COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL FEBRUARY 20, 2019
3B
SKYLINE from B1
From left: The North Douglas team comes together to celebrate their overtime victory over Days Creek. North Douglas’ Rilie-Jo Olds and Elkton’s Alexis Halstead battle for position down low on Friday
in the semifinals. Elkton’s Samantha McCall hits a lay-up against Pacific on Saturday.
“They just play good defense. They plugged it
up inside, they cover Aspyn (Luzier) so we can’t
shoot. They blanket her like crazy. (North Doug-
las guard) Riley Black, she does a really good job,”
said Parker.
Elkton had 23 turnovers on the game to go
along with shooting eight-of-29 from the field.
The Warriors had 13 turnovers and shot 14-of-29.
“(Elkton) likes to shoot threes so you can get
them out of their comfort zone and then if they
start looking for calls sometimes then the frus-
tration game sets in,” said Davis on his team’s de-
fense. “Whether we foul or not, I don’t think we do
more than anybody else, but we are pretty much
right there all the time. It’s hard to shake and lose
us. I’m just proud of how we defended.”
The North Douglas victory guaranteed the
Warriors a spot at state and a matchup against
Days Creek to determine who gets a first-round
playoff bye. For Elkton, it meant the team was in a
must-win third place game on Saturday with their
season on the line.
Saturday: Elkton vs. Pacific, third-
place game (winner advances to state)
The Elks were out of sync early. Having defeat-
ed Pacific earlier this season 51-27, it was Elkton,
aside from a 6-0 run over the course of 30 sec-
onds, having a hard time finding their footing in
the first half.
“I haven’t figured it out. We’ve been starting
off really poorly. That’s just kind of the way we’ve
been lately, we just don’t get it all going,” said Park-
er. Adding, “I think they put it in cruise control
and then they get to the fourth quarter and they
go, ‘Oh my gosh! It’s close. Maybe we need to start
playing harder now.’”
But on Saturday, that feeling started a quarter
early as the Elks came out of the half on a mission.
The team put together a 25-5 run that stretched
into the final minutes of the game to secure their
spot at state.
Helping guide the offense was sharp-shooter
Luzier who hit three three-pointers in the sec-
ond half to lead the team with 13 points. It was
a balanced attack the rest of the way with Kieryn
Carnes, Samantha McCall and Alexis Halstead
each recording six points.
“When we made that second run in the third
quarter, I called a timeout and it was just to talk to
them and say, ‘Hey, we did this exact same thing
in the first quarter and we let them come back.’ I
said, ‘We can’t let them come back,’” said Parker.
“If you’re a good team, you maintain that, we had
a five-point lead at the time, or you extend it. You
don’t let them come back, you’ve got to play de-
fense. And they did, they did good at that point.”
The Elks locked down the Pirates on defense
and no Pacific player had over eight points and
just four players scored on the night. The Elkton
victory secured the third and final league playoff
spot.
“Third place is where, honestly, I thought, we
would probably be. I was hoping for better. Make
it to state is always a goal, sure. And for here, we’ve
got to play better but who knows, it’s all about
matchups now,” said Parker.
This Wednesday (Feb. 20) Elkton will travel to
Alsea for the first round of the state playoffs. The
two teams met twice this season in December and
Elkton won 54-41 and 58-41. The winner will then
play this weekend on the road against a team with
a first-round bye.
Saturday: North Douglas vs. Days
Creek, championship
No matter the deficit, North Douglas was never
out of the game.
In a battle for Skyline League supremacy, it was
the Warriors putting together a fourth-quarter
rally to defeat Days Creek 29-25 in overtime on
Saturday night.
“What’s nice is to be able to say to these kids –
and we’re down late in the game and in overtime,
we’re down in regulation and have to fight back –
it’s never over until it’s over. And it’s just exciting,”
said head coach Davis. Adding, “That’s a heck of a
district championship game. Their kids, defend-
ing district champions, played really, really well.”
Before it was a heck of a game, it was a battle for
any possible points as the first quarter finished in
a 5-5 tie. While Riley Black’s pair of first quarter
jumpers gave the team a taste of offense, a two-
point second quarter put North Douglas down
11-7 at the break.
Days Creek’s defense just packed the lane inside
and dared North Douglas to shoot jumpers to get
back into the game. Throughout the first-half, the
Warriors’ offense passed the ball around looking
for an opening in the defense that was never there.
