FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT
B3
S PORTS
THE BULLETIN • FrIday, JaNUary 29, 2021
bendbulletin.com/sports
MEN’S COLLEGE
BASKETBALL
College Baseball
Beavers fall to
the Trojans 75-62
LOS ANGELES — Evan
Mobley had 14 points
and 13 rebounds, and
Southern California
pulled away over the final
10 minutes to beat Ore-
gon State 75-62 on Thurs-
day for its eighth win in
nine games.
Mobley had five
dunks on his way to the
freshman’s seventh dou-
ble-double of the season.
Isaiah White and Noah
Baumann added 11
points each and Ethan
Anderson had 10 points
for the Trojans (13-3, 7-2
Pac-12). They avenged
a two-point loss to the
Beavers on Jan. 19 that
snapped USC’s six-game
winning streak.
“We didn’t play a
perfect game, but we
grinded out a home win,”
USC coach Andy Enfield
said. “They played a phys-
ical and energetic basket-
ball game for 40 minutes.”
Ethan Thompson
had 20 points, seven re-
bounds and five assists,
and Jarod Lucas added
18 points for the Beavers
(8-6, 4-4).
“They’re a really good
team this year and they’re
not easy to score on,” An-
derson said.
It wasn’t until the Tro-
jans put together their
biggest spurt of the game
that they got any breath-
ing room. They outscored
the Beavers 18-6 to take a
65-49 lead, their largest of
the game. Chevez Good-
win scored six points
during the spurt. He fin-
ished with 10 rebounds,
helping the Trojans domi-
nate the boards, 48-30.
Baumann and Good-
win’s efforts led USC’s
reserves, who outscored
the Beavers’ bench 31-10.
— Associated Press
COLLEGE
FOOTBALL
Ducks make DC
DeRuyter official
EUGENE — Nearly a
week since he agreed
to come to Oregon, Tim
DeRuyter is officially the
school’s new defensive
coordinator.
The Ducks officially
named DeRuyter, who
served at Cal the past four
seasons, their new defen-
sive coordinator and out-
side linebackers coach on
Thursday.
“We are excited to add
a coach of the caliber
and experience as coach
DeRuyter to lead our
defense,” Oregon coach
Mario Cristobal said in a
statement. “He is a proven
difference maker with a
track record for develop-
ing players to their full
potential. ”
Previously the head
coach at Fresno State
from 2012-17 and defen-
sive coordinator at Texas
A&M, Air Force, Nevada,
Ohio and Navy, DeRuy-
ter has been a defensive
coordinator in 20 of his
31 seasons as a college
coach.
He succeeds Andy
Avalos, who left UO ear-
lier this month to become
head coach at Boise State,
and inherits a defense
that returns seven start-
ers, including All-Amer-
ican defensive end Kay-
von Thibodeaux.
“I am beyond thrilled
to be joining coach Cris-
tobal’s staff here at the
University of Oregon,”
DeRuyter said in a state-
ment.
— The Oregonian
INSIDE
• Players who opted out
of the 2020 season
knocking off rust in the
Senior Bowl, B5
Beavers are underdogs
But Oregon State brings
‘unheard of’ depth and
championship hopes
into 2021 season
BY JOE FREEMAN • The Oregonian
T
he ominous message blared
over the cabin speakers of
the commercial airliner, just after
the Oregon State baseball team
settled into its seats outside the
gate at Portland International
Airport.
There was a last-second change
of plans and the Beavers would
not be flying to Tucson for a series
against Arizona. They needed to
deboard the plane immediately.
“I thought they were joking at first,”
OSU catcher Troy Claunch said. “It
was a little shocking. We knew that ev-
erything was up in the air at that mo-
ment, but we didn’t really know what
was going on.”
It was March 12, 2020, and this is
what was going on: The college base-
ball season had been paused and
was on the verge of collapsing as the
coronavirus rapidly spread across the
United States. So the Beavers hast-
ily departed the plane, collected their
baggage and climbed into a bus for a
ride back to Corvallis and an uncer-
tain future.
Within hours, sobering clarity ar-
rived. The NCAA canceled its spring
sports championships, including the
College World Series. Days later, the
Pac-12 Conference shuttered spring
sports. The Beavers’ season ended be-
fore it really started as the world was
Sean Meagher/The Oregonian file
Oregon State Beavers coach Mitch Canham, center, gathers the team before a practice in Corvallis in February 2020. Canham is look-
ing forward to seeing his team back on the practice field on Friday after the bulk of the 2020 season was lost due to the pandemic.
“We love being the underdog. We almost prefer it. We have no problem
proving we’re the best team in the country day-in and day-out for the
next five months. They can keep leaving us out, it’s fine with us.”
— Kevin Abel, Oregon State starting pitcher
thrust into the chaos of a once-in-a-
100-years global pandemic.
“After putting in all that work for
months and months, it was hard to ac-
cept,” Claunch said. “It was pretty dis-
appointing, pretty heartbreaking.”
The Beavers can finally start to let
go of that heartbreak on Friday, when
they gather at Goss Stadium in Cor-
vallis for the first full practice of the
2021 season.
“I can’t tell you how excited we are
to be playing baseball,” OSU coach
Mitch Canham said. “Sometimes it
takes hardship to open eyes and see
what’s important.”
As eyes shift toward another base-
ball season in Corvallis, expectations
will be as high as ever for the Beavers
internally — with national champion-
ship aspirations — but as low as ever
externally.
