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Cottage Grove Sentinel Sports & Recreation SOUTH LANE COUNTY SPORTS AND RECREATION ‘Road Warriors’ best Bonanza in playoff s North Douglas soft ball team continues road trip into the quarterfi nals • WEDNESDAY | MAY 29, 2019 • B1 CONTACT SPORTS EDITOR ZACH SILVA AT 942-3325 OR ZSILVA@CGSENTINEL.COM Editor’s note: Due to the Memorial Day Holiday, the sports section (that is normally printed on Mondays) was printed on Friday afternoon. This means that the results from the North Douglas baseball and softball state quarterfi nals are not in this edition but will be in next week’s June 5 paper. To read about how the Warriors did, visit cgsentinel.com/sports. North Douglas triumphs over Toledo By Zach Silva zsilva@cgsentinel.com Th e 1A/2A soft ball state playoff s has turned into a tour of Oregon for North Douglas. “Th ey started calling us the Road Warriors because we’re going to have to travel,” said North Douglas head coach Jesse Rice in a phone call from Burns last Th ursday. Aft er losing to sixth- ranked Central Linn (26-4) in the league tournament champi- onship game, the fi ft h- ranked Warriors (25-3), a team that had the best regular season league record, fell to the ninth seed in the state tour- nament. Th e top eight seeds in the state tour- nament, which secures at least one home playoff game, are reserved for league champions. What this meant for the Warriors was – af- ter a fi rst round bye – the team was headed to Bonanza (17-10) for the second round of the state playoff s where they recorded a 12-7 victo- ry and earned a spot in Friday’s quarterfi nal (which came aft er Th e Sentinel’s press dead- line). “Basically we sat down and talked about how we travel well and you know, we don’t get too frustrated. We keep mentally focused and that’s what we talked about,” said Rice. “It doesn’t matter what fi eld we’re on when we’re playing, we still have to do our job and take care of business. We’ve travelled a lot and we’ve been alright.” Aft er the four and a half hour trip to Bonan- za, the Warriors started off strong from the start of the game against the Antlers with three runs in the fi rst inning, in- cluding a pair of home runs from Riley Black and Nicki Derrick. Th e hits kept coming and the North Douglas recorded three more runs in the third inning and six in the fourth in- ning to build-up a 12-0 lead. Th e team fi nished with 15 hits on the day including Derrick with three and Cyndi Dill and Morgan MacDon- ald each with two. Th e Warriors were feeling good. “Actually, I think the problem was we felt too good about it,” said Rice. “We started to relax. We had it set where we could maybe end it in fi ve (innings), 10-run them. Th e girls kind of relaxed and then (Bo- nanza) scored a couple of runs and then we panicked and we made some mistakes. And al- most let them back in the ball game.” A combination of the Warriors taking their collective foot off the gas and Bonanza stepping up saw the Antlers put SOFTBALL see B2 North Douglas pitcher Colter Anderson gets into his wind up on Wednesday in a playoff game against Toledo. Anderson fi nished with eight strikeouts as the team recorded a 4-0 victory to advance to the quarterfi nals. PHOTO BY ZACH SILVA/CG SENTINEL Warriors get home win and advance to the state quarterfi nals By Zach Silva zsilva@cgsentinel.com It was Colter Anderson striking out eight and Bri- an Erickson fi nishing the game out on the mound. It was Cal Parks with a triple and Wyatt Beckham with a double. It was Koldan Frieze scoring two runs and batting in two team- mates. It was another team win for the seventh-ranked North Douglas (21-6) base- ball team. “Th e guys are playing pretty well right now, which is what you hope for at this time of the season. And we’ll keep going until they tell us we can’t,” said North Douglas head coach Jeff Davis aft er Wednesday’s 4-0 home playoff win over 10th-ranked Toledo (17-8). With the victory, the War- riors advance to the state quarterfi nals against Mon- roe on Friday (aft er Th e Sentinel’s press deadline). It was Anderson having success early as he struck out seven of the fi rst nine batters that he faced. With things rolling, Davis made the decision – knowing that if his pitchers went over 45 pitches