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