The USA Today Sports preseason
coaches poll has not been released,
but the Beavers were not included in
Top 25 preseason polls from Baseball
America or D1Baseball.com.
“We love being the underdog,” ace
righthander Kevin Abel said. “We al-
most prefer it. We have no problem
proving we’re the best team in the
country day-in and day-out for the
next five months. They can keep leav-
ing us out, it’s fine with us.”
National pundits are overlook-
ing the Beavers in large part because
of how they played before they were
forced to deboard that plane last
March.
Oregon State sputtered to a 5-9 re-
cord last season, ending with a five-
game losing streak — which included
a stunning home-opening series
sweep — before COVID-19 prema-
turely ended things. It was the pro-
gram’s worst start since 1991.
Along the way, OSU was anemic at
the plate, batting just .267 while pro-
ducing three shutouts, and careless
in the field, committing 14 errors.
During that series sweep at Goss, the
Beavers were outscored by UC Santa
Barbara 13-2 and committed nine
errors.
See Beavers / B5
WINTER X GAMES | SNOWBOARDING
WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL
After time off, Chloe Kim returns
to superpipe rested, healthy, wiser
BY EDDIE PELLS
AP National Writer
Oregon’s Sydney Parrish brings the ball up the floor against Portland
in November. The improved play of Parrish, a freshman, of late has
helped the Ducks recover from a midseason lull.
Ducks getting better defense,
improved play from freshmen
BY RYAN THORBURN
The (Eugene) Register-Guard
Defense doesn’t always win
high school championships.
The main reason Hamilton
Southeastern won the Indiana
state title was because Sydney
Parrish erupted for 21 of her
30 points in the second half to
lead the way.
Even a player as skilled as
Parrish, the highest ranked
prospect in the nation’s No.
1 recruiting class, has a steep
learning curve on the other
end of the court after joining
the Oregon women’s basketball
program.
“Defense is one of my weak-
nesses. Growing up that has
always been one of my weak-
nesses,” Parrish said during a
Zoom session with the media
Wednesday. “I’ve had to learn a
lot coming in. I was pretty bad
coming in the first few prac-
tices. The first few months of
practicing, my defense was re-
ally struggling.”
Not so much in 2021.
Oregon coach Kelly Graves
was more impressed with Par-
rish’s defensive effort than
the true freshman guard’s 12
points in 19 minutes during
the Ducks’ 69-52 win over
Washington on Sunday.
“Defensively, she’s always in
the right place,” Graves said.
See Ducks / B4
ASPEN, Colo. — Chloe
Kim took some time off to
heal her body and broaden
her mind.
Mission(s) accomplished,
and now that she’s back at her
day job — best female athlete
in the superpipe — it looks as
though she never left.
Now 20, and with a year
at Princeton under her belt,
the Olympic champion is in
the lineup for the Winter X
Games, going for her fifth
gold medal on the super-
pipe in Aspen on Saturday
night. Her chance to defend
the Olympic title is a scant 13
months away.
If she lost much during
her 22 months off the snow,
it doesn’t show. Kim’s first
contest back — last week in
Laax, Switzerland — ended
like most of them do: with a
gold medal hanging around
her neck and the rest of the
field contemplating a super-
pipe-sized gap between them
and the champion.
Not that she took any of it
for granted.
“I was so anxious because
not only have I not done any
of that in almost two years,
but it was more with COVID
and quarantining, and sitting
around and freaking out,”
Kim told The Associated
Press. “I’m thinking, ‘What if
this doesn’t go the way I want?
What if I don’t know how to
do anything anymore?’”
Not likely. But the year
in college did give Kim an
unflinching look at some
things she really couldn’t do
— things that never really
came up during a childhood
during which she blended
home-schooling with a busy
travel schedule and a life syn-
ched around the rhythms of
the yearly the snowboard cir-
cuit.
“I learned how bad I was at
time management,” she said.
“All my friends had plan-
ners, calendars, they were
writing schedules out. I was
like, ‘What is that?’ I had al-
ways lived life on the go.
Very flexible. But if you’re in
school, assignments are due at
11:59 p.m.”
Her Olympic victory in Py-
eongchang three winters ago
validated the massive hype
that surrounded Kim and her
story. She was the teenage
phenom from California but
with Korean roots, poised to
take the gold medal on “home
turf” of sorts, and with her
grandma in the stands, to
boot.
All that happened, and
Kim’s post-Olympic life was
the kind you would expect,
filled with walks down the red
carpet, hundreds of interviews
with everyone from sports to
lifestyle writers — “What’s the
one beauty rule you swear by?
Moisturizing.” — ambushes
from the paparazzi and, of
course, a Chloe Kim-inspired
Barbie doll.
All of it great. But after a
rough landing at the Burton
U.S. Open in March 2019 left
her with a broken ankle, Kim
came to terms with the real-
ity that her body, and mind,
needed a break. She had been
snowboarding almost nonstop
throughout her childhood.
“I need to be human, need
to be a normal kid for once,”
she explained in an October
2019 video announcing that
she had enrolled at Princeton.
She put the snowboard
away, and insisted her main
form of exercise to stay in
shape were her fast-paced
walks across campus. She
tried as hard as she could
to blend in. She made new
friends.
“I think one of the most
important things I learned
was you can make a really
good connection with people
who don’t have the exact same
interests as you,” Kim said in
her interview with AP.
See Kim / B4