B
S PORTS
Section B
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
South Lane County Sports and Recreation
Contact Sports, 942-3325 or e-mail sports@cgsentinel.com
PHOTO BY ZACH SILVA/COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
W
illy the War-
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
rior is gone.
N o r t h
Douglas High School’s mascot that depicted
a Native American shooting a bow and arrow
is offi cially gone in accordance with the Ore-
gon Depart of Education’s 2012 ruling that all
By Zach Silva
schools with Native American mascots had until
July 1, 2017 to rid themselves of these images.
Schools had the option of working with tribes to
keep the images.
“We decided to go with the removal of the mas-
cot and go mascot-less for the time being,” said
North Douglas principal Scott Yakovich. “There
are some people who are resistant to change who
went to school here and that was there mascot
but really it has not been an issue at all. It really
has been rather smooth.”
During the last week, the school has been
fi nishing up the removal process in accordance
with the impending deadline. The biggest part of
the process was removing the logo from the cen-
ter court of their basketball court. This process
cost the school $25,000. Additionally they had
to paint over an image of the logo in the hallway
and had to get rid of some basketball and foot-
ball jerseys.
The school will continue to be the Warriors.
SUMMER BASEBALL IN COTTAGE GROVE: WINNING OPTIONAL
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
PHOTO BY ZACH SILVA/COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Cottage Grove catches a Marist runner in a pickle in their game last Wednesday.
Athlete of theWeek
Cottage Grove High
School's Wyatt Sayles,
who will be a junior
next year, is currently
playing on the Willa-
mette Valley Titans. This
team consists of some of
the best 16-19 year olds
from around the county.
Sayles has been playing
at pitcher, second base
and outfi eld.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SAYLES FAMILY
When it comes to Cottage Grove High
School baseball summer league, coach Dan
Geiszler is not concerned with how many
wins the team gets.
“We work on fundamentals and we don’t
worry about wins and losses and things like
that. We try to get everyone that is here to
play,” said Geiszler.
Summer league came to an end last week-
end. There were two teams that Geiszler
and the baseball staff coached: a D1 and D2
team. The D1 team consisted of sophomores
and juniors that were involved in the base-
ball program last year and the D2 team was
made up of incoming eighth graders, fresh-
man and sophomores.
Geiszler likes the set-up because it allows the
coaches to see the newcomers and for the incom-
ing players to get a feel for what it is like to play
at the next level. But regardless of level, Geiszler
is trying to get everyone to be more aggressive
when they are on the diamond.
“If we can feel comfortable being aggressive
and making mistakes then the other stuff is going
to come,” said Geiszler. “So many times kids are
afraid to make a mistake and we want them to go
play free of fear of failure.”
With the focus on fun and fundamentals and not
on wins and losses the coaches are not sure what
their record for the summer is. Assistant coach
James Berry stated that he bet that it is “roughly
fi ve hundred.”
Athletic success at North Douglas
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
N
orth Douglas had a successful year
of sports last school year. Volleyball
got second in state, boys basketball
earned the two seed in the state tournament and
the football team went to the semifi nals of the
state tournament.
“This year was the best athletic year by far
since I’ve been here,” said principal Scott Ya-
kovich who has been at the school for 10 years.
While lots of teams did well not one em-
bodied success quite like the softball team.
This year, softball won the state championship
which was the school’s fi rst championship since
the boys basketball team won in 1987.
The team has made playoff runs in the past
year but this year was different even if it didn’t
feel that way at the start of the season.
“We knew they would be competitive and
competitive at a high level but to say we were
going to win a state title I don’t think that any-
body would have put money on that at the be-
ginning of the school year,” said Yakovich.
Head coach Jesse Rice had similar thoughts.
Please see SUCCESS, Page 2B
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