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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 14, 2019)
6A — BAKER CITY HERALD MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2019 WEEK AHEAD IN HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS EASTERN OREGON UNIVERSITY HOMECOMING FOOTBALL Mounties roll over Montana-Northern tackles and 1.5 sacks. “Our secondary and run stopping has kind of been LA GRANDE — The defense set not all there, but today was a step in the tone with a fumble recovery on the right direction in stopping the run the fi rst play of the game. The offense and shutting down the pass.” was improved. Derrick Fontenot recovered a fum- Eastern Oregon University’s home- ble for EOU on the Lights’ fi rst carry coming football game went the way of the game, and Victor Dias punched the Mountaineers wanted. in the fi rst of his two touchdowns EOU scored the game’s fi rst 24 from a yard out for a quick 7-0 lead. points, fi nished with more than 500 But the main momentum shift yards of offense and forced fi ve turn- came later in the quarter. MSUN overs in a 45-7 trouncing of Montana drove inside the Eastern 5-yard line State Northern Saturday night in and appeared poised to even the Frontier Conference play at Commu- game. nity Stadium. The Eastern defensive line, though, “We defi nitely stepped it up from stopped Lights’ running back Cam- what we’ve been doing,” said line- eron Taylor short of the goal line on backer Gunnar Blix, who had eight fourth down, and EOU followed with By Ronald Bond The (La Grande) Observer an impressive 99-yard drive — one that saw it convert three third downs — and fi nished it with a 13-yard touchdown reception by Conner Falk for a two-touchdown lead. It was all Eastern from that point. The Mountaineers did mostly what- ever they wanted — as they should have against MSUN, which lost its 32nd straight conference contest. The defensive backs, meanwhile, blanked the Northern receivers, grab- bing three interceptions — one taken back by Eric Prom for a 38-yard touchdown and a 38-7 lead late in the third quarter — and breaking up several other passes. Haziel Ledezma and Zack Jacobs collected the other picks. “We just tried to make plays where the coaches put us in position,” Prom said, adding the secondary focused on receivers Damari Cual-Davis and Marvin Williams Jr. “We defi nitely keyed in those two guys. We knew (the Lights) wanted to get them the ball. We just had to be ready continu- ously.” Cual-Davis did fi nish with 114 yards receiving and the lone Lights’ touchdown, but Williams Jr. was shut out. The defense held Lights’ quarter- back Brenden Medina to just 149 yards passing — well below his sea- son average — and sacked him three times. Eastern fi nished allowing 239 yards total, by far a season best. MOUNTAINEERS ALSO ADDING WOMEN’S LACROSSE EOU to resurrect baseball in 2021 ident Tom Insko announced at EOU’s alumni breakfast LA GRANDE — Howard Saturday morning. The fi rst Fetz has been advocating for season for Mountaineer base- baseball’s return to Eastern ball will be in 2021. Oregon University. “We’re fortunate that we Fetz, who coached the have the fi nancial resources Mountaineers from 1967 to bring men’s baseball back to 1987, and several former to Eastern Oregon Universi- EOU players have been ty,” he said, making the state- imploring the university to ment with Fetz at his side. bring back the sport, which It’s not the only sport was dropped 13 years ago. Eastern is adding. Insko also “I believe in it,” Fetz said. said the university will add “I love the game. I love the what he described as a sport opportunity to reach kids and rising in popularity, women’s adults through the medium lacrosse. The inaugural sea- of athletics, and in this case son for the sport will also be baseball.” in the spring of 2021. The efforts have paid off “It’s an opportunity for — baseball is coming back to EOU to lead in a new, excit- Eastern Oregon University. ing, emerging sport, bring The national pastime, that to La Grande and bring which was cut from EOU in that to a rural community,” 2006, will be reinstated, Pres- Insko said of the addition of By Ronald Bond The (La Grande) Observer lacrosse. Insko said from the time he took over as EOU’s president, Fetz had been in contact with him, asking the president and Athletic Director Anji Weis- senfl uh about bringing back baseball. “Howard desperately want- ed EOU to bring baseball back. He advocated for all the advantages, all the impacts that athletics like baseball have on athletes.” And Fetz wasn’t the only one, either. Union County Commis- sioner Matt Scarfo — himself a former Eastern Oregon baseball player — was at the breakfast and announce- ment Saturday, and told The Observer he has been making a case for baseball’s return for years. “Baseball literally brought me here from Phoenix, Arizona,” said Scarfo, who played in the mid-1990s. “I came here to play baseball, and look where I am now. I thank Eastern and Eastern’s baseball for giving me the opportunity. It made me who I am today. “I kept going, ‘What’s tak- ing so long on baseball? I’ve been really pushing