FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT
A5
S PORTS
THE BULLETIN • WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2021
bendbulletin.com/sports
YOUTH SPORTS
Lacrosse sign-up
deadline March 8
Local youth are invited
to participate in the Bend
Park & Recreation District’s
youth lacrosse league.
The deadline to register
is March 8. The league is
open to boys and girls in
first grade through eighth
grade and runs from April
12 to June 4.
Registration is available
at www.bendparksan-
drec.org.
The league promotes
physical fitness and
teaches participants
sportsmanship lessons
about teamwork and fair
play as well as basic la-
crosse fundamentals and
game play. Teams practice
twice a week and play an
eight-game schedule.
“After what has been a
very long year for all of us,
we are so excited to give
the kids the opportunity
to get outside, be active
and have some fun with
their friends,” said Rich
Ekman, BPRD sports coor-
dinator. “Having had to sit
out last season, we know
the kids are very excited
to get out on the field and
play lacrosse this spring.”
The registration fee is
$80 for in-district residents
and $96 for those that live
outside the district bound-
aries. Financial assistance
is available for registration
and equipment needs.
Helmets, sticks, mouth
guards and game jerseys
are provided. Participants
in the boys’ league must
provide their own gloves,
shoulder pads and elbow
pads.
League rules and for-
mat will be adjusted to
comply with the most
updated local and state
COVID guidelines.
For more information,
contact Ekman at 541-
706-6126 or email rich@
bendparksandrec.org.
PREP SPORTS
Volleyball returns for Cowgirls
Crook County can
start playing
volleyball, while
Jefferson County
schools are left on
the sidelines
BY BRIAN RATHBONE
The Bulletin
T
uesday brought
good news for
Crook County
High School and bad
news for Madras and
Culver.
The three schools’
volleyball programs
started the week unsure
of what their volleyball
Bulletin file photo
seasons would entail.
Redmond’s Aspen Bradley, right, blocks Crook County’s McKenzie Jonas during a Cowgirls’ victory in the 2019 volleyball season.
All three needed the
Oregon Health Authority to
move their counties down
from an extreme risk to a
high risk to be able to start
competing next week.
Crook County dropped
down a tier, while Jefferson
County did not.
“We had our schedule and
we had our opponents,” said
Crook County athletic direc-
tor Rob Bonner. “We were
just waiting to get moved to
high risk.”
Crook County was con-
fident about its chances of
moving down a level after
narrowly missing out on en-
tering the high risk category
two weeks ago.
Even with the likelihood
of moving, there were still
backup plans in place for
“We had our schedule and we had our opponents. We
were just waiting to get moved to high risk.”
— Rob Bonner, Crook County athletic director
Crook County, including
waiting for another drop
down in two weeks, and sal-
vaging whatever would be
left of the already shortened
season, or moving into a later
part of the year to get a full
season.
“Fortunately, we don’t have
to look at those options,”
Bonner said.
Meanwhile, Jefferson
County does not meet the
state’s metrics for volleyball.
Located in one of five coun-
ties to remain in the extreme
risk tier, Madras and Culver
will have to wait until March
12 for a chance to play vol-
leyball — which cuts sig-
nificantly into the six-week
schedule.
“I’m just really sad for vol-
leyball,” said new Madras ath-
letic director Mark Stewart.
See Cowgirls / A7
— Bulletin staff report
WOMEN’S
COLLEGE HOOPS
GOLF
WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Ducks still have chance to
live up to great expectations
Beavers on NCAA
tourney bubble
Oregon State’s 71-64
win over then-No. 8 UCLA
on Sunday appears to be
the springboard that puts
the Beavers into the NCAA
tournament.
ESPN’s “Bracketol-
ogy” has OSU as the last
at-large school in the
64-team field in its latest
iteration. The Beavers (8-
6) are slotted as a No. 11
seed in the tournament.
This doesn’t assure that
Oregon State is bound for
postseason play, but it’s
an indicator the Beavers
are on the right track. OSU
is shooting for its seventh
consecutive NCAA tour-
nament appearance.
The Beavers, No. 34 in
the NCAA NET rankings,
can virtually assure a tour-
nament berth with a win
Sunday at No. 14 Oregon.
After that, OSU heads to
the Pac-12 Tournament.
It remains unknown if the
Beavers will make up any
of their nine postponed
games the week after the
conference tournament.
The bracketology pro-
jection has six Pac-12
teams in the field: Stan-
ford (1-seed), Arizona
(2), UCLA (3), Oregon (5),
Washington State (11)
and the Beavers.
All NCAA women’s
tournament games this
year are played in San An-
tonio. The field is revealed
March 15. First-round
games are March 21-22,
with the national champi-
onship game April 4.
The tournament is al-
lowing a limited number
of fans for the Sweet 16
and beyond. For the first
two rounds, members of
the official team party are
allowed up to six tickets
for guests.
— The Oregonian
BY RYAN THORBURN
The (Eugene) Register-Guard
Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP
A vehicle rests on its side after a rollover accident involving golfer Tiger
Woods along a road in the Rancho Palos Verdes section of Los Angeles
on Tuesday. Woods suffered leg injuries in the one-car accident and
was undergoing surgery, authorities and his manager said.
