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.