FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT
B3
S PORTS
THE BULLETIN • FrIday, MarcH 12, 2021
bendbulletin.com/sports
PREP FOOTBALL
Bend-Summit
highlights weekend
The second week of the
prep football season kicks
off on Friday — with fans
allowed in the stands. Here
is a quick glance at what is
ahead for Central Oregon
football teams:
Two of Bend’s high
schools were humbled in
the opening week of the
2021 football season as
neither team found the
end zone. Bend High (0-1)
was shutout 35-0 by Red-
mond, while Summit (0-1)
managed just a field goal
in its 33-3 loss to Mountain
View.
The Lava Bears will try
to get their fifth straight
win over the Storm when
they host Summit Friday.
Also Friday, Redmond
(1-0), coming off that state-
ment win over Bend, hosts
Hood River Valley (1-0),
which started its year with
a 30-14 win over La Salle
Prep.
The first points scored
in Friday’s game between
Ridgeview (1-0) and Pend-
leton (1-0) will be the first
points either team has
given up all year. The Buck-
aroos shutout Parkrose 46-
0, while the Ravens shut-
out Putnam 33-0 last week.
In its home opener
Friday, Crook County (1-
0) looks to improve to
2-0 against Molalla (1-0),
which held Madras score-
less last week.
Seeking their first points
of the season, Madras (0-
1) will travel Friday to face
Estacada (0-1), which fell to
Gladstone 35-22 last Friday.
Two teams looking to
rebound after a Week 1 de-
feat will meet in Sisters Fri-
day when the Outlaws (0-
1) play host to Harrisburg
(0-1), which was shutout
last week.
Coming off a last-min-
ute win to beat Siuslaw,
La Pine (1-0) faces a tough
challenge Friday on the
road against Junction City
(1-0), which dominated
Harrisburg last week.
After a controversial
game last week, Culver
(1-0) will play its first of
four consecutive games
on the road, starting with
Jefferson on Friday, which
beat Gervais (1-0) 28-18 a
week ago.
Gilchrist (1-0) will make
its way to the Central Coast
hoping to improve to 2-0
with a win over Eddyville
Charter (0-1) on Friday.
Playing at a neutral
field in Salem on Saturday
due to travel restrictions,
Mountain View (1-0) will
cap off the second week
against Aloha (1-0), which
beat Westview 27-21 in the
first week.
— Bulletin staff report
TENNIS
Federer loses in
Qatar Open QFs
DOHA, Qatar — Roger
Federer failed to convert
a match point before
losing 3-6, 6-1, 7-5 to Ni-
koloz Basilashvili in the
Qatar Open quarterfinals
on Thursday, his second
match back on tour after a
13-month injury layoff.
Basilashvili saved a
match point at 5-4 in the
deciding set and then
broke Federer’s serve in
the next game.
It was a second straight
grueling three-setter
for Federer after his win
Wednesday over Dan Ev-
ans took nearly 2½ hours.
The 39-year-old Federer
was playing in his first
tournament since the
2020 Australian Open fol-
lowing knee surgery.
Federer announced
later on Twitter that he
decided it was best to re-
sume training and had
therefore decided to with-
draw from next week’s
tournament in Dubai.
— Associated Press
MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL | PAC-12 TOURNAMENT
Beavs stun Bruins in quarterfinals
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS — Warith
Alatishe scored a career-high
22 points with 10 rebounds,
Ethan Thompson scored all 18
of his points after halftime and
Oregon State rallied from a
16-point deficit to beat UCLA
83-79 in overtime on Thursday
in the Pac-12 Conference tour-
nament.
Alatishe got a floater to fall
in the lane with 11.2 seconds
left in regulation to put the
Beavers up 70-69 and UCLA’s
Jules Bernard tied it with a free
throw after missing the first.
Gianni Hunt’s heave at the
buzzer, from near midcourt,
went over the backboard.
Rodrigue Andela was sent
to the line with 57.8 seconds
left in overtime — after miss-
ing four of his first eight free-
throw attempts — and sank
both free throws for a 79-78
lead. Seconds later, he blocked
Bernard’s shot.
After an Oregon State miss,
Bernard raced down the court
but turned it over and Ja-
rod Lucas, a 91% free-throw
shooter, made two for an 81-78
lead with 4 seconds left. Ore-
gon State elected to foul and
Johnny Juzang made the first
of two free throws. He missed
the second and Andela made
two more free throws to seal it
after grabbing the rebound.
Oregon State will play regu-
lar-season champion Oregon
on Friday in the semifinals.
The No. 5 seed Beavers began
the tournament against the
fourth-seeded Bruins after the
Pac-12 adjusted the format due
to Arizona not playing. The
Ducks opened with an easy win
over Arizona State, and will
look to take a 2-1 series against
their rivals after an 80-67 win
in the regular-season finale.
See Pac-12 / B4
Al Powers via Pac-12
Oregon State’s Warith Alatishe drives to he basket over multiple UCLA
defenders in the Pac-12 Conference tournament quarterfinals on
Thursday in Las Vegas. Alatishe had a double-double with 22 points
and 10 rebounds in the Beavers’ 83-79 overtime victory. OSU will face
Oregon in the semifinals on Friday.
MLB
Bouncing
back
Orioles’ Trey Mancini heads list of
players returning after missing
2020 due to surgery for cancer
BY ROB MAADDI
Associated Press
T
rey Mancini had surgery for colon
cancer last year on the same day
Paul Sancya/AP file
Major League Baseball shut down
spring training due to COVID-19.
Baltimore Orioles’ Trey Mancini (16) celebrates his solo home run against the Detroit Tigers in Detroit in 2019.
