A11
SPORTS
East Oregonian
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
RICHARDSON OREGON ALL-STAR SERIES
Beers, Field help North beat South twice
By ANNIE FOWLER
East Oregonian
CORVALLIS — Pendle-
ton’s Ty Beers and Kyle Field
had a hand during the week-
end in helping the North beat
the South in a pair of games
in the Richardson Oregon
All-Star Series.
The series is for 6A and
5A high school seniors.
Saturday, June 19, the
North beat the South 14-4
at Oregon State University’s
Goss Stadium.
Beers, who played first
base, drove in the North’s
first run with an RBI single
in the top of second inning.
The South tied the score
in the bottom of the inning
before the North slowly
pulled away.
The North led 5-1 through
six innings, then added four
runs in the top of the seventh
and five in the eighth. As a
team, it pounded out 19 hits
and committed just one error.
Kyle Field got two at-bats
in the game, but struck out
twice.
In the second game June
20, the North jumped out to
a 5-1 lead after three innings
en route to an 8-5 victory.
In two at-bats, Beers
reached once on an error.
Field pitched two innings
for the North, allowing three
runs on three hits. He struck
out one and walked one.
Beers and Field helped
the Bucks go undefeated in
Intermountain Conference
play, win the IMC district
title and finish the season
15-3.
Field was the IMC Pitcher
of the Year, while Beers was
selected as a first-team first
baseman.
Field threw 27⅓ innings
over six starts, finishing with
a 4-0 record. He had an ERA
of 2.56, while striking out 36
and walked just four. He has
signed to pitch at Commu-
nity Colleges of Spokane.
Charlie Riedel/Associated Press
Ryan Crouser celebrates after setting a world record
during the finals of men’s shot put at the U.S. Olympic
Track and Field Trials Friday, June 18, 2021, in Eugene.
Ryan Crouser
breaks 31-year-old
shot put record
Bob Field/Contributed Photo
Pendleton’s Ty Beers, left, and Kyle Fields played Saturday
and Sunday, June 19-20, 2021, for the North team in the Rich-
ardson Oregon All-Star Series in Corvallis.
Portland native’s
heave of 76 feet,
8 1/4 inches also
qualifies him for
the Tokyo Games
By PAT GRAHAM
Associated Press
Kate Page/Contributed Photo
Timbersports Series competitor Kate Page uses a STIHL MS 661 chainsaw during a stock saw event at a competition in this
undated photo. Page is a native of John Day now living in Heppner and is looking for a top-five finish in the 2021 U.S. Cham-
pionships.
Timber: ‘It’s 50% skill and 50% equipment’
Continued from Page A10
Page and her husband,
Camron Tack, returned to
Eastern Oregon in April to
be closer to her parents. She
works in the Heppner Ranger
District on the Umatilla
National Forest for the U.S.
Forest Service.
“I’m on a fire crew right
now,” Page said. “We live at
the Tupper Guard Station.”
Tack works construction
in Hermiston and is in the
U.S. Army Reserve.
From chemistry class
to the wood pile
Page, who will turn 30
on July 9, was a multi-sport
athlete at Grant Union High
School. She graduated in
2009, then went to Oregon
Institute of Technology in
Klamath Falls to play basket-
ball.
From OIT, she went to
the University of Montana,
where she was sitting in a
chemistry class when Lara
Antonello came to the class
to talk about the college’s
Woodsman Team and
Forestry Club.
Page was intrigued. She
went to the first meeting and
was hooked.
“I thought it sounded
really cool,” Page said. “I
played sports in high school
and played basketball in
college. I took a year off of
school — I really only went
to play sports. I moved to
Montana and went back to
school.”
One of the draws of the
program was that it offered
a chance to travel — if you
were good enough.
“She (Antonello) said you
can go all over the western
United States,” Page said. “I
showed up to the first meet-
ing and I never left. My
second year, I was captain
of the Woodsman program.
