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.