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Thursday, June 3, 2021
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Headed to NCAA regionals
A9
EOU
sets 2021
football
schedule
By DAVIS CARBAUGH
The Observer
Zachary Lucy Photography/Contributed Photo
Dan Naughton, a 2018 Pendleton High School graduate, is pitching for the Gonzaga Bulldogs as they head to the NCAA tournament, where they
open play Friday, June 4, 2021, at the Eugene regional.
Pendleton’s dan
naughton and
Gonzaga to play LSU
in eugene regional
By ANNIE FOWLER
East Oregonian
sPOKane — dan naughton
made a name for himself on the
mound at Pendleton high school,
and the Gonzaga Bulldogs took
a chance that the right-handed
pitcher would fit nicely into their
bullpen.
The 2018 Pendleton gradu-
ate and the Zags are now headed
to the nCaa tournament, where
they open play Friday, June 4, at
the eugene regional.
“I’m excited to be a part of it,”
Naughton said Tuesday. “I think
we knew going into the fall that
we had a talented team. It all came
together once the season hit.”
Gonzaga (33-17) is the no. 2
seed in the bracket and will face
no. 3 seed and six-time national
champion LSU (34-22) at 7 p.m.
Friday at PK Park.
Top seed Oregon (37-14) will
play No. 4 seed Central Connecti-
cut State (28-13) at 2 p.m. June 4.
The losers of each game will
play at 1 p.m. June 5, while the
winners will face off at 7 p.m. The
regionals are a double-elimination
event.
The winner of the eugene
regional will play the winner of the
Knoxville regional, which consists
of Tennessee — the host school is
ranked no. 3 in the nation — as
well as Duke, Liberty and Wright
state.
The Zags flew to Portland on
June 2, then took a bus to eugene.
It’s an easy trip compared to two of
the teams in the regional.
“I feel bad for the Central
Connecticut folks who have to
travel to Oregon,” naughton said.
“same with the people with Lsu.
I’m not sure a lot of them have been
to Oregon. But when you get to this
point, you will play anywhere.”
Gonzaga is 7-14 in seven previ-
ous nCaa regional appearances
dating to 1976. This is the Zags’
first NCAA appearance since 2018.
The Zags won the West Coast
Conference title with a 10-0
victory over San Diego on May 27,
but they lost their next two games
to the Toreros, dropping their rPI
to 27, dousing their hopes of host-
ing a regional.
“We all thought we’d be able
to host, but we would have had to
win all three against san diego,”
Naughton said. “This is our first
time playing LSU. We’ve gone
down and played in Alabama,
Mississippi and Texas, but haven’t
played LSU.”
The Zags enter the game with a
strong lineup.
Gonzaga’s ace alek Jacob (7-1,
2.82 era, 76.2 IP, 103K, 17 BB)
is good to go, but the Zags still
are without no. 2 starter Gabriel
hughes (broken hand).
naughton, 21, is part of a rota-
tion that has given the Zags support
out of the bullpen. The 6-foot,
185-pounder has pitched 16.2
innings with a 3.24 ERA over the
course of 11 games. he’s allowed
six runs, struck out 18 and walked
eight. he also has not committed
an error.
“I started one game, and I’ve
closed out a few games,” naughton
said. “I have mainly been coming
out of the bullpen as a reliever. It’s
hard being on a team like Gonzaga.
We are known for our pitching. It’s
a team full of really good pitchers.
I’m thankful to be part of a team
that has so much talent. I am happy
to come in and chew up some
innings.”
The Zags’ pitching staff has
allowed an average of 4.6 runs per
game, while the offense is putting
up 6.3 run per game.
From Pendleton to the
NCAAs
Naughton was barely a blip on
the radar his first three years of
high school, but his senior year
he blossomed into one of the best
baseball prospects in Oregon.
In the spring of 2018, naugh-
ton set a Pendleton school record
with 99 strikeouts in 56.1 innings
pitched. he also had an era of
1.99. The Bucks finished the season
18-9, losing to Churchill 2-1 in the
5A state quarterfinals.
naughton was the Colum-
bia River Conference Player and
Pitcher of the year. he was named
to the all-state first team and was
ranked as the No. 5 prospect in
Oregon by Baseball Northwest.
“I wasn’t much of a college
prospect my freshman, sopho-
more and junior years,” Naughton
said. “It was my senior year that I
became a prospect and I realized I
could have an opportunity to play
the next four years. I knew I would
have to have good grades, and I
worked hard to get them.”
naughton, who is majoring in
kinesiology, is as a sophomore at
Gonzaga, despite this being his
third year with the program.
“Because of COVId, I have two
more years left,” he said. “My goal
is to be a starter.”
La Grande — a full slate of
football is back at eastern Oregon.
after a shortened season in 2020
due to the COVId-19 pandemic,
the Mountaineers are set to play a
10-game season in 2021.
eastern went 3-1 last season to
claim a shared Frontier Conference
title and finished the season ranked
no. 21 in the naIa rankings.
The Mountaineers will face
only opponents from the Frontier
Conference, three of which are
home-and-aways with teams that
they will play twice. Eastern opens
its season on the road Saturday,
Aug. 28, against Montana Tech, a
team that did not play at all in 2020
but went 6-4 in 2019.
The first home game of the
season at Community Stadium
is an afternoon matchup against
Montana Western Saturday, Sept.
4. The Bulldogs also opted out of
playing in the 2020 season.
