B
S PORTS
Section B
Rain, rain
won't go
away
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
South Lane County Sports and Recreation
Contact Sports, 942-3325 or e-mail zsilva@cgsentinel.com
Lions drop two games in opening week
Rain fi lls the
opening week of the
spring season
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
A wet opening week to
the spring sports season saw
cancelled baseball and soft-
ball games across the region.
The Cottage Grove base-
ball team was able to get
in their opening game on
Tuesday but saw their home
opener last Thursday can-
celled and rescheduled for
this Thursday.. The Cottage
Grove softball team was
in a similar boat as their
scheduled home opener on
Tuesday was cancelled be-
fore they were able to play
their fi rst game last Friday at
Douglas.
The Elkton/Yoncalla teams
both saw one game cancelled
in the week and the other was
playable. For the Warriors of
North Douglas, they did not
have as good of luck with the
weather as both baseball and
softball had all three of their
scheduled games cancelled
last week.
With the forecast calling
for 100 percent chance of
precipitation today, and a
90 percent chance on both
Thursday and Friday, the up-
coming week does not look
promising for the games that
are to come.
How-to
(maybe)
win your
bracket
pool
UPDATE
Things did not work
out as planned
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
Now. I think just as a gen-
eral rule brackets, much like
fantasy football teams, are
something that other people
really don’t care about. But
since I wrote about how to
have a successful bracket
last week, I feel compelled to
provide an update about the
state of my own bracket.
The premise of my entire
column last week was that
I used to know things about
college basketball and my
NCAA tournament brack-
et would go poorly. Using
simple logic, I then assumed
that by knowing signifi cantly
less about this year’s college
basketball teams, my brack-
et would then, by default, do
much better.
I was – in a word – wrong.
The state of my bracket is –
and apparently always will
be – in a state of turmoil.
It would be easy to think
that with all of the upsets that
have taken place this tour-
nament (I’m looking at you
UMBC) that everyone would
be doing poorly which would
mean that I am no worse than
anyone else. I, too, assumed
that but at the end of the fi rst
round my bracket was in the
7th percentile in ESPN’s
tournament challenge. That
means of the over 17 million
brackets, there were nearly
16 million better than mine.
Great. At that same moment,
my best friend’s bracket was
in the 99.9th percentile while
my always reliable sister Abe
currently sits in the 96th per-
centile.
Regardless of anything
else, I can say with the ut-
most certainty that next year
will be my year to shine.
PHOTOS BY ZACH SILVA/CG SENTINEL
Cottage Grove's Conner Browning fi res in a strike against Molalla at home on Friday.
Weight lifter and instructor
Andrea Macauley refuses to
be slowed down
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
After opening the season with two
losses, Cottage Grove baseball head
coach Dan Geiszler’s message to the
team is simple: be more competitive.
“After today, I’ll be honest, I’m pret-
ty frustrated. We pitched really well…
We played pretty good defense. But just
the competitiveness – the lack of com-
petitiveness is kind of showing through
in the fi rst week of games,” he said after
Friday’s 2-1 home loss to Molalla.
It was the second time in as many
games that the Lions were in a position
to win but were unable to fi nish. On
Tuesday, it came in the form of Cottage
Grove losing to Henley 9-5 on the road.
The Lions were up on Henley, a team
that fi nished second in state a season ago,
5-0 heading into the fi fth inning before
scoring four runs in the fi fth and seventh
inning, and a run in the sixth, to win 9-5.
“We were up 5-0 going into the fi fth on
a really good team and just gave it away.
Just that lack of fi re and want to get it
done no matter what. And we’re lack-
ing that right now,” said Geiszler. “And
that’s what I told them right there. I just
said, we’ve got to fi nd some guys that are
going to fi nd a way.”
On Friday afternoon at Kelly Field,
Molalla started the game off fast scoring
their only two runs of the game in the top
of the fi rst inning. Conner Browning got
the start for the Lions and he threw 63
pitches in fi ve innings and fi nished with
four strikeouts. Wyatt Sayles pitched the
last two innings and had one strikeout
and gave up no runs.
