B
S PORTS
Section B
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 2017
South Lane County Sports and Recreation
Contact Sports, 942-3325 or e-mail sports@cgsentinel.com
Big shoes to fi ll for Lions' baseball
With last year's
seniors gone, can
Cottage Grove snag
another Sky-Em
title with the help of
Coach Geiszler?
By Sam Wright
sports@cgsentinel.com
Lions baseball returns this
spring on Friday, March 17, and
Cottage Grove will look to put
on another historic season like it
did in 2016. With the departure
of a lot of strong and impact-
ful seniors, Cottage Grove will
have to step up if the team hopes
to take home another league ti-
tle.
Big names like Payton Pres-
ley, Hunter Harris, Bryce Allen,
Lucas Ward and Ryan East will
no longer be on the roster, leav-
ing it up to the younger, but now
more veteran players, to lead the
way.
But before we jump into the
upcoming season, it’s import-
ant to look back on last season
to see what the Lions will miss
this year and also what they will
retain.
Last year, Cottage Grove
swept the special awards in the
All-League roster, meaning that
the Lions took home the Sky-
Em Coach of the Year, Pitcher
of the Year and Player of the
Year awards.
Head Coach Dan Geiszler
was the 2016 Sky-Em Coach
of the Year, an honor which,
more often than not, comes with
a league title. But that is not to
dismiss or devalue the impact
of Geiszler. The head coach in-
stilled an aggressive mindset in
which stealing bases became a
The Lions' baseball team gathers around home plate to congratulate Payton Presley on his second home run of the year. Cottage Grove will be without Presley this year, and the team will look for
the next impactful player on the roster.
top priority once runners were and foremost, you have to get on and Ward had a .329, both play-
on base. Cottage Grove led the base. The Lions held an overall ers had 25 RBIs each.
But now that the players with
league with 108 stolen bases in batting average of .286, on par
just 28 games over the course with the national average. How- the strongest batting perfor-
of the season. That’s more than ever, stars on the team such as mances are no longer eligible,
double the national average for Presley consistently boosted the there will need to be someone
team.
else to fi ll those shoes. That
high school baseball teams.
Presley fi nished his last sea- someone could potentially be
“It’s something we really fo-
cus on and we’ll take any op- son at Cottage Grove with a current senior Brett Ollivant.
Ollivant fi nished his junior
portunity given to us,” Geiszler .500 batting average (getting 48
hits on 96 at-bats). This includ- year with a batting average of
said last year.
But it wasn’t just base run- ed two homeruns, 12 doubles .308, the highest average after
ning that gave Cottage Grove its and 27 RBIs.
Please see BASEBALL, Page 2B
Harris batted a .366 average,
numerous runs each game. First
Athletes of the Week
South Valley Athletic's fi fth and sixth-grade
basketball champions
Track returns after last year's
historic title-winning season
Team Orange Crush
Front row: Kalen Rinck and Rylan Springer
Back row: Coach Boyd Rinck, Jaedon Lindsay, Tristan Kane,
Bryent Baros, Jordan Wilson, Javin Hemenway, Coach Brian
Kane.
Team: Navy Seals
Left to right: Coach Tom Perkins, Izzy Stere, Eliana Piltz,
Selena Matney, Jerzie Epperson, Payton Bickford, Summer
Lebow, Haylee Sowa and Coach Dewey Epperson.
Hanna Albrecht qualifi ed for state in four different races last season. The senior will now look to out-perform herself this year.
The girls' strongest runners have returned, but can the boys take another Sky-Em title with-
out the record-setting seniors that graduated?
By Sam Wright
sports@cgsentinel.com
Around 80 athletes are on the
roster for Cottage Grove’s track
and fi eld team, an accomplish-
ment that Head Coach Ricky
Knutson calls “a great start.”
These 80 athletes fi nd them-
selves in one of the greatest eras
for CGHS track and fi eld, and
last year’s record-setting season
has placed a tall order for the
team.
The boys are coming off of
the best team fi nish since 1977.
The 2016 boys track and fi eld
team took fi rst place in the Sky-
Em League and fi nished in fi fth
place in the state meet at Hay-
ward Field.
Cottage Grove will be miss-
ing several strong contributors
that were seniors last year. At
the district meet, then-senior
Connor Howard broke records
and put on the story of the sea-
son by taking gold in the 100,
200 and 400-meter sprints, not
to mention a silver medal in the
4x100-meter relay.
Howard held the third-fast-
est 100-meter sprint time with
11.22 seconds before going into
last year’s district meet, and he
broke his personal record by
running 11.12 in the prelimi-
naries and 11.15 in the fi nals.
After fi nishing third in the pre-
liminary race for the 200-meter
dash, Howard burst back out
and took fi rst place in the fi nals
with a time of 22.95 seconds.
“He should be named athlete
of the year for what he did,”
Knutson said of Howard’s per-
formance.
Although Howard’s relay
team took second place in the
4x100, the team fi nished in
43.72 seconds and broke a Cot-
tage Grove record that had been
standing for 12 years. Howard
accomplished all of this in a
league that had four sprinters
ranked in the top 10 for 4A
schools.
Cottage Grove will also miss
its dominance in high hurdles,
where Michael Tharpe fl our-
ished in his fi nal year at Cottage
Grove. Tharpe won gold in the
110-meter high hurdles with a
time of 14.98 seconds, achiev-
ing his goal of breaking the
15-second mark. He also joined
Howard in the 100-meter sprint
with a time of 11.30 seconds
(automatically qualifying for
state).
But Knutson and his team do
not despair without these key
athletes.
“We are hoping to have more
of a reload mentality as op-
posed to a rebuilding one,” he
said. The Lions will return with
Tucker Porter, who placed at
state in the triple jump, along
with others such as Konrad
Raum who qualifi ed for state
in the 3000-meter race. The
record-setting relay team will
only bring back Jacob Woods,
but Knutson says he will have
help from sprinters and jumpers
such as Chad Bottorff, Hayden
Glenn, Cooper Ladd, Erik Giff-
en and Juice Clafl en. Many of
these names were prevalent
Please see TRACK & FIELD, Page 2B
Roseburg football team looks to
Cottage Grove to establish roster
The Roseburg Valley Thun-
der football team is an opportu-
nity for football athletes to play
at the semi-pro level during the
winter and summer. With less
daylight during the winter, the
team’s roster dwindled.
“People weren’t getting off
of work until after it was dark,
so a lot of them weren’t able to
play,” said Rick Winkley. The
team had about 40 players at
one point, but as winter came,
the Thunder were playing with
only 14 players.
To buff up the roster, Winkley
has taken to Cottage Grove,
where he hopes to garner inter-
est and participation from CG
football players.
“This is a man’s league; it’s
not for the weak or pretenders,”
the team posted on its Facebook
page. “Players come and go on
these teams because they start
out thinking it’s high school. I
assure you, it’s not.”
The team plays in a full-con-
tact semi-pro league and Win-
kley is looking to create a
powerhouse within the state of
Oregon.
“I challenge the young men
to come out and help build the
power house team that has elud-
ed us since semi-pro was in-
troduced back in the mid 90s,”
Winkley wrote.
The team is now accepting
summer league sign-ups and
daily conditioning is scheduled
to start on April 3. Interested
football enthusiasts are encour-
aged to contact Winkley at 541-
817-6065.