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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (July 29, 2015)
B S PORTS Section B South Lane County Sports and Recreation Contact Sports, 942-3325 or e-mail sports@cgsentinel.com Wednesday, July 29, 2015 Lions wrap up summer scrimmages; play sharp against Bulldogs Cottage Grove starters and backups get valuable reps in fi nal 7-on-7 versus Creswell BY MATT HOLLANDER The Cottage Grove Sentinel O n July 21, the Lions hosted Creswell for their fi nal 7-on- 7 scrimmage of the summer. Cottage Grove’s JV squad played just as much as the varsity against the Bulldogs, which says a lot about how far the Li- ons have come since last year, when every rep came at a premium for the young team. “We mixed it up tonight,” said Cot- tage Grove coach Gary Roberts. “Cre- swell didn’t have enough players to have two different scrimmages, so we alternated our older and younger guys every two series. When we were at camp (the varsity guys) got a ton of reps; we went to Springfi eld last week (for a 7-on-7 scrimmage) and they got a ton of reps. I feel good about what our kids have done this summer.” As it has been all summer long, the Lions' number-one offense was ex- plosive against Creswell. Kory Parent went 7-for-9 with three touchdowns, and Blake Sentman was 9-of-13 with two touchdowns and one interception. Sophomore Joshua Clafl in was 10-for- 20 and tossed three touchdowns in fi ve drives for Cottage Grove’s JV team. With less than four weeks until the start of fall camp, Roberts said that nei- ther Parent nor Sentman has won the starting job. “It’s been evident that they’ve both improved,” Roberts said of the two junior quarterbacks. “And we’re just waiting to see who can consistently lead us.” At receiver, Payton Presley was the number-one target for both passers, as he caught fi ve balls for 68 yards and three touchdowns. Reily Boyce add- ed fi ve catches for 84 yards and two touchdowns. Cottage Grove’s number-one defense held Creswell to just two scores on six possessions, and Presley (2), Sentman photo by Matt Hollander Payton Presley caught three touchdowns in Cottage Grove's 7-on-7 scrimmage against Cre- swell on July 21. Please see Football, Page 2B A question of style: Who will be the Lions' starting quarterback? BY MATT HOLLANDER The Cottage Grove Sentinel C ottage Grove’s 2014 season ended in a quarterback-by-com- mittee with then-sopho- mores Kory Parent and Blake Sentman. While not an ideal situation for a football team, the Li- ons, who began the year 0-5 while using a primary starter, went 2-2 down the stretch with Parent and Sentman splitting time at the position. Additionally, Cottage Grove’s of- fense was also signifi cantly better over its fi nal four games: Games 1-5: 248.2 YPG, 8.6 PPG Games 6-9: 307 YPG, 24.5 PPG Not surprising, the spike in production corre- lated with more effi cient quarterback play: Games 1-5: Sentman 51-105, 514 yds., 8 Ints. Parent 27-43, 173 yds. 2 Ints. Carter wins grand Extreme Sprint at CGS Games 6-9: Sentman 27-51, 341 yds.,1 Int Parent 16-35, 222 yds., 1 Int. *While playing receiver, Parent threw two touchdowns that traveled a combined 125 yards on double-pass plays. After the season, coach Gary Roberts said he hoped that one player would emerge as the team’s starter for 2015; however, with just over fi ve weeks until the Lions travel to Marshfi eld for the season-opener, Parent and Sentman are still neck- and-neck. The challenge in projecting which player would be more successful in the starting role is that Par- ent and Sentman have markedly different skills. It’s almost not worth doing the standard side-by- side quarterback comparison — throwing power, throwing accuracy, running ability, etc. — because each player has a fairly signifi cant advantage over the other in each category; Parent, for example, has proven to be the far more effective runner, but Sentman is superior on downfi eld passes. From watching a few highlight reels of former Cottage Grove quarterbacks Dustin Hurd and Please see Hollander, Page 2B Athletes of the Week: Kate Bevilaqua and Guy Crawford Sell, Clay, Ray and Hansen also score victories BY BEN DEATHERAGE C ottage Grove Speedway had a fantastic eve- ning of racing on Saturday, July 25. The cool- er weather was a welcome change after several weeks of extremely hot temperatures. Classes in competi- tion included the Clark Printing Extreme Sprints, Late Models, IMCA Sport Mods, Quality RV Repair Hornets and the Late Model Lites. The Clark Printing Extreme Sprints entrants were driving for some big money as the folks at Herz Pre- cision Parts put up $1,000 for the winner. The ex- tra purse attracted teams from the states of Oregon, Washington and California. Chelsea Blevins, a teenager from Anderson, Ca- lif., was veryfast for much of the race, and