FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT
S PORTS
A5
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THE BULLETIN • THUrsday, JaNUary 13, 2022
NBA
Blazers’ Lillard to
have ab surgery
Portland Trail Blazers
guard Damian Lillard
will undergo surgery on
Thursday to repair his in-
jured abdomen and could
miss the remainder of
the season, according to
reports.
The Athletic’s Shams
Charania and ESPN’s Brian
Windhorst have both re-
ported the news.
Yahoo Sports’ Chris
Haynes reported soon af-
ter that Lillard would be
out at least 6-8 weeks.
The All-Star guard
already has missed 11
games this season for the
Blazers (16-24).
The injury has fre-
quently bothered Lillard
in the past but usually
subsides early in the sea-
son, but not this season.
Lillard got off to one of
the worst starts of his ca-
reer to begin the season
and then the abdomen in-
jury started to bother him.
He first sat out to rest
his abdomen on Nov. 14
at Denver. He has repeat-
edly made attempts to
return to the lineup, even
taking a cortisone shot
at one point, with mixed
results on the court. Amid
Lillard’s injury and per-
formance struggles, the
Blazers lost his back court
mate C.J. McCollum to a
collapsed lung on Dec. 4.
As if that weren’t
enough, the Blazers
then dealt with a rash
of COVID-19 cases that
depleted the lineup
and even forced coach
Chauncey Billups to miss
time.
To start the new year,
Lillard was shelved once
again. The Blazers are 3-2
since the start of 2022 and
begin a six-game road trip
Thursday at Denver.
— The Oregonian
bendbulletin.com/sports
OUTDOORS
Possible world-record fish landed on Deschutes
Bulletin staff report
Submitted photo
Bend’s Alex Dietz and his state record whitefish he landed on the Lower
Deschutes near Warm Springs on Dec. 19. The fish might be a new
world record.
Bend’s Alex Dietz was
fly-fishing with an egg pattern
on the Deschutes River out-
side Warm Springs on Dec. 19
when he hooked a 5-pound,
12-ounce, 24-inch-long moun-
tain whitefish with a 14-inch
girth, according to an Oregon
Department of Fish and Wild-
life press release on Wednes-
day.
“My fishing buddy Jason
Schreiber saw that I had a big
fish on and came over to check
out what was going on,” Dietz
was quoted in the release. “We
took pictures of it and kind of
laughed about it for awhile. I
was getting ready to let the fish
go when we realized this thing
could be a state record.”
Dietz said he is almost ex-
clusively a catch-and-release
angler, but he kept this fish,
bringing it to Newport Avenue
Market in Bend for an official
weigh-in on an Oregon Dept.
of Agriculture scale as required
under the record rules.
ODFW certified the fish as
the new state record mountain
whitefish on Jan. 7, beating the
previous record: a 4-pound,
14-ounce mountain whitefish
caught at Crane Prairie Reser-
voir in 1994.
The mountain whitefish
might actually be a world re-
cord as the current record is
a 5-pound, 8-ounce whitefish
taken in 1995 from Albert’s
River near Calgary, Alberta,
according to the International
Game Fish Association. Dietz
is submitting the information
to the IGFA to be certified.
Dietz grew up in Bend and
has been fishing since he was
in high school. He usually tar-
gets trout and steelhead. His
record fish is being taxider-
mized for display at his home.
Dietz said Dec. 19 was the
first time he’d been fishing
since he and his wife Andrea
welcomed their first child, a
baby girl, on Nov. 15, 2021.
“December 19 was the first
time I got the green light from
my wife to go fishing, so big
thanks to her, too,” Dietz said.
Mountain whitefish are a na-
tive migratory fish in Oregon
and are distributed through-
out most of the western United
States and Canada, according
to the ODFW. These fish are
typically found in cool moun-
tain streams, but also live in
lakes.
See Outdoors / A7
PREP GIRLS BASKETBALL
Calm and
collected
Composure is an early-season
theme for Mountain View High
BY BRIAN RATHBONE • The Bulletin
When South Salem’s Maddie Dustin
knocked down a 3-pointer to erase a nine-
INSIDE
Baseball — The New
York Yankees promote
Rachel Balkovec to be the
manager of their Low A
affiliate in Florida. Story
on A6.
