FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT
A5
S PORTS
THE BULLETIN • THUrsday, FEBrUary 4, 2021
bendbulletin.com/sports
NBA
Blazers’ Lillard has
abdominal strain
Portland Trail Blazers
guard Damian Lillard is
the latest player to land
on the team’s injury re-
port.
Lillard is listed as ques-
tionable for Thursday’s
game at Philadelphia
(15-6) with an abdominal
strain, something he has
had to deal with off and
on for the past few years.
“It just locks up, tight-
ens up and it’s hard to
move,” Lillard said.
Lillard said following
the team’s 132-121 win
Tuesday at Washington
that he has been dealing
with some nagging in-
juries lately and at times
during the game had
trouble moving well. He
said he even wondered if
he should have sat out a
recent game on the cur-
rent six-game road trip.
But he said he decided to
fight through the pain.
Lillard said the injury
first surfaced when he
was bumped during
the team’s Jan. 25 game
against Oklahoma City.
“Each game after that
it’s been getting irritated,”
Lillard said.
And now it has landed
him on the Blazers’ in-
jury list, which is already
pretty lengthy.
Derrick Jones Jr., who
has missed the team’s
last two games with a
sprained foot, has been
upgraded to question-
able for Thursday. Out are
forward Nassir Little (left
knee sprain), guard C.J.
McCollum (broken foot)
and center Jusuf Nurkic
(broken wrist). Forward
Zach Collins has been out
all season with a broken
ankle.
Should Lillard miss
Thursday’s game, the
Blazers would likely turn
to Anfernee Simons
to start at point guard
alongside Gary Trent Jr. in
the backcourt.
The Blazers do not
have another healthy
point guard on the roster.
— The Oregonian
Footballers find ways to play
2 Chiefs on COVID
list due to barber
Less than a week be-
fore the Super Bowl,
the Chiefs have a pair of
players on the reserve/
COVID-19 list because of
high-risk close contacts.
Their close contact?
A barber.
A barber tested pos-
itive for COVID-19 on
Sunday and gave wide
receiver Demarcus Rob-
inson and backup center
Daniel Kilgore haircuts, a
source confirmed .
Robinson and Kilgore
have tested negative
and were wearing masks
while getting haircuts,
as was the barber. If they
continue to test negative,
they can return to the
team in time for the Su-
per Bowl. But they have
been held out of practice
while on the reserve/
COVID-19 list this week.
They were placed on the
list Monday.
The barber had been
scheduled to cut other
players’ hair inside the
Chiefs facility, per NFL
Network. According to
ESPN, that included more
than 20 players and staff-
ers, including quarter-
back Patrick Mahomes.
The barber had been
tested Sunday when he
began the haircuts but
had not yet learned the
results of those tests. He
tested negative each of
the previous several days,
including Saturday. He
was told of the positive
result while cutting Kilgo-
re’s hair, according to the
NFL Network.
— The Kansas City Star
Ducks add
to top class
in program
history
BY JAMES CREPEA
The Oregonian
EUGENE — Oregon so-
lidified its best recruiting
class in program history on
Wednesday, signing a pair
of four star
INSIDE
prospects
in running
• Transfers
back Byron
capable of
immediate
Cardwell
impact add
and cor-
value to Bea-
nerback
vers’ class, A7
Avante
Dickerson
to a 23-member class of
2021 ranked No. 3 nation-
ally by Rivals and No. 6 by
247Sports and ESPN, and
the Ducks may not be done
yet.
See Ducks / A7
NFL
Courtesy photos
Mountain View junior quarterback Jakoby Moss at a recent 7-on-7 football tournament in Salem.
QBs from Mountain View and Bend have made the most of
offseason opportunities, but long for the return of tackle football
BY BRIAN RATHBONE
The Bulletin
S
ince fall 2019, high school
football players have been
patiently waiting. Now, as
they continue their long wait, they
are hoping for a Hail Mary in the
next couple of days.
SUPER BOWL
COLLEGE FOOTBALL |
OREGON RECRUITING
Prep Sports
The high school football season
is scheduled to officially begin on
Monday with team practices, but
unless some systematic changes
come from the Oregon Health
Authority or the Governor’s office,
the wait might continue for football
teams.
Bend High sophomore Alexander Emery at
the Offense-Defense All American Bowl in
Arlington, Texas, last week.
But that has not stopped high school
football players in Central Oregon from
finding ways to continue playing the
game they love.
