B
Section B
S PORTS
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
South Lane County Sports and Recreation
Contact Sports, 942-3325 or e-mail sports@cgsentinel.com
Athlete of
the Week
Cottage Grove staves off a Sisters rally
BY MATT HOLLANDER
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
T
photo by Matt Hollander
Cottage Grove's Taylor Sayles goes under two Outlaws
for a reverse layup late in the third quarter of the Lions'
57-50 victory on Friday night.
he Lions survived a furi-
ous rally from the visiting
Outlaws to win 57-50 on Friday
night.
Senior Conner Borigo scored
a game-high 20 points, includ-
ing the fi rst 12 of the game.
Ashlee Neely and Taylor Sayles
added 14 and 12, respectively,
as Cottage Grove won its sec-
ond straight league-opener and
moved back above .500 for the
season.
However, while the Lions (8-
7, 1-0 Sky-Em) are grateful to
be among the early leaders for
the conference crown, they may
still be wondering how their
game with Sisters (5-9, 0-1 Sky-
Em) ever became close.
“Our postgame talk was: It
wasn’t pretty, but it was pretty
enough,” said coach Kerry
Clawson. “We need to play bet-
ter. We need to clean it up and
we need to look sharper. But I’ll
take it, and so will everybody on
the team.”
Cottage Grove held multiple
12-point leads in the fourth
quarter before the Outlaws went
on a 14-3 run to cut the defi cit
to two.
But with 1:45 left in the
game, and her team clinging to
a precarious 52-50 lead, Borigo
made perhaps the most impor-
tant play of the game:
Cottage Grove was in bound-
ing at its offensive end when a
Lion player defl ected the entry
pass back in the direction of the
sideline. Borigo saved the loose
ball and found Taylor Sayles
near the base of the basket.
Sayles was fouled on the shot
and made both of her free-throw
attempts. And after the defense
turned away the Outlaws on the
ensuing possession, senior Sara
Please see Girls Basketball , Page 3B
photo by Gary Ordway Sports Action Photography
Cottage Grove's Ashlee Neely scored 14 points (six in
the fourth quarter) in the Lions' 57-50 win over Sisters.
"We don't win that game with out her," said coach Kerry
Clawson. "She was our fi nisher when we needed one."
Lions are
growing
through
the seasons
BY MATT HOLLANDER
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
“Well, you saw the football
team, didn’t you?” said a source
familiar with Cottage Grove
boys basketball, when I asked
how he thought the team would
do this year.
The suggestion, of course,
was that Lions would struggle at
hoops in a lot of the same ways
they did on the gridiron — be-
cause they’re young.
And if you noticed some of
the nonconference results, you’d
probably think that was a pro-
phetic forecast. Cottage Grove
was run off the court by North
Bend and defeated (twice) by
a more physical, more experi-
enced Marshfi eld team. Good
thing Henley wasn’t on the
schedule, right?
Now, before moving on to the
most recent point of comparison
— a 42-32 defeat at the hands
of Sisters — it’s worth noting
that the two sports obviously
have very little in common. The
roster sizes simply don’t com-
pare, and the required skill-sets
certainly make it possible for a
school to have different levels of
success from the football fi eld
to the hard court. But at the 4A
level, where multi-sport athletes
are the norm, it’s the players and
their athleticism that carry over
from one season to the next.
Several names off of the non-
conference-opponent’s rosters
probably cued up nightmares
for Cottage Grove fans who saw
the football team in action. As
they would fi nd out, Cameron
Lucero-to-Drew Matthews is
a lethal combination for the
Bulldogs on the fi eld and on
the court; Rylee Trendell is an
intimidating force whether he’s
playing post or defensive end
for the Pirates.
(A brief note about how this
all really came full-circle: I was
interviewing Marshfi eld coach
Doug Miles during the Holiday
Tournament in December, and
he said it was one of the fi rst
games back for his son — Jake,
the point guard —since fractur-
ing his vertebrae playing foot-
ball against (wait for it) Cottage
Grove back on Sept. 5. And as
soon as he said that, I remem-
bered the exact play that the in-
jury must have occurred on and
wondering whether or not he
was going to be able to get up
on his own power.)
The Lions feature but two
starters who also played foot-
ball: Kory Parent and Blake
Sentman.