that they would not be able to pitch on Friday because of the pitch count rule – to keep Anderson in. “You’ve got to go get it and you worry about the next one aft er. You can script it however you want, but it doesn’t always go ac- cording to script,” said Da- vis who noted that the “pie- in-the-sky” scenario was to have both pitches stay un- der 45 pitches in a win. With Anderson holding it down on the mound, the Warriors got on the scoreboard via aggressive base running from Koldan Frieze. Aft er being walked, Frieze stole second and then third. A bad throw from home to third result- ed in Frieze, who was a part of each North Douglas run throughout the game, bringing in the fi rst run of the day. In the third inning the bats came alive with two outs as Cal Parks blasted a shot to left fi eld for a stand- up triple. On the next at- bat it was Frieze with a line- drive through the infi eld to score another run. With the Warriors up a pair of runs, the Boomers, a team that starts no upper- classmen, attempted to put together a rally of its own. Th e fi ft h inning started with a Toledo ground-rule double from Ashton Reth- erford for the team’s fi rst hit of the game. While Rether- ford was then thrown out by Frieze as he attempted to steal third, it got the ball rolling for the Boomers as the team put together back- to-back hits to have run- ners on second and third with two outs. With that, North Doug- las brought in pitcher Brian Erickson. “It’s more of an excite- ment,” said Erickson on whether he is more excited or nervous going into that situation. “I’ve been told by some people that I play bet- ter under pressure because I know I’ve got to get my job done there. Th at’s what I did right there.” Aft er Erickson struck out the next batter to end the inning, the Warriors were then able to put together two more runs in the fi ft h BASEBALL see B2 While playing shortstop, North Douglas’ Brian Erickson brings in a throw from catcher Koldan Frieze to tag out a Toledo runner who attempted to steal second base during a playoff game last Wednesday. PHOTO BY ZACH SILVA/CG Middle school track wraps season at state meet Area middle school teams fi nd success at districts, state By Zach Silva zsilva@cgsentinel.com It was a successful fi nal weeks of the season for the local middle school track and fi eld teams. For the middle schools of both Lincoln and North Douglas, the teams put together strong district meets and sent athletes to the state middle school meet. At the May 15 Willa- mette Valley Youth League district meet, the Lincoln boys fi nished fi rst as a team while the girls took third at the varsity level. Th e boys had fi rst place fi nishes from Jaden Ow- ens in the 3000 and jave- lin; Tyler Russell in the 100 and 200 hurdles; Brennen Murphy in high jump and long jump; Curtis Tucker in shot put; Myles Cran- dall in the 800 and the Athletes of the Week 4x100 relay team of Chase Cordin, Murphy, Russell and Owens. Blakely Her- bert won the 100 hurdles on the girls’ side. At the middle school state meet in Corvallis on Th ursday May 23, Tucker went on to win the shot put state title with a throw of 45-11.50 feet. Russell took third in the hurdles in a time of 14.57. Down the road, the North Douglas Middle School team also found Th is week’s athletes of the week are the members of the U14 soccer teams that won the South Valley Athletic tournament on Saturday May 18. For more on the teams, turn to B3. success. In the Little Fir League District Meet on May 8, the team had a number of fi rst place fi n- ishes. For the boys, it was Logan Gant in the 800 and 1500; Trenton Rabuk in shot put; Ray Gerrard in discus and Cade Olds in javelin. For the girls, the team had fi rst place fi n- ishes from Savannah Har- kins in discus and javelin; Tabitha Baker in the 200; Jaylyn Hulsey in shot put and the 4x100 relay team of Brooke McHaffi e, Mia Piscopo, Gracie Parks and Baker. Also at the meet, Elk- ton’s Rylee Williamson won the 800 and triple jump while teammate Sie- na Fluitt took fi rst in long jump. At the state meet, Ger- rard won the discus state title with a throw of 133- 09 feet. Rabuck took fourth in shot put while Harkins was seventh in discus. Members of the U14 champion- ship winning team last Saturday. PHOTO C/O SMILEY GLENN
