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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 14, 2015)
B S PORTS Section B South Lane County Sports and Recreation Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Contact Sports, 942-3325 or e-mail sports@cgsentinel.com Water Polo teams improving with season With a lot of young and relatively inexperienced players, the 'Aqua Lions' water polo teams are getting better as their seasons continue Athlete of the Week Amelia Phillips scores nine goals in three games Photo by Tori Taylor The girls' water polo team played aggressively this past week and nabbed a victory to end its tournament on Friday. BY SAM WRIGHT The Cottage Grove Sentinel The Cottage Grove water polo teams hosted several schools this week, and the Aqua Lions are getting sharper each week despite a couple of losses being suffered. On Oct. 6, the boys hosted Marist, losing 7-6. The Lions went down 4-2 in the fi rst quar- ter, the two points coming from sophomore Nash, and the Lions attempted to mount a comeback, scoring four goals in the second quarter. Two of those goals again came from Gage Nash, and the other two from junior Seth Chambers. The Lions were able to take the lead into the second half. That is, until Marist scored two goals in the third quarter and held off the Lions to take a one-point victory. “We played very competi- tively, but we just couldn’t pull it off in the end,” Head Coach Tyson Pilling stated. He contin- ued to say that for having a lot of fi rst-year players, the team is doing a very good job. “We’ll need to work on our ball handling, but I’m im- pressed with our newcomers,” he added. On Friday, Oct. 9, Cottage Grove hosted a tournament, fac- ing teams such as North Eugene and South Salem. The girls started off with a loss to North Eugene but saw some effective scoring, with ju- nior Tori Raade with three goals, along with the help of Amelia Phillips with an early goal in the fi rst quarter. “Again, both of our teams played really competitively,” Pilling said of the boys’ and girls’ squads. “The girls are on their second year, so they’re a little more experienced than some of the boys.” The girls then played South Salem a few hours later, where they struggled defensively yet again, but this time saw four goals from Phillips, three goals from Raade, and one from Emma Meyers in the fourth quarter. Unfortunately, they were outscored by South Salem, 10-8. The Lions bounced back, however, beating Medford 9-7 later in the afternoon. Phillips outstandingly scored another four goals, accompanied by two from Meyers, two from Raade and one from Sophia Edelbute. “I think we need to work on passing and shooting, but over- all I’m happy with where we’re at,” Pilling said. The boys losing streak ended with an 8-8 tie on Friday against Churchill/Springfi eld, keeping the Lions heading in the right direction. “We’ll work on ball handling with the boys, but we have a lot of fi rst-years who will naturally improve.” Both teams host South Albany this week on Tuesday, Oct. 13 with the girls at 3:30 p.m. and the boys at 4:30 p.m. The star senior water polo player scored four times against Medford, another four times against South Salem, and once more to top it off against North Eugene. Lions' football looks to improve after losing two weeks in a row After a close 21-28 loss, the Lions will look to get their running game back and fi x defensive holes BY SAM WRIGHT The Cottage Grove Sentinel The Lions fought hard against a powerful Sisters team on Fri- day, Oct. 9, but were unable to close the gap and pull off a win. The 28-21 loss against the Out- laws brought the Lions record for the season down to 2-4. When facing a tough team like Sisters, which rank no. 4 in the OSAA power rankings, the battle in the trenches must be won, and that starts with estab- lishing a running game, which the Lions struggled with. “We didn’t run the ball as well as I would have hoped,” said Head Coach Gary Roberts. “We have to get more aggres- sive upfront.” While all of the Lions’ points came from rushing the ball, the running game only racked up a total of 40 yards off of 17 car- ries, giving Cottage Grove a rushing average of 2.35 for the game. Brynden Howell carried the ball fi ve times for 30 yards; running back Zane Levings had the same amount of carries but for exactly half the yardage and two touchdowns. Quarterback Blake Sentman ran the ball in for a score as well, but he rushed the ball fi ve times for negative yardage. On the