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6A — BAKER CITY HERALD FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2019 NCAA WOMEN’S BASKETBALL PREVIEW Baker High School sports schedule BOYS SOCCER • Vs. Marshfi eld, play-in game, Saturday, Nov. 2 at 4 p.m. at Baker Sports Complex VOLLEYBALL • Travels to Junction City for a play-in match, Saturday, Nov. 2 at 4 p.m. FOOTBALL • Travels to Cascade for a fi rst-round playoff game, Saturday, Nov. 9 at 1 p.m. 49ers stay unbeaten By David Brandt AP Sports Writer GLENDALE, Ariz. — San Francisco’s game- manager turned into quite the game-changer in an impressive performance. Jimmy Garoppolo threw for 317 yards and four touchdowns on a night his team’s vaunted defense wasn’t at its best, and the San Francisco 49ers reached the halfway point of their season undefeated, beating the Arizona Cardi- nals 28-25 on Thursday. For a quarterback who often gets the backhanded compliment of being a good game-manager, Garop- polo’s stellar performance provided some proof that the 27-year-old might be a little better than people think. San Francisco (8-0) fell behind 7-0 but responded with three touchdowns — one as time expired in the second quarter after Cardi- nals coach Kliff Kingsbury called a timeout and gave the 49ers a second chance on fourth down — to take a 21-7 halftime lead. The 49ers were in control until about fi ve minutes left in the fourth quarter, when Andy Isa- bella caught a short pass and sprinted for an 88-yard touchdown to help the Cardinals pull to 28-25. But the 49ers were able to run out the clock on their ensuing offensive drive to end Arizona’s comeback. Lillard’s late 3-point flurry lifts Blazers to win By Cliff Brunt AP Sports Writer OKLAHOMA CITY — It wasn’t as dra- matic as the end of his last game against Oklahoma City, but Damian Lillard still reminded the Thunder what time it was — Dame Time. Lillard had 23 points and 13 assists to help the Portland Trail Blazers hold off Oklahoma City 102-99 on Wednesday night. In last year’s fi rst-round playoff matchup between the teams, Lillard’s deep 3-pointer over Paul George won Game 5 and the series. This time, after making just 4 of 15 shots the fi rst three quarters, Lillard made three 3-pointers in an 86-second fl urry in the fourth that turned a three-point defi cit into a fi ve-point lead. Lillard rested to start the fi nal period and mapped out his strategy. “The whole time I was sitting on the bench, I knew I was going to come in and try to keep it in my hands a little bit more and try to impose my will on the game a little bit more,” he said. “And it worked out.” The Trail Blazers led the rest of the way. The Thunder have been competitive in their losses, but they haven’t had a scorer like Lillard step up at critical moments to get them over the top. “I was telling the guys postgame that’s why guys get paid the big bucks — to make big shots like that in the fourth quar- ter,” Thunder guard Chris Paul said. C.J. McCollum scored 22 points and Kent Bazemore added 14 for the Trail Blazers. Chris Pietsch / The (Eugene) Register-Guard Sabrina Ionescu (left) with head coach Kelly Graves,will face a challenging 2019-20 schedule as Oregon looks to return to the Final Four. Ducks preseason No. 1 ■ Oregon State Beavers also in the top 10, coming in at No. 7 By Doug Feinberg AP Basketball Writer NEW YORK — When he took over in 2014, Kelly Graves set out to establish Oregon as one of the elite teams in women’s college basketball. Fresh off their fi rst Final Four appearance, the Ducks are ranked No. 1 in The Asso- ciated Press poll for the fi rst time in school history. Oregon, led by sensational guard Sa- brina Ionescu, received 25 of the 28 fi rst-place votes from the national media panel to grab the top spot in the preseason rankings released Wednesday. “I think it validates our vision that we had going in here,” Graves told the AP. “It validates the hard work from my staff that’s been with me the whole journey. On this stage we had a better op- portunity to be in position we now are.” No. 2 Baylor, the defending national champion, received the other three fi rst-place votes. Stanford, Maryland and UConn round out the top SERIES Continued from Page 5A “Guess what? We stayed in the fi ght. We won the fi ght!” Martinez shouted during the trophy celebration on the fi eld. “We were down and out. We were 19-31. We didn’t quit then, we weren’t going to quit now,” he said. Strasburg earned the World Series MVP award with a pair of wins, including Game 6. “It’s almost like we’ve done it so many times that we have to get punched in the face to kind of wake up,” he said. As pitcher Aníbal Sánchez told Scherzer while hugging him in the middle of the diamond: “We won one. We fi nally won one.” For the 43,326 revved-up fans at Minute Maid Park, it was a combination of shock