“(Days Creek) was going to make us shoot from
the perimeter. Well we decided at halftime we’re
going to have to get to the basket somehow,” said
Davis. Adding, “We really wanted to – because
they had three fouls across the baseline – we want-
ed to attack the baseline as much as we could be-
cause they packed it in.”
Trying to find any offense possible was North
Douglas guard Sofia Alcantar who was relent-
less in her pursuit of the basket. Taking hits and
fighting through contact, Alcantar scored five of
the team’s six points in the quarter. Alcantar fin-
ished the game with seven points along with 10
rebounds.
“She was getting some rebounds, loose balls.
Some ferocity,” Davis said of Alcantar. “Some-
times we force things a little bit but she heard let’s
make something happen, let’s get to the rim, let’s
get them in foul trouble or foul somebody out, so
we appreciate where she is right now.”
Because of the low-scoring nature of the game,
each basket scored had the potential to flip the
game on its head. An opening second-half basket
to cut their deficit to two felt like the game-chang-
er North Douglas needed before Days Creek was
able to extend their league back to a seemingly in-
surmountable six points. Trailing by four entering
the fourth quarter, the Warriors once again found
themselves down six and, at this point, had scored
just 13 points on the game.
The spark the Warriors had been desperately
searching for finally arrived in the pair of defen-
sive plays. On back-to-back plays the team got a
steal and lay-up from Black followed by an Abby
Whipple steal and a Natalie Thompson transition
lay-up to cut the deficit to two.
“It is funny how it swings like that where you’re
just struggling along and you look like you’re in
quicksand and then suddenly a shot ignites you,”
said Davis. “And then we kind of look like our-
selves and we’re flying around again.”
In the game-changing fourth quarter, five dif-
ferent North Douglas players scored. Days Creek's
Moriah Michaels, tied the game with just over
three minutes to play. Neither team scored for the
rest of regulation and the game went to overtime.
In overtime, Days Creek regained the lead with
their only basket of the extra session. Whipple fol-
lowed it up by drilling a three-pointer in the cor-
ner to take the lead for good. Immediately after it
was Alcantar with a steal and fast-break lay-up to
seal the victory and give North Douglas the Sky-
line title.
“We kept battling, kept listening, made some
changes on what we did defensively,” said Davis.
“Just proud of the fact that we could keep our wits
about us enough that we could make some adjust-
ments. That we could make some adjustments and
some of them worked; enough worked for us.”
With the win, North Douglas will now host a
state playoff game at home this weekend.
CGHS from B1
of play until it was again Col-
burn, coming up big as he hit
a pair of free throws to give the
Lions the lead with 30 seconds
left in the game.
“Not many kids are going
to step up and with that at-
mosphere on senior night as a
freshman to knock down a big
three and knock down two huge
free throws to put us up one,”
said Hutchison of Colburn.
“He is a really good player, re-
ally high basketball IQ and that’s
rare in younger kids. When he
should be playing a little bit of
JV2 with his freshmen class, I’m
forcing him to kind of mature at
a quicker rate than those other
freshmen. And he’s stepping up,
SOUTH VALLEY ATHLETICS
SPRING SOCCER:
Cottage Grove freshman Landon Colburn – and the team’s bench – watches his three pointer fly
through the air in the final minutes to give the Lions a fourth quarter lead.
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he’s becoming a leader on this
team as a freshman.”
On the ensuing Marist pos-
session, it was junior Nick Stice
driving the lane and fading away
as he dropped in a jumper with
15 seconds to play to give the
Spartans a one-point victory.
Stice finished with 11 points.
“In the second half he got
himself going a little bit. And we
just were fortunate that he was
able to hit that, like, eight-foot-
er,” said Pollard. “He’s a tough
player, really good player and
he’s had a really good season
and he made a really good shot.
So it was good to see from him.”
Cottage Grove called timeout
but failed to get a shot off on the
possession.
While it is a wrap on the Cot-
tage Grove season, for Hutchi-
son, the third coach in as many
years at Cottage Grove, he is
hopeful for a future centered
around continuity.
“I loved every single kid in that
locker room. They were coach-
able, they played hard. They
were together, it was a great first
year. Besides the record. But it’ll
come,” he said. “That’s laying the
foundation and changing the
culture and it’ll be great that –
knock on wood – they’re going
to see the same face and hear the
same voice next year and that’s
going to do leaps and bounds
for these kids.”