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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (July 25, 2018)
Sports & recreation Cottage Grove Sentinel Wednesday, July 25, 2018 South Lane County Sports and Recreation Rodgers named North Douglas head coach Section B Contact Sports, 942-3325 or e-mail zsilva@cgsentinel.com Champions lead the way Former Riddle coach headed to Drain By Zach Silva zsilva@cgsentinel.com A break from coaching was on the horizon for Rocky Rodgers. Until it wasn’t. The former Riddle football and girls’ basketball coach is taking his talents to Drain where he will take over as head football coach for North Douglas. He took the position earlier this month and he will also be working as a groundskeeper for the school district. “I was actually going to take a couple years off from coaching football and just watch my son, he’s going to be a sophomore, and my daughter is going to be a seventh grader. And we were looking to relocate and I’ve known (North Douglas athletic director and for- mer football coach JJ Mast) through coaching and stuff like that and I saw the North Douglas job was open so I called him up and we talk- ed and it just, at the time, it felt like it would be a good fit and maybe it wasn’t time for me to hang it up yet,” Rod- gers told The Sentinel in a phone interview last week. Rodgers was head coach at Riddle for the past four sea- sons where he finished with a record of 11-24. He will be replacing Mast who was on the football coaching staff at North Douglas for 16 years and served as head coach for the past five seasons. Since dropping down to 1A in 2014, the Warriors have made the playoffs each year including a trip to the semi- finals in 2016. “There is a lot of pres- sure… The community ex- pects you to be good every year. They expect you to make those playoff runs. But you know, I also think that’s what makes the job enticing, too,” said Rodgers. “You can coach at a place forever and pretty soon you start losing interest and pretty soon you do the bare minimum to get by and now this is a whole new challenge. I got to keep this program on top.” Rodgers, who has also been on coaching staffs at Bandon and Douglas, stood out because he, unlike oth- ers, has experience coaching eight-man football. “At first (eight-man expe- rience) was a real priority and then you realize, boy, there’s not as many of them out there. Then you’re look- ing for a good football guy, someone who can be re- sponsible with the kids,” said Mast. Mast noted that what made Rodgers a good candi- date was the fact that they see the game in similar ways and they utilize similar schemes. With the bulk of the last year’s team coming back this season (there were just four seniors on last year’s roster) the Warriors are looking to avoid a rocky start of Rodg- ers’ time at North Douglas. “We have a really good group coming back and I didn’t want them to have to start over from square one learning something com- pletely different. A lot of those things kind of fell in. Talking to (Rodgers) it felt like this is the right guy for us,” said Mast. PHOTO BY ZACH SILVA/CG SENTINEL Cottage Grove football players from last year’s state championship winning team wave to the crowd and give out candy while serving as the grand marshals for the Bohemia Mining Days Grand Miners Parade. CG Lake hosts eighth-annual Tri at the Grove A wave of swimmers start the Tri at the Grove at Cottage Grove Lake on Saturday morning. By Zach Silva zsilva@cgsentinel.com More than 400 participants compete in different iterations of the triathlon on Saturday With a warm summer morn- ing and over 400 racers, Satur- day at Cottage Grove Lake was packed full of biking, swimming and running in the eighth-an- nual Tri at the Grove. In addition to various dis- tance of the traditional triath- lon, the Tri at the Grove in- cludes duathlons that featured biking and swimming or biking and running. This year, a paddle triathlon — that replaces swim- ming with a trip around the lake on a kayak or paddle board — was added as was a kids’ race for children starting at age sev- en and a splash and dash that includes a 25-meter swim and 250 meter run for kids starting at 4-years-old. “We try and look at every- thing with the same goals… and that is to create a safe and fun environment for people to come out and do a healthy, active ac- tivity. Something that gets them out and moving in life,” said event organizer Blair Bronson. From first timers, in whatev- er age group they