A big rivalry matchup takes
place Saturday, Sept. 25, when
the College of Idaho come to La
Grande. The two teams are set to
face off twice this year, with the
second matchup taking place satur-
day, Nov. 6, in Caldwell, Idaho.
eastern heads to ashland to face
its in-state rival southern Oregon
Saturday, Oct. 2. The Mountain-
eers and Raiders will play again at
Community Stadium for Eastern’s
final game of the regular season
Saturday, Nov. 13. Senior day will
be celebrated prior to the home
matchup against southern Oregon.
Eastern will also play a home-
and-away against Carroll College,
a team that the Mountaineers have
defeated in the last six matchups.
The Mountaineers are slated to play
at home against Rocky Mountain
College and on the road against
Montana State-Northern in single
matchups.
With in-person attendance at
sporting events coming back across
the country, it is likely that fans will
be able to attend games this season.
The eOu website states that season
ticket information will be available
at a later date.
ON THE SLATE
THURSDAY, JUNE 3
Arkansas top seed in NCAA Tournament
Pendleton at Redmond, 6:30 p.m.
Weston-McEwen at McLoughlin, 7:30 p.m.
Stanfield at Umatilla, 7:30 p.m.
Oregon lands at No. 14 seed,
one of 5 Pac-12 teams in
nCaa baseball tournament
Ione/Arlington at Mitchell/Spray, 6 p.m.
Prep girls basketball
Redmond at Pendleton, 6:30 p.m.
Weston-McEwen at McLoughlin, 6 p.m.
Stanfield at Umatilla, 6 p.m.
By ERIC OLSON
Associated Press
OMAHA, Neb. — Arkansas was rewarded
Monday, May 31, for its dominant run through
the southeastern Conference, landing the no.
1 national seed in the nCaa baseball tourna-
ment.
The Razorbacks (46-10) won all 10 of their
SEC series and wrapped up their first confer-
ence tournament championship on May 30. After
losing three straight games in March, they never
lost consecutive games.
This is the third tournament in a row that
arkansas has been a top-eight national seed.
“It’s still really special just to sit there and
see your name called,” coach Dave Van Horn
said after his team gathered to watch the selec-
tion show. “such a good season up to this point.”
The 64-team tournament opens May 28 in
16 regionals. Winners advance to eight best-of-
three super regionals. Those winners move on
to the College World Series in Omaha.
The top eight national seeds host super
regionals if they win their regionals.
The national seeds following arkansas:
Texas (42-15), Tennessee (45-16), Vanderbilt
(40-15), Arizona (40-15), TCU (40-17), Missis-
sippi State (40-15) and Texas Tech.
Texas has its highest national seed since
it was no. 2 in 2010, and the program will be
making its nCaa-best 60th appearance in the
tournament.
Tennessee, at no. 3, will be hosting a
regional for the first time since 2005, the year
the Volunteers last advanced to the College
World Series.
Prep boys basketball
Ione/Arlington at Condon/Wheeler, 6 p.m.
Prep wrestling
Hermiston at Richland, 5 p.m.
FRIDAY, JUNE 4
Prep boys basketball
Hermiston at Kamiakin, 7 p.m.
Hood River at Pendleton, 6:30 p.m.
Weston-McEwen at Pilot Rock, 7:30 p.m.
Stanfield at McLoughlin, 7:30 p.m.
Prep girls basketball
Butch Dill/Associated Press
Kamiakin at Hermiston, 7 p.m.
Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn, center, celebrates with the team after defeating Tennessee in
an NCAA college baseball championship game during the Southeastern Conference tournament
Sunday, May 30, 2021, in Hoover, Alabama.
Pendleton at Hood River, 6:30 p.m.
Vanderbilt, making its SEC-best 15th
straight tournament appearance, will be going
for its third national championship since 2014
after winning the title two years ago. There was
no tournament in 2020 because of the COVId-
19 pandemic.
Seeds nine through 16 are Stanford (33-14),
Notre Dame (30-11), Old Dominion (42-14),
Mississippi (41-19), East Carolina (41-15),
Oregon (37-14), Florida (38-20) and Louisiana
Tech (40-18).
The seC led all conferences with nine teams
in the field, followed by the ACC (8), Pac-12 (6),
Big 12 and Conference USA (4) and Big Ten (3).
The last four teams selected were alabama,
Michigan, North Carolina and UC Santa
Barbara. Baylor would be first in line to replace
any team that can’t play its regional because of
failure to clear COVId-19 testing protocols.
Prep wrestling
stetson athletic director Jeff altier, the
division I Baseball Committee chairman, said
varying scheduling strategies because of the
pandemic made the task of selecting at-large
teams extremely difficult.
altier said the opinions of regional advi-
sory committees weighed heavily in the deci-
sion-making. Typically the RPI, or rating
percentage index, helps the committee deci-
pher teams’ comparative strengths, but it wasn’t
as useful this year because several conferences
didn’t play outside their leagues.
“It was an incredibly difficult year,” Altier
said. “Nobody experienced COVID before. We
look at the rPI as a tremendous metric for us
to help us evaluate, and in a year where you
cannot play everybody across the conferences
as typically you would do, it makes it difficult
to choose.”
Weston-McEwen at Pilot Rock, 6 p.m.
Stanfield at McLoughlin, 6 p.m.
Banks, Irrigon, La Grande, Riverside at Pend-
leton, noon
College men’s basketball
Blue Mountain at Spokane, 7:30 p.m.
SATURDAY, JUNE 5
Prep boys basketball
Richland at Hermiston, 5 p.m.
Enterprise at Echo, 11:30 a.m.
Griswold at Cove, 6 p.m.
Prep girls basketball
Hermiston at Richland, 1 p.m.
Enterprise at Echo, 10 a.m.
Prep wrestling
Richland, Hanford, Pasco, Chiawana, Kenne-
wick, Kamiakin, Southridge, Walla Walla at
Hermiston, 9 a.m.