it. Really glad. Really excited about this.” At the “State of the Uni- versity” address given by Insko — during which he announced the additions — the president described the university as being in solid fi nancial shape — a position it wasn’t in even a few years ago, as he described having to tell Fetz no on several occa- sions because, “We weren’t in a position to do it.” But along with the improved fi nancial status, Eastern also received a major fi nancial boost in its efforts to make the additions. “We were able to get an enhanced allocation in what’s called sports lottery funding,” Insko said. “Sports lottery funding in the state of Oregon goes to the public institutions to sup- port what they call nonrev- enue generating sports.” Insko said the university was able to get additional funding through advocating to state legislators, including Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, Rep. Greg Baretto, R-Cove, Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, and Gov. Kate Brown, to name a few. Insko told The Observer following the announcement that EOU received $760,000 from the state. The one-time investment, he said, will offset the startup costs of the two sports. Insko anticipates that EOU will be able to bring on about 40 to 45 student-athletes for the two sports by the beginning of the 2020-21 school year, and 20 to 25 additional the follow- ing year. Insko told The Observer that EOU “analyzed more than just two sports,” but decided at the time, baseball and lacrosse are the best decision. “We looked at the potential for more, and ultimately what came out was these were the two that made the most sense fi nancially, as well as in terms of connection with the community or, in the case of lacrosse, potential for some- thing exciting and new in the community.” Community support for baseball is something La Grande baseball head coach Parker McKinley has seen fi rsthand. The coach told The Observer he’s excited about the reality of EOU bringing on the program, and about the community aspect. “(It’s about) the sense of community pride that it cre- ates in the kids and players when they know there’s a lot of care about what they are doing,” he said. “I think all of our sports programs feel that. In baseball we’ve been fortunate to have that.” See EOU Baseball/Page 8A Imagine The Difference You Can Make DONATE YOUR CAR 1-844-533-9173 Help Prevent Blindness Get A Vision Screening Annually Ask About A FREE 3 Day Vacation Voucher To Over 20 Destinations!!! Serious speed! Save with Frontier Internet Bundles Pay one price for two great services: high-speed Internet and a full-featured home phone Simply Broadband Max 19 99 BROADBAND ULTRA + PHONE + SECURE Per Month With Qualifying Phone Service 6 Mbps + Free Wi-Fi Router + 1 Year Price Lock Call today and pay less FRIDAY, OCT. 18 ■ Volleyball: Elgin at Pine-Eagle, 4 p.m.; Powder Valley at Cove, 4 p.m. ■ Football: Elgin at Pine- Eagle, 2 p.m.; Ontario at Baker, 7 p.m.; Powder Valley at Cove, 7 p.m.; Dayville/Monument at Prairie City/Burnt River, 7 p.m. SATURDAY, OCT. 19 ■ Boys soccer: Ontario at Baker, 2 p.m. ■ Girls soccer: Ontario at Baker, noon ■ Volleyball: Griswold at Powder Valley, 10 a.m.; Cove at Pine-Eagle, 1 p.m.; Nixyaawii at Powder Valley, 3 p.m. AT A GLANCE Kerns ranked No. 1 in breakaway HAINES — Former Powder Valley athlete Samantha Kerns is ranked No. 1 nationally in college breakaway roping. Kerns, who competes for Montana State University also is fi rst in the Big Sky Region in breakaway roping and sixth in barrels. Huntington places at Salem SALEM — Julie Hun- tington of Baker placed 139th at the Spirit of Oregon race Oct. 6. Huntington fi nished the 10K run in 1:04:18. U.S. men shut out Cuba 7-0 WASHINGTON (AP) — Weston McKennie got the U.S. off to a record- setting start against Cuba in the Americans’ CONCACAF Nations League debut. McKennie scored 32 seconds into the game and had the fastest hat trick from the kickoff in U.S. history, helping the Americans overwhelm Cuba 7-0 on Friday night. Jordan Morris scored and tied a U.S. record with three assists and Josh Sargent also had a goal as the 21st-ranked Americans burst to a 6-0 halftime lead against No. 179 Cuba and set their modern record for goals in a half. Christian Pulisic con- verted a penalty kick in the 62nd minute. 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All other marks are the property of their respective owners McMINNVILLE — Wy- att Smith set a Linfi eld single-game record with eight touchdown passes and the No. 23 Wildcats scored in double digits in all four quarters on the way to a 77-22 North- west Conference rout of the Puget Sound Log- gers Saturday in front of a Homecoming crowd of 3,200 at Maxwell Field. Smith tossed fi ve touchdowns in the fi rst half as Linfi eld built a commanding 35-7 lead at the break. The junior from McMinnville broke graduated All-American Brett Elliott’s standing record of seven scoring passes in one game. Elliott, now co-offenisive coordinator at Linfi eld, established the record twice, once in 2004 and again 2005. The Wildcats (4-1, 2-0 NWC) established a new team passing record as well.