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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 13, 2017)
B S PORTS Section B Wednesday, September 13, 2017 South Lane County Sports and Recreation CGHS promotes Spirit Contact Sports, 942-3325 or e-mail sports@cgsentinel.com Home opener sees Lions roar to win By Zach Silva While high school students are constantly bombarded with a refrain saying to stay off their phones, Cottage Grove High School is looking to utilize this screen time to create school spirit. “Kids are always on their phones and I’m a big propo- nent of going to where your clientele is,” said Chris Wells who has a number of roles at CGHS including a focus on media. And this was the key idea to the school using an app called Spirit. The app acts as a glori- fi ed calendar that lists all of the school sponsored events that are taking place; from outdoor club to a soccer game, every- thing is listed. Students and staff are then instructed to check-in to these events so that they get points for them personally and for their class. To check-in, the app has to see that the indi- vidual is physically at the lo- cation of the event for them to be awarded points. At the end of the year individuals and the class that does the best will be awarded for their school spirit. “The overall goal is to give a sense of connectedness and you know kind of put our school in the pocket of every kid so they can see who is go- ing to what, what’s going on, how they can interact with the school,” said Wells. The idea was pitched to Wells by a junior on student council who heard about the app at a conference with stu- dent councils from around the state. From there the school signed up and create events through it. While smart phones are booming in popularity, Wells and the team were aware that not all students have access to these devices. “We kind of anticipate some equity issues around it and we acknowledge that not ev- ery kid will have a phone and we can still run the system through other devices like our computers and stuff like that… We’re trying to be really mind- ful about our kids and what they come to school with,” said Wells. The ultimate goal is to pro- mote the school and to get students involved in activities around campus. “We’re trying to really make it worth it for kids to take their time and enjoy their school be- cause the statistics behind it, the more kids interact the more they are around each other the less chance they have of being bullied or being bullies,” said Wells. Cottage Grove routs Madras but are not satisfi ed with the result on the fi eld By Zach Silva zsilva@cgsentinel.com While the scoreboard showed that Cottage Grove won 49-13 in a game that saw the Lions overpower Madras in every facet of the game, you would not have known it simply by seeing the team or coaches after the game. “Like I told the guys, I’m only disappointed because I know we can do better,” said head coach Gary Rob- erts. “If we were as good as we can be then I would just nod my head and tell them I guess that’s all we’ve got. I think we can better than what we are. I know we can be better than what we were tonight.“ Regardless of how the team felt things went, the Li- ons started strong right out of the gate. After the de- fense forced a fi rst drive three and out it took one play on offense for the Lions to score on a Jacob Woods 48 yard run. The defense got a quick stop which then led to a four play drive that went 82 yards in 45 seconds, and featured a 52 yard run by Chad Bottorf, and put the Lions up 14-0. The Lions continued to roll from all angles. Bottorf rushed for another touchdown and got an interception and the offense piled it on. Quarterback Dylan Graves went seven-for-eight through the air with a touchdown and rushed for a pair of scores. The Lions went to the locker room at halftime up 42-0. In their fi rst two games of the season, they have outscored opponents 85-0 in the fi rst half. Regardless of the scoreboard, Roberts did not like the way his team was carrying itself. “We preach the little things all the time to the kids. All the time about body language, about hustling around, about taking pride in what you do and I don’t think we did that tonight all the time,” said Roberts who noted that he felt a shift in the team attitude during the second quarter. The team was also aware of this shift. Bottorff, who ended the game with 170 yards rushing on ten carries, keyed in on the lack of attention to detail. “It’s like we did the big picture well but we didn’t get it tuned in the end. Like we still need to work on all the little things because that’s what matters most,” he said. While the Lions heavily leaned on their backup units, the second half featured penalties and a turn- over; Madras ended up outscoring Cottage Grove 14-7 in the half. “We just have better players than they do. I thought that our kids just kind of went through the motions,” said Roberts. “That will be good enough against Ma- dras but is it going to be good enough against Scap- poose? Our league opponents? Our kids need to have a little bit more pride in themselves and what their job is.” The Lions will fi nd out how they measure up when they travel to Scappoose on Friday. The Indians have jumped out to a 2-0 start and have outscored their op- ponents 113-19 in their fi rst two games. The teams met last year and the Lions won 24-21. “[Our team] knows when they play Scappoose they are playing one of the premier programs in class 4A. And they know that they have to come with their ‘A’ game,” said Roberts. PHOTO BY JORDAN HAGEWOOD/CHANDLER BASCUE PHOTO BY JORDAN HAGEWOOD/CHANDLER BASCUE Jacob Woods evades a Madras defender. Athletes of the Week PHOTO BY JORDAN HAGEWOOD/CHANDLER BASCUE Cottage Grove's Chad Bottorff springs past the Madras defense on his way to rushing for 170 yards in the game on Friday. The Lions defense drop Madras' running back Treyvon Easterling for a loss. This week's athletes of the week were Cottage Grove waterpolo players MJ Raade (left) and Mikayla Baird (right). The duo scored a combined 12 goals against Sheldon last Tuesday to beat the Irish 13-7. For more information on waterpolo and a complete roundup of last week's games across all sports, turn to A4. JOIN US SEPTEMBER 16TH FOR 2 GREAT EVENTS CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHT #2 Event Classes: Todd’s Auto Body Sprints, IMCA Modifi eds, IMCA Sports Mods DEMOLITION DERBY CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK zsilva@cgsentinel.com