Cottage Grove Sentinel
Sports & Recreation
SOUTH LANE COUNTY SPORTS AND RECREATION
Calendar
Oct. 30
• 1A playoff: ND VB
vs. McKenzie, TBD.
• 1A playoff play-in:
EHS VB @ Central
Christian, 5:45 p.m.
Oct. 31
• CG cross country
Sky-Em League
Championships @
LCC (first race starts
@ 12 p.m.).
Nov. 1
• League crossover
playoff: ND FB vs.
Siletz Valley, 7 p.m.
• Non-league:
Yoncalla FB vs.
Mohawk, 7 p.m.
• Non-league:
Elkton FB vs.
Waldport, TBD.
•
WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 30, 2019
•
CONTACT SPORTS REPORTER NICK SNYDER AT
942-3325 OR NSNYDER@CGSENTINEL.COM
CG limps into shot
at state playoffs
Lions on prowl
as they await
OSAA playoff s
By Nick Snyder
nsnyder@cgsentinel.com
The 2019 season for the Cottage Grove vol-
leyball team didn’t quite end as smoothly as
they would have liked.
Beset by injuries over the final few weeks
of the season, the Lions (10-11 overall, 6-4
league) dropped their final two games, leaving
them in a precarious playoff position.
In their first game of the week, on Tues.,
Oct. 22, Cottage Grove had a chance to secure
a top-two Sky-Em finish - and an automat-
ic playoff bid - with a win over Marist in the
final regular season contest. Alas, the Lions
couldn’t get the win against their rivals to the
north, losing 3-1 (23-25, 25-23, 27-25, 25-23)
See LIONS 2B
By Nick Snyder
nsnyder@cgsentinel.com
PHOTO BY NED HICKSON/COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Matty Ladd (10) and Gracie Arnold’s (7) con-
tributions against Marshfield weren’t quite
enough to secure an automatic playoff spot.
Tigers best Lions in battle of the beatens
ODFW R EGIONAL F ISHING
R EPORT
www.dfw.state.or.us/RR
ARTWORK AND WINE BEN-
EFIT OREGON’S FISH AND
WILDLIFE
ODFW’s annual fish and wild-
life art show is Saturday, Nov. 2,
1 - 4 p.m. at Duck Pond Cellars,
23145 Hwy 99W, Dundee where
the winery will release its new
Conservation Cuvee Pinot noir.
EARLY SEASON DUCK HUNTING
Warm sunny weather and blue-
bird skies can create challenging
conditions for early season duck
hunters. (And we’re not talking
about sunburn.) Adjusting your
tactics to these conditions will
help you bag more ducks.
10 TIPS FOR CATCHING COHO
Coho returns have been
looking good in many rivers,
including Willamette Valley rivers
such as the Clackamas, Sandy and
North Fork Santiam. Coho can be
the bank angler’s best chance at
landing a salmon.
BEST BETS FOR WEEKEND
FISHING
The fall season has trout biting,
salmon fishing picking up in
some areas, steelhead fishing
getting good in eastern Oregon
and even warmwater fish are still
biting. Here are just a few sugges-
tions for the weekend:
• This will be your last weekend
of the season to fish for cutthroat
trout in coastal rivers and streams
before they close Oct. 31.
• Campbell, Cottonwood
Meadows and Deadhorse lakes
are good choices for some great
fall trout fishing.
• Best bet in the Klamath Basin
is to target brook trout in the up-
per areas of the Sprague, William-
son or Sycan rivers.
• Recent rains have pushed fall
Chinook from the north and mid-
coast estuaries into the rivers. As
a result, there are fish throughout
many of the rivers.
• Umatilla River coho made a
strong push this past week with
over 750 adults returning to
Three Mile Dam.
• Steelhead are spread out in
the lower Deschutes as far upriver
as South Junction.
• Steelhead are starting to move
into the John Day River.
• Expo pond has some surpris-
ingly large bass with decent bank
fishing opportunities this time of
year as vegetation dies back.
• Reinhardt Park Pond has also
been seeing some good fishing
for warmwater species, and for
recently stocked trout.
