
“She has come a long way
and has done a good job of
adjusting. This was a good
game for her.”
The Bulldogs (7-11 over-
all, 5-9 MCC) held their own
against the Bombers (11-8,
8-7) in the first. They trailed
16-9, but two baskets by
Thomas and one by Kaylee
Young made it 16-15.
Gracie Pierce, who led
Richland with 12 points,
hit a 3-pointer with 1:09
remaining, but Kendall
Dowdy matched that with a
three-point play for a 19-18
game. Nicole Gall scored
with 26 seconds left in the
quarter for a 21-18 lead.
Richland would add two
more points to its lead in the
second to hold a slim 33-28
lead at the half.
Hermiston pulled within
one point twice, and tied the
scored at 27-27 with a pair
of free throws by Sydney
Stefani with 1:37 to play in
the first half.
Two consecutive baskets
by Halee Pierce gave the
Bombers a 31-27 lead with
41 seconds remaining.
The Bombers opened the
third quarter on a 9-2 run to
take a 42-30 lead just 2 min-
utes into the action.
“I thought we started the
game really well,” Rodri-
guez said. “When it got to
double digits, they stopped
competing. As a coach, that
is disappointing.”
Jordan Clark scored eight
of her 11 points in the fourth
quarter as the Bombers were
able to keep their lead intact.
Richland led 68-55, but
Hernandez completed a
three-point play with 8 sec-
onds left to cut the lead to 10.
Jazlyn Romero added
eight points and eight
rebounds for the Bulldogs,
who will host Kamiakin on
Tuesday. Jayden Ray added
seven points and seven
rounds, and Paige Palz-
inski five points and five
rebounds.
The Bombers, who will
finish league play Tues-
day at Pasco, got 11 points
each from Gall and Jayda
Clark, who also had seven
rebounds.
Stanfield: Girls also triumph vs. Rockets
Continued from Page B1
guard Logan Weinke scored
one at the line in the hopes
of avoiding a tie.
Hernandez returned for
yet another deep bucket to
even the scoreboard. The
pressure mounted on Pilot
Rock as they failed to sink
shots and let Stanfield run
away with eight unanswered
points in the final four min-
utes to lock in the surprise
win.
“To be honest, we under-
estimated Pilot Rock,” Her-
nandez said. “I saw that we
were down. I needed to step
it up. We just wanted in more
at the end. We saw how hard
Pilot Rock was playing.”
Hernandez closed the
night with 20 points, with
all six of his field goals com-
ing from the exterior. Senior
Elias Esquivel had a game-
high 28 points for the Tigers.
Stanfield (7-12, 4-4 BMC)
travels to Echo for a non-
league matchup on Tuesday.
Pilot Rock (2-17, 1-8) hits
the road to Weston-McEwen
on Friday.
Girls hoops
Nyah Tejeda poured in
17 points, and Kendra Hart
16, to help Stanfield out of a
four-game skid with a 59-41
home victory over Pilot
Rock on Saturday.
The game tied twice
before the Tigers broke away
for good. Rockets senior
Grace Austin, a 5-foot-11
post, was the tallest player
on the court, and gave Stan-
field a lot of trouble on the
inside.
“They’re a big team,”
Stanfield coach Daniel
Sharp said of the Rockets.
“And they rebound really
well, which we’re just OK
at. It challenged us.”
Austin, who posted 13
points for the night, hit
another basket in quar-
ter two to pull within just
two points of Stanfield. A
seven-point Tigers streak,
including four points from
junior Savannah Sharp,
helped give Stanfield some
breathing room for a 32-21
halftime lead.
“At halftime, we talked
about really picking up that
third quarter,” Hart said.
“That always tends to bite
us in the back.”
Hart sunk a 3-pointer
with five minutes left to
play in the fourth quarter for
a 17-point advantage. She
scored another field goal
with just 0:30 left, and fresh-
man Alexis Shelby grabbed
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Savannah Sharp, of Stanfield, and Pilot Rock’s Madison Moffit and Ayana Aguilar (4) battle
for a loose ball during Saturday’s league matchup in Stanfield.
an offensive rebound in the
final two seconds to finalize
the win.
“Kendra scores a lot, and
she passed well tonight,”
Sharp said. “That’s some-
thing she’s been working
on this season. And Nyah
got some good looks for us,
too.”
The Tigers improved to
3-5 in Blue Mountain Con-
ference play. Senior for-
ward Kaitelyn Evans led the
Rockets (7-12, 1-8 BMC)
with 18 points.
Boys’ Box Score
Stanfield 12 13 14 24 — 63
Pilot Rock 19 19 11 5 — 54
STANFIELD — Esquivel 28, Hernandez
20, Sanchez 12, Ramirez 2, Sanchez 2
PILOT ROCK — Weinke 18, Thurmond
10, Waggoner 10, Corwin 8, Thornton 6,
Thacker 2
Girls’ Box Score
Stanfield 13 19 19 8 — 59
Pilot Rock 8 13 13 7 — 41
STANFIELD — Tejada 17, Hart 16, Sharp 9,
McClure 9, Shelby 8
PILOT ROCK — Evans 18, Austin 13,
Brewer 6, Baleztena 2, Aguilar 2
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
A trio of Rockets converge on Elias Esquivel, of Stanfield, in
the waning seconds of Saturday’s game.