Polk County
Sports
Polk County Itemizer-Observer • December 20, 2017 12A
PREP BASKETBALL
SCHEDULE
Falls City
finding its
identity
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 20
Girls basketball: Central
at Stayton, 7 p.m.
THURSDAY, DEC. 21
Boys basketball: Siletz
Valley at Falls City, 7 p.m.
Perrydale at Days Creek,
6:30 p.m.
Girls basketball: Siletz
Valley at Falls City, 5:30 p.m.
Perrydale at Days Creek, 5
p.m.
By Lukas Eggen
The Itemizer-Observer
FRIDAY, DEC. 22
Boys basketball: Her-
miston at Dallas, 7 p.m.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 27
Girls basketball: Alsea
at Falls City, 5:30 p.m.
—
Schedules Subject to Change
QUICK HITS
Men’s basketball
named GNAC
team of the week
MONMOUTH — Western
Oregon University’s men’s
basketball team was
named the Great North-
west Athletic Conference’s
Team of the Week on Mon-
day.
The Wolves improved to
10-1 overall after defeating
Tarleton State 80-72 on
Dec. 12 and Alaska Anchor-
age 82-50 on Sunday.
Against the Seawolves,
10 players scored five or
more points.
The Wolves played Alas-
ka Fairbanks Tuesday after
press time.
Blue Dolphins
compete at
Canby
CANBY — The Blue Dol-
phins Swim Team compet-
ed at Canby on Saturday.
Kaylie Bliven finished
sixth in the girls 400-yard
individual medley (15 and
older) in 5 minutes, 25.48
seconds. Bliven also placed
sixth in the 200 butterfly
(15 and older) in 2:39.69
and the 1,000 freestyle (15
and older) in 12:26.22.
Taylor Hagedorn placed
ninth in the girls 200 but-
terfly (13-14) with a time of
3:03.13 and ninth in the
1,000 freestyle (13-14) in
12:59.32.
The Blue Dolphins also
competed at Sheldon Dec.
8-10.
Highlights included a
first-place finish from Syd-
ney Alamein in the girls
200 butterfly (11-12) in
2:44.79, a first-place finish
from Lonny Stork in the
100 individual medley (11-
12) with a time of 1:13:04
and six first-place finishes
from Gentry Hagedorn.
Hagedorn won the 200
individual medley (10 and
younger) in 2:51.29, the 50
freestyle (10 and younger)
in 31.04, the 100 butterfly
(10 and younger) in 1:20.48,
the 100 individual medley
(9-10) in 1:20.88, the 50 but-
terfly (10 and younger) in
35.71 and the 100 freestyle
(9-10) in 1:10.40.
Perrydale ranked
eighth in poll
PERRYDALE — Perry-
dale’s girls basketball team
is ranked eighth in the 1A
coach’s poll.
The Pirates received 50
points.
Nixyaawii was ranked
first.
Pe r r y d a l e d e f e a t e d
Willamette Valley Christian
46-30 on Thursday, Klickitat
49-26 on Friday and Dufur
51-34 on Saturday to im-
prove to 6-1 overall.
The Pirates played Coun-
try Christian Tuesday after
press time and play at Days
Creek Thursday at 5 p.m.
STAT SHEET
5
The number of
times Central’s boys
basketball team has
scored 55 or more
points this season. The
Panthers are averaging
51.6 points per game and
won two of three games at
the Abby’s Pizza Holiday
Classic at North Marion.
www.polkio.com
LUKAS EGGEN/Itemizer-Observer
Central’s Noah Worthington placed second at the Central Invitational on Friday afternoon.
PREP WRESTLING
Panthers shine at home
Central wins Friday’s invitational
By Lukas Eggen
The Itemizer-Observer
INDEPENDENCE — With
a rare chance to compete at
home, Central’s wrestling
team looked forward to en-
tertaining fans on Friday.
“You get to wrestle in
front of family and friends.
You get to rest a little more
and you don’t have to get
up quite as early to travel,”
Caleb Sedlacek said. “It's
an amazing experience.”
The Panthers put on a
show, placing first at the
Panther Invitational.
Ty Pe a r s o n ( 1 3 2
p o u n d s ) , A l a n Va r g a s
(145), Brock Pierce (152),
and Caleb Sedlacek (285)
finished first.
“All our wrestlers battle
well,” coach Van Holstad
said. “It is pretty apparent
that we are learning a lot
from week to week, espe-
cially the younger, less ex-
perienced wrestlers. It
was good to see Ty, Brock
and Alan win after a cou-
ple of tough losses for
each in the last few tour-
naments.”
Gabriel Padilla (220),
Corbin Sedlacek (195), Xan-
Sedlacek
d e r Ha l l
( 1 8 2 ) ,
Manuel
Martinez
(126), Luis
Martinez
(120) and
N o a h
Worthing-
ton (113)
placed second.
“What I took away is to not
wrestle nervous and just to
wrestle my matches and good
things will happen,” Wor-
thington said. “If I wrestle
scared, I will only mess up.”
Angel Perez placed third
(132) and Damian Negrete
(120), Nicholas Kunkle
(138), and Nathan Bliss
(170) finished fourth.
It was the third-straight
strong result for Central,
which took second at both
the Springfield and Tillam-
ook invitationals.
“Yeah, we’re happy but
we can always do better,”
Sedlacek said. “Like with
me, I can get off my knees,
take a better shot, and be a
better teammate. You have
to keep working. That’s
what it is all about. You’re
never perfect and you’re
never the best.”