When I started the fall of
2014, it was mostly men, but
by the time I graduated there
Kate Page/Contributed Photo
STIHL Timbersports Series competitor Kate Page of Heppner
saws through a white pine log with a cross-cut saw during
the single buck event at a competition in this undated photo.
were more women than men.
I did a lot of recruiting.”
Page, who has a bache-
lor’s degree in forest opera-
tion and a minor in fire, was a
two-time team captain of the
Montana team.
The Montana Woodsman
team cuts, splits and delivers
firewood in the fall to pay for
equipment and competitions.
“In the spring we traveled
all over to compete,” Page
said. “I cut 65 cords of wood
my first year. I spent every
weekend and after classes
cutting firewood.”
Her hard work paid off.
“When I first started in
2014, I did a bunch of the
other events, then the STIHL
series opened up for women
in 2017,” Page said. “The men
have been doing it since 1980.
We have had some great
athletes in this sport.”
Page also had the opportu-
nity in April 2019 to compete
internationally at the Royal
Easter Show in Sydney,
Australia.
The sport is not easy,
or cheap
In the STIHL Timber-
sports Series, the men
compete in six events, while
the women have four — the
single buck, standing block
chop, underhand chop and
stock saw. Everything is
based on time.
“It’s 50% skill and 50%
equipment,” said Page,
whose favorite event is the
single buck. “Everyone has
different equipment, so if you
have the best tools and the
best sharpeners, you might
have better times. Most of
our axes come from Austra-
lia or New Zealand, and the
cross-cut saws are made in
New Zealand, New York or
California.”
Competitors shell out
$300-500 for an ax, while the
cross-cut saws run $1,800 to
$2,300.
In the single buck,
competitors make one cut
through 19 inches of white
pine using a single man cross-
cut saw. The piece they cut off
is roughly 3 inches thick.
The standing block chop
event has the competitor
racing to chop through 12 to
14 inches of vertical white
pine.
The stock saw event is a
test of operator ability. The
competitor uses an STIHL
MS 661 chainsaw to cut two
discs from a 16-inch piece of
white pine as fast as possible.
All logs have been cut from
the same tree. The only thing
that differs is the saw oper-
ator.
“In the stock saw, we all
use the same thing,” Page
said. “It’s the most fair
tool that we use. The show
provides them, they have
mechanics who maintain
them.”
The underhand chop
requires competitors to stand
on a white pine log with feet
12-14 inches apart. They
chop through the log with
their racing ax.
The U.S. Championships
offer prize money per event
and for the overall winner,
and have major sponsors,
such as Duluth Trading
Company, STIHL, John
Deere and Ace Hardware.
The U.S. Championships
will be livestreamed on Face-
book, and all of the competi-
tions will air on CBS Sports
in the fall.
EUGENE — The record
was older than he is.
When Ryan Crouser
broke it, “it felt like it was a
huge weight lifted.”
The 28-year-old who
built a training ring at his
home in Arkansas to stay on
point during the coronavirus
pandemic shattered a shot
put world record Fri, June
18, night that was set 2 1/2
years before he was born.
On Day 1 of U.S. Olym-
pic Trials, he heaved the
massive medal sphere 76
feet, 8 1/4 inches to put his
name in the record book and
punch his ticket for Tokyo,
where he’ll have a chance to
defend his Olympic title next
month.
Just like he always imag-
ined.
“There were so many
times that I was throwing
a 6-pound shot out behind
the middle school, throwing
by myself, and let it go and
put my hands over my head
and be like, ‘Oh, new world
record!’” Crouser said. “I
knew it’s been a possibil-
ity or potential to do it since
2017.”
Virtually everyone in this
tightly knit group of throw-
ers knew the record of 75-10
1/4 held by Randy Barnes
since May 20, 1990, was in
jeopardy. Earlier this year,
Crouser topped Barnes’
indoor record. Earlier on
June 18, during qualifying,
Crouser heaved 75-2 1/2 to
set the American Olympic
trials record.
