B
S PORTS
Section B
Lions
prepare
for
playoff s
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
South Lane County Sports and Recreation
Contact Sports, 942-3325 or e-mail sports@cgsentinel.com
Lamb takes wrestling state title
Cottage Grove
boys and girls
fi nish season off
with wins
By Zach Silva
A win on senior night and
in the last game of the regular
season, has both the Cottage
Grove girls and boys basket-
ball teams ready for the up-
coming state tournament.
The girls, played a tie-
breaker game against Junc-
tion City last night (the game
happened after print deadline
so look for updates on twit-
ter, @sports_cgs, or in next
week’s paper) to determine
who the top team coming out
of the Sky-Em league is. A
victory sets the winning team
up with a fi rst round bye and
the losing team will host a
game on Friday.
But before the team could
get there, they fi rst had to
take care of their fi nal two
league games. On Tuesday,
they did all that and more
as they eviscerated Sweet
Home 90-26 in their last
home game of the season.
The seniors went out with a
bang as Keara Murphy fi n-
ished with 28 points and Ma-
ria Pardee added 18. Soph-
omore Reilly Kelty had 16
points for the Lions.
Their winning ways con-
tinued on Friday as they beat
Elmira 59-53 in the fi nal reg-
ular season game of the year.
With Ema Gardner back af-
ter a concussion, she led the
way with 25 points to clinch
a share of the league title.
On the boys’ side, the Li-
ons were able to hold off
Sweet Home for a 63-50 win
on Tuesday night. Despite
missed shots, Cottage Grove
was able to take control of
the game.
“This group of seniors,
they play hard no matter
what. They might not be able
to put the ball in the hole at
times, they might give up
some buckets on defense but
they play hard. And I think
that’s the things I’m most
proud of of these kids. They
go hard,” said head coach
Nick Finley.
“If we were on we would
have scored 80. We were off,
a lot of our shooters were
off.”
Jesse Ellingworth fi nished
with 25 points.
On Friday, the Lions beat
Elmira 63-57. Erick Giffen
led the way with 28 points.
Trenton Grover helped fi n-
ished the job for the team as
he hit fi ve threes in the fourth
quarter.
The boys fi nished third in
the Sky-Em league and will
play on either Friday or Sat-
urday. The schedule will be
determined Tuesday night.
Cottage Grove
Basketball Players
on the Sky-Em All-
League Teams:
Boys First Team:
Jesse Ellingworth
Erick Giffenn
Boys Honorable
Mention:
DeJean Alonzo
Trenton Grover
Girls First Team:
Reilly Kelty
Girls Second Team:
Ema Gardner
Keara Murphy
Girls Honorable
Mention:
Tara Child
PHOTO BY ZACH SILVA/CG SENTINEL
Cottage Grove's Adam Lamb in his fi rst round match of the state tournament.
Cottage Grove's Adam Lamb wins the
state wrestling title
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
With no illness or injuries to stymie his chances, it
was smooth sailing to a wrestling state championship
for Cottage Grove’s Adam Lamb. After setbacks in
years past, Lamb, a senior, took home the 285-pound
weight class tittle in the 4A classifi cation on Saturday
night at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland to
earn the fi fth individual title in CGHS history.
“It’s a big deal to me. Every year that comes around
state I’m either breaking my arm or getting sick, so this
[was] my last chance and I’m really trying my best to
get there and make Cottage Grove proud,” said Lamb.
In the championship, it was Lamb, the fi fth seed,
pinning top seed John Dover from Junction City. Lamb
defeated Dover earlier this season at a tournament in
Junction City.
The message for Lamb from his coaches throughout
the tournament was just to do what he has been doing
all season.
“Wrestle his match. When we get to this point, all
the coaching is done in the room, right? And we talk-
ed about it, you earn the trophies in the practice room,
you just come here to collect them,” said Cottage Grove
wrestling coach Richard Herzog. “So you get out there
and now it’s time to put all that together and wrestle
with authority and that’s what he did.”
The state tournament began Friday morning when
Lamb defeated Marshfi eld’s Phillip Hernandez.
“From here if he beats him he goes three seed, he
beats that he goes two seed and if he beats that then hy-
pothetically has the one seed. So he’s just got to wrestle
the next six minutes every time,” said Herzog.
Lamb stands atop the podium as a champion on Satruday
night.
PHOTO C/O CHRIS JOYCE
The only Lion to advance to the quarterfi nals, Lamb
then made quick work of Ontario’s Antonio Sanders as
he pinned him in just 21 seconds.
“He initiated the moves and so I’ll just take whatever
he wanted to do and he wanted to throw himself on his
back so I held him there,” said Lamb.
The victory secured Lamb a spot in Saturday’s semi-
fi nal. But the victory only made the dream of winning a
state tittle more clear.
“I think both for Adam and everyone around him ex-
pected Adam to place at state. But because of unfortu-
nate things it hasn’t happened. So for him, right, that’s
the mission. With that match he placed. So now how
high? We have expectations that he wins this thing.
That’s if we fall short then it is short. He is that caliber,
he is that good,” said Herzog.
Lamb then faced two-seed Caleb Parrott from Crook
County and defeated him by fall in 2:33 to move to the
championship.
“That’s what you want to do as a senior is to compete
at your highest level, compete at the state tournament
and be successful at the state tournament,” said Cottage
Grove coach Chris Joyce.
The Lions had four other wrestlers compete at state,
Chance Ralston (120), Jacob Dunn (138), Nate Farrell
(160) and Drew Swenson (160). After losing in the
fi rst round, these wrestlers were then in the consolation
round and did not place.
Cottage Grove swimming competes at state
PHOTO BY ZACH SILVA/CG SENTINEL
Cottage Grove's Ian Dukes advances to the breaststroke fi nal.
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
With the goal to do well at the dis-
trict swim meet this season, for Cottage
Grove swimming coach Tyson Pilling
any success at state was an added bonus
for the team.
“We wanted to see how well they
could do because we did our…taper for
districts. And then we weren’t expecting
Athlete of
the Week
a ton out of state and so it’s nice to see
some times the kids surprise us,” said
Pilling on Friday after the fi rst day of
the OSAA State Swimming Champion-
ships at Mt. Hood Community College
in Gresham. The Lions had participants
in seven different events.
The top performance for Cottage
Grove came from Ian Dukes in the 100-
yard breaststroke. Dukes was the lone
Lion to advance to Saturday’s fi nals
PHOTO BY ZACH SILVA/CG SENTINEL
Ethan Burleson competes in the 100 yard backstroke on Friday in Gresham.
where he took fi fth in a time of 103.08.
His fi nals time bested his personal record
time that he had set in Friday’s prelim. In
that race, Dukes edged out the 7th place
fi nisher by just .16 seconds.
Dukes also competed in the 200 yard
IM where he fi nished 11th and was part
of the 400-yard freestyle relay team that
included Ethan Burleson, Jacob Justis
and Konrad Raum that fi nished 11th in
qualifying. Burleson took 8th in the 200-
This week’s athlete of the week is
Cottage Grove’s Ema Gardner.
After being out with a concussion
for four games, Gardner made
her presence felt in her fi rst game
back last Friday against Elmira
when she scored 25 points and
was 10/10 from the fi eld.
yard freestyle and 11th in the 100-yard
backstroke. On the girls’ side, MJ Raade
competed in the 200 freestyle where she
fi nished 12th and Mikayla Baird fi nished
in 8th in the 100-yard freestyle.
“Everybody improved,” said Pilling.
“That’s what we wanted. And now we
get ready for next year.”
CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK
zsilva@cgsentinel.com