and disappointment. So close to seeing José Altuve, Alex Bregman, George Springer and their Astros add to the title they won in Game 7 at Dodger Stadium two years ago, they watched this chance suddenly vanish. “I’ve got a group of heart- broken men in there that did everything they could to try to bring a World Series championship to this city. And we fell one win shy,” Astros manager AJ Hinch said. “Let’s be honest, there’s 28 other teams that would love to have our misery today,” he said. “And I just told our team, it’s hard to put into words and remember all the good that happened because right now we feel as bad as you can possibly feel,” he added. “I think it validates our vision that we had going in here. It validates the hard work from my staff that’s been with me the whole journey.” — Kelly Graves, Oregon women’s basketball coach fi ve; the Huskies have been ranked in the top fi ve for 239 consecutive weeks, since January 2007. “That’s nuts,” Graves said of UConn’s streak. “I think I’d be in my mid 70s by the time we reached that.” No. 6 Texas A&M has its best ranking since the Aggies were fi fth on Dec. 29, 2014. Oregon State, South Carolina, Louisville and Mississippi State complete the top 10. Graves knows no one tends to remember who was ranked fi rst in October. He also feels his team, which was ranked third in the preseason last year, is mature enough to handle the pressures of being No. 1. “I think it’s really neat and we’re adult enough and smart enough to handle this,” he said. “We’ve kept our heads down and continued to work. Stay humbled and hungry.” Tennessee isn’t ranked in the preseason for the fi rst time since 1976, ending a 42- year streak. The Lady Vols, who saw their remarkable run of 565 weeks ranked in the poll end in 2016, fell out of the rankings Jan. 14 last sea- son and didn’t return to the Top 25. They changed coaches in the spring, bringing back former star Kellie Harper to coach the team. No. 16 Notre Dame, coming off two trips to the national championship game, is out of the top 10 for the fi rst time since Jan. 17, 2011. Coach Muffet McGraw lost all fi ve starters to the WNBA and two top reserves from last year transferred. It is the team’s worst preseason ranking since the Fighting Irish were also ranked 16th in 2008. “We were down and out. We were 19-31. We didn’t quit then, we weren’t going to quit now.” — Dave Martinez, Washington Nationals manager President Donald Trump, greeted with chants of “Lock him up!” when he attended Game 5 in Washington, tweeted his congratulations to the Nationals from the White House. “Game 7 was amazing!” Trump tweeted. Washington kept pulling away after taking the lead, with the sensational Soto hitting an RBI single in the eighth and Adam Eaton add- ing a two-run single in the ninth off rookie José Urquidy. Acquired from Arizona at the July trade deadline, Gre- inke was in complete control until Rendon — a Houston prep and college star — hit a solo homer with one out in the seventh that trimmed it to 2-1. “Just gave us a little bit of hope,” Nationals leadoff man Trea Turner said. When Soto followed with a one-out walk, Hinch decided to make a move. He’d had ace starter Gerrit Cole warming up earlier, but left him in the bullpen. “I wasn’t going to pitch him unless we were going to win the World Series and have a lead,” Hinch said. “He was going to close the game in the ninth.” Instead, Hinch signaled for reliable reliever Will Harris. Kendrick connected on the second pitch, slicing a drive that hit the screen attached to the right fi eld foul pole for a 3-2 lead. Just like that, everything had changed for the team in orange that led the majors with 107 regular- season wins, and the ballpark fell silent. For Kendrick, another timely blow. At 36, playing on the oldest team in the majors, he was the NL Championship Series MVP against St. Louis after hitting the winning grand slam in the 10th inning of the deciding Game 5 in the Division Series at Dodger Stadium. Then again, this was noth- ing new for the Nationals. Washington rallied in the eighth to beat Milwaukee in the wild-card game and took the last two to beat Los Angeles in the NLDS, setting up a sweep of the Cardinals in the NLCS. “This is now the most 2019 Nats thing to ever happen,” Doolittle said. “Another elimination game, another come-from-behind win.” Far away, a sizable crowd poured into Nationals Park for a watch party. That was the stadium where Houston hammered the Nats for three games last weekend in taking a 3-2 edge, but their luck changed in Texas. They won the last two against a team that posted the best home record in the majors (60-21) over the last two decades. Houston earned home-fi eld advantage throughout the postseason, but it didn’t help in the end as the Astros went a stunning 0-4 in their own ballpark dur- ing the Series.