Crouser was feeling so
good in the preliminary
round that he thought a
world record was possible
right then and there. What
kept him from going for it
was his shoes. Though he
had brought a pair of new
Nikes to Eugene for the
trials, he opted for a more
broken-in pair because
the shot put ring at newly
remodeled Hayward Field
was “fast.”
“But they take your
shoes if you break the world
record,” Crouser said of
World Athletics, which
tests all shoes involved in a
record. “I thought, ‘I don’t
know, if I throw a world
record in prelims, I won’t
have shoes for the final. I’ll
have to throw in the (new)
Nikes.’”
So, the record held — but
only for a few more hours.
Even before the fourth
of his six tries on a mild,
sunshiny evening had
plunked into the dirt,
Crouser was lifting his arms
to celebrate. When the shot
landed, far beyond where
any other mark had been
made, a collective gasp
came from the quarter-filled
stands.
About a half-min-
ute passed while officials
checked the distance. When
the mark came up on the
board, confirming that
he had broken one of the
longest-standing records in
the books, he was mobbed
by his competitors near the
ring.
“Finally timed that one
up,” said Crouser, who grew
up in Oregon, went to college
at Texas and now serves as a
volunteer coach at Arkan-
sas.. “I think I was celebrat-
ing on that one almost before
it left my hand.”
Among those congrat-
ulating him were world
champion Joe Kovacs, who
finished second, and Payton
Otterdahl, who earned the
third spot.
“There are three or four
guys capable of doing that,”
Kovacs said. “In Tokyo,
there are going to be some
fireworks. Every year, we’re
talking about the records
being broken and I think
there’s more to come.”
Several minutes after his
record, Crouser was proudly
posing on the field. The
picture: Him standing next
to the scoreboard with both
thumbs raised and the words
“World Record” highlighted
in green on the board next to
his new record.
Shot putters fashion
themselves as part-time
physics gurus. They spend
hours analyzing their throws
from multiple angles, all in
the hopes of eking out a few
more centimeters.
About the dynamics of
his best-ever throw, Crouser
said: “I stayed big with my
chest and relaxed and let the
entry happen. I didn’t force
it. And once I did that well,
I knew the throw was going
to be good, so I didn’t do
anything to mess it up from
there.”
Crouser, who finished
second to Kovacs at world
championships in Doha in
2019, didn’t miss a day of
training in 2020, even with
the coronavirus pandemic
shutting things down across
the globe. He built a home-
made shot-put ring that he
constructed out of two sheets
of plywood and screws from
Home Depot.
The opening day of trials
also featured strong first-
round performances from
world 800-meter cham-
pion Donavan Brazier and
sprinter Sha’Carri Rich-
ardson, who chose orange
as the hair color of the
day and turned in the fast-
est 100-meter time (10.84
seconds). High jumper
Vashti Cunningham —
the daughter of former
NFL quarterback Randall
Cunningham — easily qual-
ified for the final and discus
thrower Valarie Allman set
a meet record with her throw
of 229- 8 (70.01) in qualify-
ing.
In the night’s other final,
Woody Kincaid sprinted
the final stretch to hold off
Grant Fisher and win the
10,000 meters. Both run for
the Bowerman Track Club.
Kincaid finished in 27:53.62.
Joe Klecker was third.
All received second bill-
ing to Crouser.
He’s hard to miss
at a track meet. The
320-pounder takes down
about 5,000 calories a day
to keep weight on his 6-7
frame. His diet consists of
two big breakfast burritos
in the morning, a pound of
ground beef for lunch and
three of the four portions
from a meal delivery service
at night.
So, what does a newly
minted world-record holder
do for dinner? Well, options
figured to be limited at the
late hour he would get out of
the track.
“I’ll probably go for
a big, old double-double
hamburger somewhere,”
Crouser said.