LUKAS EGGEN/Itemizer-Observer
The Panthers saw nine wrestlers reach the champi-
onship round during the Central Invitational.
Sedlacek is driven to end
his high school career on a
high note.
As a junior, he placed
second at the Mid-
Willamette Conference dis-
trict championships and
advanced to the state semi-
finals, but a loss in the
semifinals, followed by
more losses in the next two
rounds, sent him to a sixth-
place finish.
“Making it to the semifi-
nals at state and got beat,
and I didn’t wrestle like I
should have,” Sedlacek said.
“… I beat myself up at state
and ended up getting my
butt kicked when I felt like I
was the better wrestler. It
motivated me. It taught me
that the focus always has to
be on the next match. I’m not
saying I’ll win or lose, but
whomever I face will know
they’ve been in a battle.”
Sedlacek has yet to drop a
match this season.
See PANTHERS, Page 13A
FALLS CITY — Falls City’s
boys basketball team is in
search of its identity.
“It’s been a little more of a
learning curve than I first ex-
pected,” coach Micke Kidd
said.
New faces, including the
Lafayette
brothers,
and losing
Reid Sim-
mons to an
ankle in-
jury during
the first
game, has
meant the
Burgess
M o u n -
taineers have working out
the kinks of new lineups and
rotations.
But for the Mountaineers,
who defeated Oregon School
for the Deaf 66-22 on Dec. 12
before falling to C.S. Lewis
62-57 on Thursday, it’s all
part of growing together.
“We shouldn’t have lost to
C.S. Lewis,” junior Austin
Burgess said. “But we’ve got-
ten a lot of new people and
we're coming together.”
J.R. Lafayette, a forward,
Jason Lafayette, a guard, and
Jesse Sickles, a forward,
along with improving play
from returners like Burgess,
coach Micke Kidd said the
pieces are there for a run to
the state playoffs.
“We’re sort of waiting for
someone to step up,” Kidd
said. “They are all so polite
and respectful. Someone's
got to step up. Austin did a
pretty good job of that on
Thursday.”
Jason Lafayette scored 16
points against OSD while J.R.
added 14 points.
Jason scored 20 points
against C.S. lewis and
Burgess recorded 17 points
and 10 rebounds.
Last season, Burgess
struggled on the offensive
end.
“I couldn’t shoot as well,”
he said, chuckling.
Thanks to work on his
form, Burgess is now a bona
fide offensive threat.
See FALLS CITY, Page 13A
PREP WRESTLING
Dragons take first at Liberty Invitational
By Lukas Eggen
The Itemizer-Observer
HILLSBORO — Dallas’
wrestling team won the Lib-
erty Invitational on Saturday.
Cael Morr ison (106
pounds), Hayden Millard
(113), Treve Earhart (182),
and Ashton Brecht (285) fin-
ished first to lead the Drag-
ons.
Brecht defeated Liberty’s
Dylan Thygersen in his first
match of the tournament.
Thygersen entered Saturday
ranked first
in 6A by the
Oregon
Wre s t l i n g
Founda-
tion.
“I was
very happy
with the
Earhart
team’s over-
all performance at the Liber-
ty Tournament,” coach Tony
Olliff said. “Of course, the fi-
nalists all had a great tourna-
ment and performed well.”
See DRAGONS, Page 13A
Cael Morrison finished first
in the 106-pound weight
class at the Liberty Invita-
tional on Saturday. Dallas’
wrestling team placed first
in the team standings.
WALT MARKEE/for the
Itemizer-Observer
PREP GIRLS BASKETBALL
Pirates overcome injuries during wins
Kenzy Lawrence
drives against a
Willamette Val-
ley Christian de-
fender
on
Thursday. Perry-
dale defeated
WVC 46-30. The
Pirates also beat
Klickitat 49-26
on Friday and
Dufur 51-34 on
Saturday to win
the Ranger Tour-
nament.
LUKAS EGGEN/
Itemizer-Observer
By Lukas Eggen
The Itemizer-Observer
PERRYDALE — Girls bas-
ketball coach Terry Newton
has a new name for the Pi-
rates.
“We’re not Perrydale,
we’re Pressdale,” he said.
The Pirates have commit-
ted to the press, and the re-
sults have been encourag-
ing.
Perrydale’s press forced
Willamette Valley Christian
into numerous turnovers
during the Pirates’ 46-30
win on Thursday. Perry-
dale, which also defeated
Klickitat
49-26 on
Friday and
Dufur 51-
34 on Sat-
urday to
win the
Ranger
To u r n a -
S. Lawrence ment, has
held opponents to 27.7
points per game through
seven games.
“When you get after it as
hard as we do, you're going
to give up a few baskets,
but we're not going to
change,” Newton said.
“Generally, our reward-to-
www.facebook.com/pages/Polk-County-Itemizer-Observer/205062686252209
risk was a lot better.”
Perrydale’s victories were
made more impressive be-
cause of who wasn’t on the
court.
Vanessa Miller and Amity
Deters both missed all three
games due to injuries.
“Everything changed for
us,” Newton said. “We had
eight or nine solid rotation
players, now we’re playing
players who weren’t expect-
ed to be on the floor, so to
beat (WVC) by 16 like we
did, we’re happy.”
Players have stepped up
in a big way.
See PIRATES, Page 13A
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