Mountain View’s Jakoby Moss and
Bend High’s Alexander Emery are two
examples of players who have found av-
enues to continue to play football in a
state where the game remains prohibited
due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For Moss, it is spending most week-
ends playing in 7-on-7 passing-league
tournaments — which have grown in
popularity in the absence of tackle foot-
ball.
“It started ramping up during the end
of summer and continued to ramp up
as we felt that the (fall) season might
not happen,” said Moss, the Cougars’
junior quarterback. “Tournaments just
kept getting bigger and bigger. It has
been beneficial for me as a quarterback.
My knowledge of the game has grown,
mechanics have improved, and recruit-
ing — being able to get some tape for
coaches has been beneficial as well.”
Without offensive and defensive line-
men, a running game, or blitzing de-
fenders, the non-contact 7-on-7 style of
football is a far cry from the tackle game
— especially compared with the run-
heavy offense that Mountain View typ-
ically deploys on Friday nights in the fall.
See Prep sports / A6
New ’Hawks
OC Waldron
hits all the
right notes
BY TIM BOOTH
Associated Press
SEATTLE — Shane Wal-
dron hit all the right notes
Tuesday as he discussed his
first opportunity to be an
offensive coordinator in the
NFL.
Now comes the wait for
the fall to find out whether
Waldron’s offensive beliefs
will mesh with what works
best for Pete Carroll, Russell
Wilson and the Seattle Sea-
hawks on the field.
“I’ve talked to Pete a
bunch about this through-
out the process. He has my
back, fully supportive with
what I want to do and what
direction we want to take
this thing together,” Wal-
dron said.
“So it will be a situation
where I feel like I’m walking
into a great scenario, with a
bunch of great coaches that
have such a solid founda-
tion.”
See Waldron / A6
TENNIS | AUSTRALIAN OPEN
No play, but plenty of tests for players
BY JOHN PYE
Associated Press
MELBOURNE, Australia
— Players were isolating and
getting tested for COVID-19
instead of playing tuneup tour-
naments four days before the
Australian Open as concern
grew over the impact on the
year’s first tennis major.
All competition at six tour-
naments scheduled for Thurs-
day was called off overnight
and 520 people who flew to
Melbourne for the Australian
Open were ordered to isolate in
their accommodation and get
tested after a man who worked
at one of the quarantine hotels
until last Friday tested positive
for the coronavirus.
The Australian Open is
scheduled to begin Monday,
and preparations have already
been disruptive and chaotic.
All players and their entou-
rages and everyone else flew
into Australia for the tourna-
ment had to spend 14 days in
hotel quarantine. Of those, 72
players were forced into hard
lockdown after passengers on
their charter flights later re-
turned positive tests for the
virus.
Anyone connected with the
tournament and who quaran-
tined at the Grand Hyatt hotel
in Melbourne were deemed
to be casual contacts of the
26-year-old infected man and
were undergoing testing at a
dedicated facility.
Allen Cheng, Victoria state’s
deputy chief health officer, said
authorities were being extra
cautious.
“We think the risk to other
guests at the hotel, so tennis
players and their accompany-
ing staff, is relatively low be-
cause they were in the rooms
at the time as opposed to staff
who were outside the rooms,”
Cheng told a news conference
Thursday. “So we’re testing
them to be sure, and it’s pre-
cautionary.”
Cheng said six people in the
Grand Hyatt during the quar-
antine period for the Austra-
lian Open had tested positive
and were transferred to a med-
ical facility, and it was likely the
man — a resident support offi-
cer — was infected there.
“We are aware that he was
on a floor where there were
cases,” Cheng said.
Cheng said it was “unlikely”
the Open will be canceled.
Victoria State Premier Dan-
iel Andrews said in news con-
ference late Wednesday that
he didn’t expect the Feb. 8-21
Australian Open to impacted,
although he has added that it’s
an unfolding situation.
He said the late-night an-
nouncement of the positive
case was done “through an
Hamish Blair/AP
A car leaves a COVID-19 testing station in Melbourne, Australia, on
Thursday. All competition at six Australian Open tuneup events sched-
uled for Thursday was called off after a worker at one of the tourna-
ments’ Melbourne quarantine hotels tested positive for COVID-19.
abundance of caution.”
Andrews on Thursday con-
firmed close family contacts of
the infected worker had tested
negative for COVID-19 and
contact tracing was advanced.
Everyone in the city will be
required to wear masks while
indoors.
The latest coronavirus re-
strictions could test the resolve
of players who have recently
come out of two weeks in quar-
antine. It will also give ammu-
nition to critics of the govern-
ment decision to allow people
to fly in from all over the world
at a time when coronavirus
cases were surging in some
countries but under control in
Australia.
See Tennis / A7