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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 5, 2019)
E AST O REGONIAN THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @EOSPORTS | FACEBOOK.COM/EOSPORTS A8 Heppner faces a tough test in 3A Clatskanie Ione/Arlington to take on Powder Valley at Hermiston’s Kennison Field very good team,” Grant said. “They return all of their line and have good skill kids.” Heppner, which came in at No. 4 in the Class 2A poll, is happy to be facing the Tigers at home. “It doesn’t hurt,” Grant said. “It’s nice to be in front of the home crowd. It’s something we look forward to.” Grant believes his team can hang with the Tigers if the Mustangs play their game. “We want to make sure we don’t lose the game,” Grant said. “We need to hang onto the ball, execute and do the little things. We need to cut down on mistakes.” By ANNIE FOWLER East Oregonian HEPPNER — You want to be the best, you have to play the best. Heppner football coach Greg Grant gives his team the opportunity for success every season by fi nding the toughest non- league games he can fi nd. Friday, the Mustangs will host Clats- kanie, which was voted the No. 2-ranked team in the Class 3A preseason poll. “Our kids are excited to play a very, Ione/Arlington vs. Powder Valley It’s a trip to the big town for the Car- dinals, who play the Badgers at 4 p.m. at Hermiston’s Kennison Field. “I think we are ready,” Ione coach JJ Rosenberg said. “We are excited. We have come a long way since last year. It will be cool to see where we are at.” Rosenberg said one of the things he likes about his team is how physical it is. “They are a physical bunch of boys,” Rosenberg said. “Not something you come across often. They get after it.” The Cardinals’ game is the opener of the 8-man extravaganza at Kennison Field. Dufur vs. Adrian/Jordan Valley will follow. The Rangers have won 33 consecutive games and the past four Class 1A state titles. “They are two of the higher-ranked teams in the poll,” Rosenberg said. “It will be fun to watch them play.” Ione will host Dufur in a Big Sky League game Oct. 4. The rest of the schedule Echo, which lost its opening game when Harper did not fi eld a team, will host Riverside at 10 a.m. Saturday. The Cougars are a 6-man team, and Riverside a 2A team. They have agreed to play a game of 6-man football. Friday’s schedule also includes Mac-Hi hosting Madras, Weston-McEwen at Cen- tral Linn, Umatilla at Regis, and Pilot Rock will play at Enterprise at 2 p.m. Thursday’s lone game will feature Stanfi eld at Irrigon. AP Photo/Frank Franklin II Matteo Berrettini, of Italy, reacts after winning the fi fth set tie break for vic- tory against Gael Monfi ls, of France, during the quarterfi nals of the U.S. Open tennis championships Wednes- day in New York. Berrettini edges Monfi ls at U.S. Open By HOWARD FENDRICH AP Tennis Writer Staff photo by Ben Lonergan Dustyn Coughlin, left, Garrett Walchli, and Chase Bradshaw pose for a portrait on the football fi eld at Hermiston High School in August. Hermiston opens Mid-Columbia Conference season at Pasco By ANNIE FOWLER East Oregonian H ERMISTON — The Mid-Columbia Confer- ence football teams try to avoid one another in the summer — they don’t want to give too much away. Try as they might, all nine teams ended up at the Eastern Washington University team camp. It’s not enough to get a full scout- ing report, but Pasco coach Leon Wright-Jackson saw enough of Herm- iston to learn a couple of things. “They are big and they are fast,” Wright-Jackson said. Hermiston will open its season Fri- day against Pasco at Edgar Brown Sta- dium in the battle of the Bulldogs. Game time is 7 p.m. “I think they are going to have good team speed, and they have good skill guys,” said Hermiston coach David Faaeteete, whose team won last year’s matchup 45-0. “It was cool to see that they are going to be hungry this year.” Hermiston, which has to replace a bulk of its offense with the graduation of quarterback Andrew James and run- ning back Wyatt Noland, will look to sophomore quarterback Chase Elliot, who will get protection up front from senior all-league linemen Chase Brad- shaw and Dustyn Coughlin. Senior Garrett Walchli has speed, and the Bulldogs will use that out of the backfield, at receiver and on defense. “I think we have a solid core group of seniors who put in the work over the summer,” Faaeteete said. “We have size and speed. I’m excited to see them put it all together on Friday night.” Wright-Jackson is in his second year at the helm at Pasco — his alma mater. He has done his best to instill a sense of family and pride in the program. “I always felt Pasco had good team chemistry,” Faaeteete said. “They are just missing pieces here and there. They compete and they are athletic.” Pasco put in the work over the sum- mer, getting in the weight room and attending camps. “There were days we had 40 or 50 kids in the weight room,” Wright-Jack- son said. “We did not have that last year. That’s progress.” Pasco will rely on second-year quarterback Armani Reyes to run the offense. He threw for more than 1,100 yards and eight touchdowns last year. Reyes will have a trio of receivers to throw to, including Des Licon, Alex DeLeon and Traeton Mitchell, while Sergio Avina will carry the ball out of the backfield. “It’s awesome to see what Leon has done with his program in his second year,” Faaeteete said. “I think Pasco is on the up and up. They are going to catch some of us this year.” NEW YORK — Matteo Berrettini describes his mental coach as a big help and a best friend. They’ve been speak- ing on the phone before and after every match during Berrettini’s run to his fi rst Grand Slam semifi nal. They had plenty to chat about when it came to this latest victory. Berrettini, a 23-year-old from Rome, gave Italy a spot in the fi nal four at the U.S. Open for the fi rst time since 1977 in dramatic fashion, double-faulting away his initial match point and then needing four more to fi nally put away 13th-seeded Gael Monfi ls of France 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (5) after nearly four hours in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday. “He told me, ‘I need to thank you, because I thought that everyone is born once and dies once. But during that match, I was born and died 15 or 16 times,’” Berrettini said about his con- versation with the mental coach he’s worked with for several years. “I col- lapsed and got back up. I collapsed and got back up. That match point. Those other chances. I was down then I came back. It’s a great source of pride for me.” In truth, the denouement was hardly a thing of beauty, with both men, clearly spent, fi ghting themselves and the ten- sion of the moment as much as the guy on the other side of the net. Monfi ls fi nished with 17 dou- ble-faults but managed to avoid any See Tennis, Page A9 SPORTS SHORTS Larger U.S. sports betting market races for (online) end zone By WAYNE PARRY Associated Press ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — As the second NFL season following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling clearing the way for legal sports betting begins, the industry is growing larger and ever-more mobile. The future of sports betting in the U.S. is online. More than 80 percent of sports bets placed in New Jersey, the state that won the high court case last year, were made over the inter- net or on smartphones. The question of whether to allow mobile betting, and how to regulate it, has kept sev- eral states from entering the market or more fully expanding within it, as is the case in New York. Chris Grove, a managing director with Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, says fully embracing online sports bet- ting will be the biggest challenge for land-based casinos this year. “It’s clear that consumers over- whelmingly prefer to bet on sports online,” he said. “Attempting to route consumers through the casino to access online apps will only limit the potential of legal sports betting and pump oxygen into the illegal market. Where would Amazon be if you had to go into a Kohl’s to create your Amazon account before order- ing anything?” In this Sept. 4, 2019, fi le photo, Andy Lanni of Oceanview, N.J. checks the odds at the sports book in the Borgata casi- no in Atlantic City, N.J. AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File