E AST O REGONIAN
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2019
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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