See
ODFW 3B
B1
NICK SNYDER/COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Junior Joey Spink returned at quarterback on Fri., Oct. 25 against Junction City (1-7 overall,
1-3 league), leading the Lions (0-8, 0-4) with senior wide receiver Jacob Dunn in the team’s
most tightly contested game of the year. Dunn took an end-around 53 yards for a touch-
down in the first half (pictured bottom left) and Spink found paydirt himself on a quarter-
back sneak (pictured top) to make the game 17-16 Tigers just before halftime. However,
Junction City would score three more times to the Lions’ one, sealing a 36-22 victory over
Cottage Grove to earn their first win of the season. Spink (bottom right) got more work in
the passing game than in any prior contests and will look to build on his experience for his
2020 senior season.
LMS XC finish on high note
Success in fi nal two meets
of the season capped by
district meet sweep
By Ben Deatherage
Community Contributor
The Lincoln Middle School cross country
team flexed their muscle the last two weeks in
their final pair of meets.
On Oct. 16 the Tigers traveled to Indepen-
dence, just outside of Salem, for the Mid-Wil-
lamette Valley meet. In boys action, Carter
Bengston was the lone top-ten finisher, finish-
ing sixth out of a field of 82.
On the girls side of things, Gracee Dizick-
Kaleese posted a sixth-place result, Addi-
son Voelkel crossed the line eighth and Bella
Athlete of
the Week
Keating finished just behind her teammate in
ninth. The girls’ field was comprised of 72 total
runners.
All things came to a head on Oct. 23 at Fern
Ridge’s Richardson Park for the Willamette
Valley Youth League Cross Country District
Championships.
The boys took care of business with Carter
Bengston and Max Ellis finishing first and sec-
ond while Jace Meyer was a strong seventh.
The girls also had three runners among the top
ten, led by Gracee Dizick-Kaleese in second,
Addison Voelkel in fifth and Bella Keating in
eighth.
Once all team scores were totaled, both
teams were at the top of the podium. It is the
first time that both teams have won the Dis-
trict Championship meet in the same season.
Th is week’s athlete of the
week is Cottage Grove
starting running back
Daetrayl Berry. In a
diffi cult, tumultuous
season for the Lions,
Berry was a cornerstone,
starting every game
of the season in the
backfi eld.
Th e Cottage Grove
boys’
soccer
team
would’ve liked more than
a split of their two games
last week, but in the end it
didn’t really matter.
In their fi nal regular
season game of the year
on Th urs., Oct. 24 the
Lions (8-5 overall, 5-3
league) had the tall task
of taking on the Marist
Spartans (12-0-1, 8-0) in
Eugene, ultimately falling
to the number-two team
in the state 4-0.
No matter, as two days
prior on Tues., Oct. 22
Cottage Grove success-
fully secured an auto-
matic state playoff berth
by exacting revenge on a
Junction City team that
got the better of the Li-
ons in their fi rst matchup
over a month ago. It was
a hard-fought, defen-
sive battle that ended in
a narrow 1-0 victory for
the hometown Lions on
senior night.
Having set their des-
tiny with a win earlier
in the week, head coach
Vern Stewart went into
the Marist game with a
particular message for his
squad, a message where
winning or losing fell by
the wayside to make way
for something more im-
portant.
“I talked about the
journey and how oft en
you only concentrate on
the destination and you
shortchange yourself by
not enjoying the journey
itself,” Stewart said.
Despite both games
against the Spartans fi n-
ishing with the same 0-4
result for the Lions, Stew-
art wanted his team to
focus on the process, the
moment to moment fl ow
of the game, rather than
just the fi nal outcome.
Stewart, an avid fi sher-
man, saw a metaphor in
his own life.
“I used the analogy of
going out on my boat as
I get older,” Stewart said.
“I love the ocean, I love
fi shing, I love my boat.
I’ll go out and I’ll be tak-
ing my time to see the
sunrise, watch the whales
and all that kind of stuff .
You’ll have other boats
whizzing by to get to that
fi shing spot, but I take
my time to get there. So
it’s really not the destina-
tion.”
In any case, even with
a loss to Marist, the Lions
locked up their next des-
tination - an OSAA state
playoff berth - in the sea-
son’s penultimate game.
Th ey were led by team
co-captain Evan Snauer
who, according to Stew-
art, played the best game
he’s ever seen out of his
junior midfi elder.
“And that’s quite a thing
to say because he’s played
a lot of good games. He
just cut out any penetra-
tion that Junction City
See SOCCER 2B
Though
held
without
a touch-
down,
Berry’s play
against JC
created
chances for
Joey Spink
and Jacob
Dunn.
PHOTO BY NICK SNY-
DER/CG SENTINEL