Mancini had surgery for colon cancer last year on the same day major league baseball shut down spring training due
to COVID-19. Baseball returned later in 2020. Mancini is back now, healthy and ready to go.
Baseball returned later in 2020 and Mancini is
back now, healthy and ready to go.
His comeback story has been a highlight of spring
training. Mancini is not only the best player on the
Baltimore Orioles, he’s the most popular.
“There were times, especially when I was diag-
nosed early on where I wasn’t totally sure if I was
ever going to play baseball again,” Mancini recalled
upon his return. “Just being able to feel like my-
self, feel great and participate in everything fully is
something I’m very appreciate of and I don’t take for
granted at all.”
Mancini, who turns 29 next week, had a breakout
season in 2019, batting .291 with 35 homers and 97
RBIs. He singled in his first at-bat in nearly a year
and got a standing ovation from a socially distanced
crowd at the ballpark.
“I can’t remember a bigger hug that I gave any-
body than seeing him for the first time,” Orioles in-
fielder Rio Ruiz said.
Many players are returning from injuries that
forced them to miss last season or cut their season
short. Nearly 20 guys are back after opting not to
play because of coronavirus concerns, including for-
mer All-Stars David Price, Buster Posey, Lorenzo
Cain, Marcus Stroman and Ryan Zimmerman.
Here are five more players looking to rebound in
2021:
Stephen Strasburg
The 2019 World Series MVP pitched five innings
last season before carpal tunnel surgery. He struck
out four of the six batters he faced in his spring
training debut this week, and the 32-year-old righty
is expected to make four more appearances for
Washington before the season.
Strasburg has made than 10 trips to the disabled
and injured lists throughout his career. “This isn’t
my first rodeo when it comes to injuries and stuff,”
Strasburg said after his outing. “So I’m kind of at a
point where I’m going to go out there and give it ev-
erything I have and roll with the punches.”
See MLB / B4
MOTOR SPORTS | NASCAR CUP SERIES
Hendrick off to fast start with 2 wins heading into Phoenix
BY JENNA FRYER
AP Auto Racing Writer
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Hen-
drick Motorsports celebrates
each race win with a Victory
Bell that is carted across the
campus for every employee to
ring.
If not for the pandemic, the
bell would have made two trips
so far this season.
The Hendrick folks believe
the count should actually be at
four.
Hendrick Motorsports is
off to a blazing start this sea-
son with two wins through
NASCAR’s first four races, a
marked uptick for an orga-
nization that went deep into
the schedule the last few years
before its program found a
rhythm.
William Byron and Kyle
Larson have Hendrick on a
two-race streak heading into
this weekend’s race at Phoenix
Raceway, where Chase Elliott
won in November to clinch his
first Cup Series championship.
Elliott and Alex Bowman are
winless through the first month,
but Bowman won the pole for
John Locher/AP
Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson does a burnout after winning
a NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday in Las Vegas.
the Daytona 500 and Elliott, a
week after a runner-up finish
in that marquee event, had the
field covered at Daytona’s road
course until a questionable cau-
tion jumbled the race.
“I mean, certainly the Hen-
drick guys have come to play,”
said Kyle Busch, a former Hen-
drick driver who has since won
two Cup championships with
Joe Gibbs Racing.
The momentum is a car-
ryover from last season when
Elliott gave Rick Hendrick his
first title since Jimmie Johnson
won it in 2016. The team had
failed to advance a driver into
the championship round in
the three years between titles, a
stretch that included an embar-
rassing 2018 season in which
Elliott accounted for the only
three wins for the entire orga-
nization.
The slow rebuild has focused
on behind-the-scenes reorgani-
zations and improving perfor-
mance on 1.5-mile tracks. Hen-
drick Motorsports trailed its
rivals in nearly every statistical
category, including victories, at
those tracks last season.
But after two stops at the
bread-and-butter NASCAR
circuits, Hendrick Motorsports
is undefeated on intermedi-
ate tracks. NASCAR this year
has diversified the schedule
but there are still two 1.5-mile
tracks in the third round of the
playoffs, where a win earns an
automatic berth into the cham-
pionship finale.
“We’ve delved in pretty deep
as a group to try to get our col-
lective knowledge base higher,”
said Chad Knaus, who moved
this year to vice president of
competition at Hendrick after
nearly two decades as a crew
chief. “Each team has its own
identity, for sure, and the lee-
way to do whatever it is that
they need to do, but they really
collectively work together.”
Knaus even suggested that
winning seven championships
with Johnson might have pre-
cipitated the lean years. John-
son went winless his final three
seasons and the Hendrick or-
ganization needed significant
time to adapt to the new Ca-
maro introduced by Chevrolet
in 2018 and then again in 2020.
The team has now had a full
season with the new Camaro
but Hendrick is also not follow-
ing the lead of one team.
“Sometimes if you get some-
body in there who is too over-
powering, or maybe even too
successful, they can lead the
group in the wrong direction,”
Knaus said. “The success that
Jimmie and I had for years, it
ruined a lot of advancement
at Hendrick Motorsports.
We won races that we maybe
shouldn’t have and what hap-
pens is a driver and a crew chief
say ‘Well, let’s just do it like the
48.’ That’s not always the health-
iest thing.”
This quick start has given
Hendrick 265 victories, just
three short of the record held
by Petty Enterprises. The boss
isn’t celebrating just yet.
“I think you build momen-
tum slowly in this sport,” Hen-
drick said. “We’ve still got work
to do. We’ve got work to do in
the pits. But we’ve got good
speed. I just feel like the chem-
istry is so good right now. I
don’t know if I ever remember
it being any better across the
board with all four cars.”