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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (March 23, 2016)
B S PORTS Section B South Lane County Sports and Recreation Wednesday, March 23, 2016 Track kicks off with fi rst meet; relay runners head to Portland Contact Sports, 942-3325 or e-mail sports@cgsentinel.com Athletes of the Week Lions give good performances at icebreaker meet and relay runners experience the World Indoor Championships BY SAM WRIGHT The Cottage Grove Sentinel The Cottage Grove track and fi eld team hosted its fi rst meet known as an “icebreaker” meet on Thursday, March 17. The team invited several out-of- league schools, some of which were class 5A schools. Head Coach Ricky Knutson was eager to see how his team would com- pete against teams that weren’t in their league. The Lions played host to Marist, Thurston and Crescent Valley high schools in a friendly meet which gave us a peep into how well the team will perform this year. Several athletes stood out this week, including junior Hannah Albrecht, who took home fi rst place in the 200-meter dash. Out of 18 competitors, Albre- cht fi nished the race in 27.87 seconds, just 0.03 seconds faster than Marist’s Madelyn Nowicki. Knutson also pointed out that Albrecht’s split time in the 4x400-meter relay was 61.8 seconds. “[That] is a really good time for this early in the season,” he said. Last year, Al- brecht spent most of the season coming back from some knee issues, and Knutson predicts she will perform at a much higher level this year. On the boys’ side of the 200- meter sprint, Cottage Grove’s Chris Clure took home second place after fi nishing with a time of 24.84, just a half-sec- ond behind Adam Yarbrough of Marist. Jacob Woods and Brynden Howell made their presence known in the 100-meter dash, as they fi nished with times of 12.22 and 12.37, respectively. Freshman Konrad Raum, who made an appearance at the state cross-country race, placed fourth in the 1500-meter run with a time of 4:35.06. On the other side, Hudson Weybright fi nished second with 5:33.32, just a second behind Marist’s Hope Powell. Another top fi nisher was Hayden Glenn who placed fi rst in the 110-meter hurdles for the Lions. Several other top athletes of the Cottage Grove track squad didn’t compete in order to rest for the once-in-a-lifetime op- portunity to compete at a high school exhibition in Portland next to the World Indoor Cham- pionships. Four Cottage Grove athletes were invited to compete in a re- lay competition against various other high schools in the North- west. Photo courtesy of Ricky Knutson Please see TRACK, Page 2B From left to right: Tucker Porter, Jayden Tucker, Connor Howard and Konrad Raum were invited to the IAAF World Indoor Championships to compete in a high school exhibition. Softball players not discouraged by losses BY SAM WRIGHT The Cottage Grove Sentinel The story of the Cottage Grove softball team so far is not about how bad the Lions were beaten in their fi rst three games of the season, but how those losses fail to deter Cottage Grove from putting in work on the fi eld. The Lions opened up their sea- son at North Bend, where they lost in a brutal 22-1 rout. They then traveled to Creswell, where they suffered another harsh loss, 19-1. Then Cottage Grove went to Philomath, where similar de- fensive struggles occurred and the Warriors ran away with a 17-1 win. There is currently an underly- ing issue that makes the Lions struggle in each game. Cottage Grove’s Head Coach Cheryl Frieze attributes the defensive struggles to the young and in- experienced pitchers. This is not to say the blame is cast only on these pitchers; after all, there’s not much offensive production either. But when there aren’t any experienced pitchers on the mound, the result can be crip- pling. Since the fi rst game, there have been a large amount of walks, including walks via ac- cidentally hitting the batter. Frieze and her team are not discouraged by this, however. The game plan is to get the de- fense to step up and to back up their pitcher. Please see SOFTBALL, Page 2B Photo by Gary Ordway Cottage Grove's pitching game will be an aspect that will see improvement with time. Lions down Cascade, fall to Philomath With one win and one loss, Cottage Grove can see what they do best and what they need to work on BY SAM WRIGHT The Cottage Grove Sentinel With the cancellation of the Siuslaw game, the Cottage Grove Lions debuted their 2016 season against Cascade on St. Patrick’s Day. Coming into the game, Cottage Grove boasted fi ve experienced upperclassmen with great offensive potential at the plate. However, the Cougars and Lions were deadlocked through the majority of the game. By the top of the fourth in- ning, junior pitcher Brett Ol- livant had yet to give up a hit. This allowed the Lions to take an early 1-0 lead at the bottom of the fourth. Cottage Grove shut out the Cougars through fi ve straight innings and earned another run in the fi fth to increase their lead to 2-0. But at the top of the sixth, Ollivant and the Lions found themselves trying to fi ght off a Cascade rally. After giving up two hits, one with an RBI, Head Coach Dan Geiszler took out Ollivant to rest his arm, and freshman Wyatt Sayles took the mound. Sayles gave up one more run before shutting down the sixth inning. The Lions couldn’t get on base in the bottom of the sixth inning, but the defensive play made sure that the Cougars wouldn’t take the lead. In the bottom of the seventh, the Lions had two runners on second and third base. With a win in sight, senior Peyton Pre- sley stood up to the plate and smacked a deep ball into center fi eld, just missing the fence. The hit effectively ended the game and the Lions won 3-2. Photo by Sam Wright Jaydin Osban foul-tips the ball against Philomath. The junior had a .250 batting average on the game. Cottage Grove had only three players in their lineup that didn’t get a hit against Cascade. The top hitters were Presley with a batting average of .750, senior Hunter Harris with .667 and Ollivant with .500. In total the Lions’ batting average came out to .357. Geiszler knows who his top hitters are, so he says he’s look- ing to see which of the younger players will step up. “We’ve got fi ve guys that I know can hit,” he said, “now we just need to see if the other four can perform as well.” The Lions then traveled to Philomath the very next day to play the Warriors, where they played a game with an entirely different pace. Philomath scored three runs during the fi rst inning. The over- all pitching by the Lions wasn’t as sharp as Geiszler would have hoped, but they weren’t out of the fi ght yet. At the top of the third, the Lions got on base four times and rallied to get three runs and tie the game. Cottage Grove gave up one more run in the fourth inning, but it seemed like their defense would hold the Warriors to under fi ve. But then the fi fth inning occurred, and Cottage Grove seemed to be on their way to a win but unravel- ing in the bottom of the inning. The Lions racked up fi ve runs in the top of the fi fth and took a solid 8-4 lead over Philomath. But the Warriors answered back and answered hard. Junior Jay- din Osban took the mound in the fi fth inning but soon had to step down after giving up six runs on four hits. Philomath racked up eight runs in the bot- tom of the fi fth and put the game out of reach. “Our pitching wasn’t very good against them,” he said. The Lions walked a total of nine bat- ters, a few errors led to some un- earned runs, and the Lions fell short, losing 12-8. Although Cottage Grove ended up surrendering 12 total runs, racking up eight runs is still encouraging. Geiszler feels positive about his team and their ability to win. “I feel pretty good. We’re hitting the ball really, well and overall we’re fi elding and throwing the ball very well,” he said. As the season progresses, Geiszler will watch for younger players maturing and gaining experience to help the more vet- eran players.