may reside, to the professionals that have become regulars at the event, Bronson is looking to make sure that the competitors who come enjoy their experience. “There’s a lot of pieces to the puzzle and to make a really good event those pieces all have to come together,” said Bron- son. “It is having a great venue — which is certainly something we have there at Cottage Grove Lake, Lakeside Park — beautiful area, good water, good roads.” This year the race continued to grow in participants but, Bronson notes that it has hit capacity for what the space can provide for a one day race. “To go from here when you’re limited on transition size, you have to start looking at two-day events and things like that. And right now, that’s not something we’re looking at for this one,” he said. “It certainly has the poten- tial, we could sell 400 people out two-days in a row, add a long course and continue to grow the number of people that are com- ing in for it.” For the race itself, profes- sional triathletes such as Guy Crawford who competed in the Olympic distance continued the tradition of competing in non- sensical games between each leg. This included a hula hoop competition, a peanut butter and jelly making contest and taking over as emcee for 30 sec- onds. The day was not without fault as there were some problems with the clock. “The timing company had some issues with their equip- ment so it is going to take us a little longer than usual to get re- sults up and the staff and volun- teers did a great job of jumping in and once we heard there was an issue we put the backup plan into place and activated it very quickly,” said Bronson. “But it’s one of those things that it’s not a piece of the puzzle that we have much control over but it’s im- portant to us to make sure that we deliver the best event possi- ble.” The 2019 Tri at the Grove will be held on either the third or fourth Saturday in July. Winebarger picks up win at CG Speedway By Ben Deatherage Cottage Grove Speedway Friday, July 20th would be the open- ing night of the 2018 Mark Howard MemorialModified Nationals at Cottage Grove Speedway. Thirty-one Mohawk Metal IMCA Modifieds comprised the field representing the states of Oregon and Washington. The IMCA Sport Mods and Street Stocks were also in attendance during the evening. Albany youngster Bricen James would set sail on the initial green flag in the Mohawk Metal IMCA Modifieds. James held onto the top spot until he had a mis- hap on lap nineteen when he briefly went off of the top of turn four. It would give the lead to Collen Winebarger. Collen Winebarger, from Corbett, went on to go to pick up the victory for his first win at CGS this year. Bricen James was second over third finishing Nick Trenchard, of Klamath Falls in the Rich and Nikki Biehn owned entry. The top five would be rounded up by Stayton’s Grey Ferrando, by way of the B Main, in fourth and fifth finishing John Campos, from Keizer. Grey Ferrando won the consolation feature while Collen Winebarger was vic- torious in the Race Of Champions. Athletes of the Week Matt Sanders had an incredible race in the IMCA Sport Mods. Sanders, from Brookings, would keep his mount in front of the rest of the field for the vast majority of time. However, coming to the white flag Jorddon Braaten would edge his way past the leader and secured the lead. Central Point’s Braaten would win his fifth victo- ry at Cottage Grove, in 2018. Sanders would finish second but un- fortunately, he would not pass post- tech so the runner-up went to Medford youngster Braxton Possinger. Isaac Sand- ers, also of Brookings, ended his night third followed by Phoenix native Justin This week’s athletes of the week are the competitors in the Bohemia Mining Days Gold Rush 5K. Mike Brown took first on the men’s side while Renata Kamakura was the first woman to finish. For complete results see B2. McCreadie, in fourth. Springfield’s Dan- iel Ray wrapped up the top five in fifth. In the Street Stocks David Schmidt would take care of business. The Junction City veteran lead every single lap of the main event despite being challenged on several occasions. Schmidt kept all chal- lengers in check to win his first feature of the year. Creswell chauffeur Garrett Barth was second over Hunter Bloom, from Eugene, in third. Cottage Grove’s Ray Bloom got fourth over fifth finishing Me- lissa Adams, making the long trip from Yakima, Wash. A group of racers make their way through the Gold Dash on Saturday night. PHOTO C/O JIM SETTELMEYER