due to the timing of the cautions she did not have to deal with lapped traffi c. Blevins lost the lead position on lap 19 to Cottage Grove’s Colby Carter. Although Blevins stayed on his tail tank for much of the remainder of the race, Carter held on to win his second race of the season. Blevins fi nish second, while Dave Hibbard from Medford was third. Cottage Grove native Patrick Dills placed fourth, and Jake Helsel from Monroe, Wash. followed in fi fth. The Late Model main event was a caution-fi lled feature. Sweet Home chauffeur Kye Frick was the early leader until Salem’s Brady Sell passed him on lap 13. Sell managed to keep in front and win the race. Amazingly, during his time trial Sell made heavy contact with the outside retaining wall in turn four that put the future of his night in serious jeopardy. Frick fi nished as the runner-up, and in third was Vernonia veteran Doug Davenport. Bend driver Thomas Hunziker fi nished fourth, and behind him in fi fth was Salem’s Britton Donahoo. Kolby Clay from Junction City dominated the IMCA Sport Mods Clay and would take the lead on the fi rst lap and stayed there the whole way. It was his fi rst career win in the IMCA Sport Mods in only his second career start in the class. Gene Ashley from Jasper was second, and Spring- fi eld’s Jayson Nelson fi nished in third. Scott Akin from Crow was fourth, and Cottage Grove’s Tyler Smith was fi fth. The Quality RV Repair Hornets main event had several cautions and plenty of lead changes. Pleasant Hill’s Justin Austin got out to the front early, but Dan Jenkinson of Marcola passed him on lap four. Austin would reclaim the lead on the ninth circuit, only to be overtaken on lap 17 by Cottage Grove’s Mike Sim- mons, who spun out after a restart — thus giving the lead back to Austin. Please see Speedway, Page 3B photo by Matt Hollander Guy Crawford and Kate Belivaqua formed quite the power couple at Saturday's Tri at the Grove. They both set new Olym- pic distance course records en route to very convincing victories. Tri at the Grove’s Sweethearts BY MATT HOLLANDER The Cottage Grove Sentinel G uy Crawford and Kate Bev- ilaqua are living in an end- less Summer. The professional tri- athletes live and train together half the year in Australia and the other half in Boise, Idaho. On Saturday they rode another wave of success to the top of the podium at the fi fth annual Tri at the Grove. Crawford demolished the course record en route to victory, complet- ing the 1,500-meter swim, 24.8- mile bike and 6.2-mile run in one hour, 51 minutes and 36.2 seconds. His girlfriend Bevilaqua also set a new course record in the women’s Olympic distance of 2:05:49.30. With defending champion Jesse Thomas and two-time winner Chris Bragg (2013 and 2012) not par- ticipating in the full triathlon this year, Crawford had to fi nd some- thing else to compete against. “Once that I found out that Chris and Jesse weren’t racing, I was like, ‘Well, there needs to be a motivation for eating that much pain,’" said Crawford, who bettered Thomas’ record time of 1:54:58.8 set last year. “So the course record was what I was after, and that’s why I went deep.” Andrew Langfi eld of Portland fi nished second, nearly eight min- utes behind Crawford. “This was my fi rst time here, and you couldn’t have asked for a better day,” said Langfi eld. “It was perfect weather and it’s fun to chase someone who’s fast and fi t.” Absent from this year’s wom- en’s race was Emily Cocks, who defeated Bevilaqua in 2012 and 2014. However, Bevilaqua was hardly content with an easy vic- tory, as the three-time champion took down her own course record of 2:06:21 set in 2013. “I went hard today,” Bevilaqua said. “There wasn’t Emily or somebody to race against. But my coach always says, ‘when you go to a race you’re racing for a (per- sonal best).’ You’re going as hard as you can because you can do that on your own.” This upcom- ing weekend, Bevilaqua is tak- ing on her fi rst Ultra Triathlon. In training for the grueling, three-day 323-mile endurance event, she has made Crawford join for some much longer training sessions. “I’m looking forward to when we’re just doing Ironman training; I think it will help our relation- ship,” Crawford joked. After so much high-volume training, Bevilaqua, who has com- peted at Tri at the Grove in each of its fi ve years, said she was excited to see if she could go fast on a fa- miliar course. “The location is stunning,” she said. “You turn up here in the morning and you forget how beau- tiful it is. Even on the bike course sometimes you have to remind yourself that you’re racing and work really hard because the scen- ery is so beautiful.” Please see Page 3B for re- sults from Tri at the Grove. Join us August 1st WALLBANGER CUP Late Models, Clark Printing Extreme Sprints, IMCA Modiϐieds, Street Stocks