Since I take my own play-
by-play, I have to follow the
ball at all times. And because
I follow the ball at all times,
I’ve watched more of Kory and
Blake than any other Cottage
Grove athlete. I’d really like to
let my eyes wander to see how
Kendrick Murphy sets
Please see Hollander , Page 2B
photo by Matt Hollander
Kory Parent's 3-pointer with 4:35 left in the game gave the Lions a 30-29 lead over Sisters, but the Outlaws escaped with a 42-32 victory.
Lions drop league opener to Outlaws
Sisters pulled away from Cottage Grove in the fi nal
minutes for a 42-32 win
BY MATT HOLLANDER
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
A
nother lesson. Another loss.
Who said growing up was
easy?
Cottage Grove held a one-point lead
over Sisters midway through the fourth
quarter of Friday night’s Sky-Em
League-opening game, but the Outlaws
put on a clinic in late-game execution
as they pulled away down the stretch
for a 42-32 victory.
The Lions (4-11, 0-1 Sky-Em) have
now lost four games in a row and eight
of their last 10, but they aren’t panick-
ing yet.
“They’re fi ne,” said assistant coach
Kevin Yoss of the young team. “You
kind of have to throw the last game out
(a 69-44 loss to North Marion, in which
the Lions fell behind 20-0 to start the
game) because we didn’t really show
up to play. We were a different team to-
night. I thought we competed and gave
ourselves a chance to win.”
Cottage Grove led by fi ve points at
halftime. And despite being outscored
15-5 in the third quarter, the Lions took
a 31-30 lead on a 3-pointer by Kory
Parent with 4:35 left in the game.
Given the low-scoring, defensive
battle, a lead of any size was signifi cant
at that point in the game. But Parent
— who scored a game-high 17 points
— knew that one point was nothing to
rest on.
“I always have confi dence that we’re
going to pull it out, but I knew that we
Please see Boys Basketball , Page 2B
Lions stack up against the best in Oregon Classic
Cottage Grove also victorious in Sky-Em duel
against Junction City
BY MATT HOLLANDER
The Cottage Grove Sentinel
T
he Cottage Grove wrestling team
wrapped up a solid week of com-
petition in which the Lions soundly de-
feated Sky-Em League-foe Junction City
75-5 on Wednesday, Jan. 16, and then
placed 10th in the 4A division of the two-
day Oregon Wrestling Classic held this
past weekend in Redmond, Ore.
The Lions brought a signifi cant advan-
tage in numbers to its dual meet against
the Tigers. Junction City could only en-
ter four wrestlers in the 14 varsity weight
classes; Cottage Grove won three of these
matches: Junior Rodney Chamberlain de-
livered a fall at 138 pounds; junior Alan
Bordeux — who moved up in weight
— won a 5-4 decision over Tim Volner
at 170 pounds in his fi rst match since re-
turning from injury; and freshman Adam
Lamb delivered a fall at heavyweight.
At the Oregon Classic, Cottage Grove
was seeded 16th out of 16 teams in the
4A division. In the fi rst round, the Lions
were soundly defeated by two-time de-
fending state champion Crook County,
a team that Cottage Grove coach Kyle
Temple believes is the best high-school
team he has ever seen.
Junior Andrew Bordeux lost by an 8-3
decision to Colbran Meeker — the two-
time defending state champion at 160
pounds.
In round two, the Lions won 10 out
of 14 weight classes against a combined
team of LaGrande and North Bend.
No. 8 North Marion narrowly edged
Cottage Grove in the next round, 37-
36. Temple said the Huskies presented a
great “stylistic match-up” for the Lions
and that the loss provided a good lesson
in fi ghting for bonus points.
“We let a lot of opportunities get away
from us, and between evenly matched
teams it's going to boil down to those
little things,” he said. “But it was still
valuable to see how we stack up against
a state-caliber team.”
Entering Saturday, Cottage Grove was
grouped in a bracket that would deter-
mine places nine through 12 in the fi nal
standings.
The Lions built upon some early mo-
mentum to roll Estacada, 54-28.
Cottage Grove then lost in the fi nals to
Marshfi eld, 58-24.
Temple said that a key factor in the
duel was the Pirates’ signifi cant edge in
the lower-weight classes.
In the girls’ division, Katie Dennis and
Mae Locke took second and third in their
respective classes.
Cottage Grove will host its fi nal home-
duel meet of the season against Sisters
this Thursday starting at 6 p.m. Tanner
Herbert and Locke will be honored as
seniors.