A Sayles single in the bottom of the
fourth, got the bats moving in the inning
for the Lions and he scored the lone run
of the day for Cottage Grove. The Lions
fi nished the game with two hits.
Down 2-1 heading into the bottom of
the seventh inning, Cottage Grove was
suddenly in a position to tie the game
with runners on fi rst and third and no
outs. In an attempt to get Matt Zumwalt
home from third, Jaxon Simmons bunted
the ball which resulted in a pickle that
saw Zumwalt tagged out but Cottage
Grove runners advance to second and
third with just one out in the inning. A
Koltin Britton strike out followed by a
pop-up from Trey Husko fi nished the
game.
“We’re not asking these guys to hit
homeruns, you know, in that last inning
we had guys in scoring position and we
couldn’t even put the ball in play and
that’s just pretty frustrating,” said Geisz-
ler.
After playing at Pleasant Hill on Mon-
day (after our print deadline; results in
next week’s paper), the Lions now have
fi ve games in the next four days. Geiszler
sees this stretch of games as a time for
the team to begin to show what they can
bring to the table for the team.
“That’s exactly what our other con-
versation was: where do we go from
here. And that’s next week in practice
and games we’re going to fi nd out who
can compete and if you can’t compete,
you’re not going to play,” he said.
“That’s a hard you know truth and a
hard fact but you know that’s where
we’re at right now and if we can fi nd nine
people that are going to compete, they’re
going to play and that’s what next week
is about. It’s 100 percent about compet-
ing in practice, in games and the nine
that compete are going to rise to the top
and the ones that can’t aren’t. And that’s
where we’re at.”
Molalla's Damian Pingo makes a diving tag on Cottage Grove's Matt Zumwalt in the bottom of
the seventh inning.
Team competition kicks-off track season for Cottage Grove
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
PHOTOS BY ZACH SILVA/CG SENTINEL
Zarah Wemple (right) just edges out Matty Ladd (left) in the 100 on Friday.
Athletes of
the Week
The intra-squad track and fi eld meet to kick
off the Cottage Grove season was built around
a ruse. What was disguised as a fun competi-
tion of teams within the greater team – com-
plete with fun team names and face paint –
was ultimately a way to see how the runners,
jumpers and throwers stacked up against each
other before the season begins.
“I remember being in high school and we
had time trials some times and I hated it. I was
a distance runner, I don’t want to run the 100
and the 400, but they’re all excited to do it to-
day so in some ways we kind of trick them into
having fun with the time trial aspect of it,” said
head coach Ricky Knutson.
Male and female captains were voted on and
then paired up to create four teams within the
greater track team. The captains then drafted
the rest of their squad from the 103 athletes
that are out for track this season. This creat-
ed four teams: Blue or Bust, Bruiser Brigade,
2EZ, and G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time) that
will compete in events throughout the season.
This week’s athletes of the week are the
Cottage Grove softball team. The Lions
won their opening game of the season
on Friday 15-10. Last season, the team
never scored double-digit runs in one
game and scored 50 runs on the entire
season. This win matches the amount
of wins the team had over the last two
seasons.
“The fi rst year I took over as head coach in
2012 I met with the seniors and I asked them
what do we need to do a better job of and
[team-building] was one of the biggest things
that came up. So the squad competition stuff
has kind of evolved since then,” said Knutson.
The competitions, often inspired by chal-
lenges from the TV show “Survivor” and other
various gameshows, vary throughout the sea-
son but the teams stay the same. The team that
places the highest at the end of the season is
commemorated with a plaque and the mem-
bers of the team get t-shirts. As the captains of
the team's want to win, strategy for drafting on
their team came into play.
“We wanted all-around athletes. Last year
we made some picks with people that were
very specifi c in one thing. Well they did really
well in their respective [event], when we had
squad competitions which are usually pretty
silly stuff we didn’t have a good balance. So
we really wanted people that were dynamic
and versatile in multiple things,” said senior
Cooper Ladd who, for the second year in a
row, is a captain of G.O.A.T. with teammate
Zarah Wemple.
CG Track continued on B3