Tiger Woods is seriously
injured in California car crash
BY STEFANIE DAZIO
AND DOUG FERGUSON
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Tiger
Woods was seriously injured
Tuesday when his SUV crashed
into a median, rolled over sev-
eral times and ended up on its
side in suburban Los Angeles,
authorities said. The golf su-
perstar had to be pulled out
through the windshield, and
his agent said he was undergo-
ing leg surgery.
Woods was alone in the
SUV when it crashed into a
raised median shortly before
7:15 a.m., crossed two oncom-
ing lanes and rolled over sev-
eral times, authorities said at a
news conference. No other cars
were involved. Woods was alert
and able to communicate as
firefighters pried open the front
windshield to get him out.
The airbags deployed, and
the inside of the car stayed ba-
sically intact and that “gave
him a cushion to survive the
crash,” Los Angeles County
Sheriff Alex Villanueva said.
Both of his legs were severely
injured, county Fire Chief
Daryl Osby.
Images showed the SUV on
its side, with its front end heav-
ily damaged, just off the side of
a road near a hillside. An am-
bulance took the 45-year-old to
a hospital, authorities said.
“Tiger Woods was in a sin-
gle-car accident this morning
in California where he suffered
multiple leg injuries,” said his
manager, Mark Steinberg. “He
is currently in surgery and we
thank you for your privacy and
support.”
They said there was no im-
mediate evidence that Woods
was impaired. Authorities said
they checked for any odor of
alcohol or other signs he was
under the influence of a sub-
stance and did not find any.
See Woods / A6
Oregon women’s basketball
fans will never forget the run
the program went on during
the Big Three era.
During the previous three
seasons with Sabrina Ionescu,
Ruthy Hebard and Satou Sa-
bally leading the way, the
Ducks won three consecutive
Pac-12 championships while
compiling a 97-13 record
(49-5 in conference).
The dominance included
the postseason as Oregon
won two Pac-12 Tournament
titles and made it to the Elite
Eight and Final Four.
If not for the cancellation of
the 2020 NCAA Tournament,
the program might have hung
a national championship ban-
ner as well.
Coach Kelly Graves, whose
2020-21 squad is 13-6 overall
and 10-6 in the Pac-12, has
been thinking about what
life was like for Ionescu and
Hebard as true freshmen the
year before Sabally arrived to
join forces with the dynamic
duo.
The Ducks finished the
2016-17 season 23-14 overall
and 8-10 in conference play.
Five of those wins were in
the postseason as the young
roster peaked with an upset
of Washington in the Pac-12
Tournament and a memora-
ble march to the Elite Eight as
a No. 10 seed.
The program-changing re-
cruiting class that produced
Ionescu and Hebard was able
to get through its growing
pains without a national me-
dia spotlight and the rigors of
playing in a pandemic.
Next up
Oregon State at No. 14 Oregon
When: 3 p.m. Sunday
TV: Pac-12
Graves was as frustrated as
anyone after Friday’s deflating
83-56 defeat at UCLA.
But No. 14 Oregon, which
only returned one starter this
season and is breaking in five
freshmen from the nation’s
top-ranked recruiting class, is
still in strong position to make
noise at the NCAA Tourna-
ment for years to come.
Maybe even next month in
San Antonio.
“I was looking back at
four years ago. We had some
inconsistencies that year,”
Graves said after the Ducks
finished the Los Angeles trip
with a 72-48 victory over USC
Sunday. “And the difference, I
think, is expectations. Exter-
nal expectations and internal
expectations. That’s the only
difference. So when we got
beat handily a few years ago,
nobody thought much of it
because we didn’t have those
expectations.
“And now we do. So there’s
a lot of pressure on these
kids.”
Senior forward Erin Boley
has tried to lead by example
while also dealing with a bad
back and having defensive
game plans designed to stop
her instead of the Big Three.
Nyara Sabally and Sedona
Prince, two redshirt sopho-
mores with the size and skill-
sets to be dominant players,
are playing major college
basketball for the first time
after fighting back from ca-
reer-threatening injuries.
Junior guard Taylor Chavez
was back in the starting
lineup Sunday after being
stuck in COVID-19 protocol
purgatory during the heart of
the Pac-12 race.
The veteran pieces were
finally in place to guide the
gifted young cast out of the
darkness of three consecutive
losses to top-10 opponents.
“I thought our upperclass-
men did a great job,” Graves
said. “We inserted Taylor
Chavez to start the game. I
thought we really needed her
toughness. I thought she was
a leader.
“Nyara Sabally, I give her
a lot of credit, man. She has
stepped up and really tried to
lead in the locker room after
the last game and in the meet-
ings.”
Prince, the 6-foot-7 for-
ward who has been in and
out of the lineup all season,
scored all 11 of her points
off the bench in the second
half against USC to join Bo-
ley (13 points), Sabally (11
points) and Sydney Parrish
(17 points) in double figures
scoring.
“Sedona, this was one of
her best games,” Graves said.
“She looked like she really
wanted it. She was aggressive
down low, she didn’t just set-
tle for an easy jump hook or
a turnaround jump shot over
her shoulder.
See Ducks / A6