other hand, Sentman’s passing game was far superior to his running game. He com- pleted 29 of 46 passes for 340 yards. There were no touch- down passes for the Lions this game, and Sentman threw one interception, but that happened during a fourth down and long situation, making it effectively better than just throwing an in- complete pass. On the receiving end of the pass game was junior Kory Par- ent, who caught 12 passes for 163 yards, along with Howell, who caught nine passes for 124 yards. Both players continue to be receiving weapons for Sent- man, each averaging over 13 yards a catch on Friday. You can also always trust Sentman to spread the ball around: Evan Britton, (four catches for 22 yards), Payton Presley (three catches for 12 yards), and Zane Girls' soccer slips in rankings after loss Levings (one catch for 19 yards) all got their hands on the ball during passing plays. Parent continues to showcase that he is a great addition for the offense. “Kory Parent is doing a great job of complimenting Brynden at wide receiver,” Rob- erts said. “They tried to double team Brynden at times, so hav- ing Kory step up is huge.” Roberts was initially worried about the state of the Lions’ de- fense, which has occasionally struggled throughout the sea- son. “Our defense played a little shaky in the fi rst half, but really solid in the second half,” Rob- erts noted. twenty-eight points is the least amount of points the Lions’ defense has allowed all season (tying with the Elmira game), but Roberts looks ahead to tighten up the defense: “We need to stay focused moving forward and continue to improve.” This week the Lions host Sutherlin and look to bounce back. Faster and Faster After beating Suther- lin on Thursday, the Lions lost to Banks 3-1 on Saturday BY SAM WRIGHT The Cottage Grove Sentinel The girls’ soccer team has seen an impressive amount of success this season. But as they climb in the OSAA rankings, other teams set their eyes on them, and they become the team to beat. Sutherlin tried, but was unsuc- cessful against the Lions, who won 2-1 in overtime, a game that Head Coach Vern Stewart isn’t very pleased about. “We didn’t play well at all,” Stewart said. The Lions scored early and were up 1-0 in the fi rst Melissa McCasline throws the ball inbounds to her hustling teammates. half thanks to a goal by Melissa was hold their lead. ponent they face will be getting equation. Cottage Grove faced McCasline, but then they gave “We probably came in think- better and better, so it is crucial Banks, a game that should have up a goal in the second half, ing Sutherlin wasn’t going to to play their best in each game. taken place earlier in the season, and Cottage Grove was sent into be very diffi cult for us,” Stew- However, Stewart put it quaint- and lost 3-1. It was the Lions overtime. art said. “We’ve learned that we ly: “it’s better to win ugly than fi rst loss since Sept. 14 against Luckily, star forward Kia He- cannot assume that everything to lose pretty.” North Bend. menway scored early in over- is going to be easy.” But on Saturday the Lions got Please see SOCCER, Page 4B time, and all the Lions had to do Stewart stated that it each op- the worst of both factors in that Connor Howard pushes to the fi nish line during his race. BY JIM SETTELMEYER For the Sentinel “We came to eat cookies and win races...... and we are all out of cookies.” was the saying on last year’s cross country team shirts, but it explains the team’s personal strides at meets on a golf course in Grants Pass and Mission State Park North of Sa- lem this last week. Every one of the Cottage Grove High runners that was able to compete (33 of 34) turned in at least a season best time in one or both meets. Improvements of more than a minute over previous times were recorded by Kevin Ma- nuntag (33:54), Anthony Tru- jillo (21:58), Connor Howard (19:15), Chelsea Armstrong (26:47), Aramie Nydam (26:00), Abigail Bunce (26:48), Lilly Burleson (28:13), Carson Violette (29:45), Jenn Simons (30:07), Tesslyn Foster-Gordon (31:27), Hayle Maitia (31:44), Kate Johns (26:04), Allie Har- ris (23:44), Kale`a Galbreath (23:53), Savannah Davis (25:51), and Abril Leal-Coronel (22:04). The Lion Harriers are on the grounds of Oregon Country Fair this Wednesday, Oct. 14 for their last offi cial tune-up before the Sky Em Championship the fol- lowing week. The runners hope to use this third fast course in a row to polish their race plans so they can head into the district meet with momentum and con- fi dence.