NFL
Weddle unretires,
joins the Rams
LOS ANGELES —
Safety Eric Weddle is
coming out of retirement
to rejoin the Los Angeles
Rams for the playoffs.
Weddle turned 37
last week, and he hasn’t
played in the NFL since
the 2019 season, but the
Rams signed him to their
practice squad Wednes-
day to address their glar-
ing need at safety.
Leading tackler Jor-
dan Fuller is out for the
playoffs with a right ankle
injury, and fellow starting
safety Taylor Rapp is in
the concussion protocol.
Weddle, who played
college ball Utah, retired
in February 2020 after
one season with the
Rams in which he made
108 tackles and called
the defense’s signals. The
Los Angeles-area native
spent his first 12 NFL sea-
sons with the San Diego
Chargers and Baltimore
Ravens before his year
with the Rams. He has 29
career interceptions.
The NFC West cham-
pion Rams (12-5) return
to practice Thursday
ahead of their visit from
the Arizona Cardinals (11-
6) on Monday night. Car-
dinals coach Kliff Kings-
bury noted Weddle’s
surprising comeback.
“All-Pro, Pro Bowl, one
of the smartest defensive
players that anybody ever
speaks about. If anybody
can do it, there’s no doubt
he can,” Kingsbury said.
— Associated Press
point fourth quarter deficit and tie the game
42-42 with 30 seconds left, there was a sense
of comfort among the Mountain View girls
basketball team.
Games coming down to the final possessions
have been a familiar theme for the Cougars 10
games into the season. In their five games decided
by 10 points or less, they have won
INSIDE
four.
“They don’t get too rattled. We
• High school
have been in a lot of close games
scores and
results in
this year,” said first-year Mountain
Scoreboard,
View coach Jon Corbett. “At the
A6
end of close games they seem to
calm down and finish things off.”
And Tuesday night, Mountain View (7-3, 1-0
Mountain Valley Conference) continued the sea-
sonlong trend against South Salem, a program that
won the conference in two of the last three seasons,
with a 46-42 win over the Saxons (6-4, 0-1). The
Cougars scored the final four points to secure the
victory in their MVC opener.
See Mountain View / A7
Brian Rathbone/The Bulletin
Mountain View’s Avery Andrews dribbles to the basket during the Cougars’ 46-42 win over South Salem on Tues-
day night at Mountain View High School in Bend.
NBA | PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS
Simons seizing opportunity with Lillard out
BY ANNE M. PETERSON
Associated Press
PORTLAND — While Port-
land’s Damian Lillard remains
sidelined with an abdominal
injury, Anfernee Simons is seiz-
ing the opportunity to show he
has the abilities to be an every-
day starter in the NBA.
Simons’ emergence has given
the Trail Blazers a spark in an
otherwise bleak season. Just 16-
24 and sitting in 10th place in
the Western Conference, Port-
land is missing both Lillard and
his backcourt partner C.J. Mc-
Collum because of injuries. On
Wednesday it was reported that
Lillard will undergo abdominal
surgery Thursday and will be
re-evaluated in 6-8 weeks.
“That’s my main goal really,
just to show that I can be that
guy,” Simons said. “So that’s
what I’m trying to do.”
Simons had 23 points and a
career-high 11 assists in Mon-
day night’s 114-108 victory
over the talent-laden Brooklyn
Nets, who were missing James
Harden but played Kyrie Irving
for the second time this season.
The win capped a home-
stretch during which the Blaz-
ers went 3-2. Simons kicked
off the homestand with a ca-
reer-high 43 points in a 136-
131 victory over Atlanta Jan. 3.
Known by his nickname Ant,
the 22-year-old Simons has
averaged 27.8 points and 7.6
assists over those five games,
scoring 20 or more points in
four of them.
“I think he’s on his way,”
Portland first-year coach
Chauncey Billups said when
asked if Simons has proven
himself to be an NBA starter.
“This stretch here without
Dame is going to big for Ant.
I know what I feel about him,
but it’s not about me, it’s about
proving himself to everybody
else. He’s going to have to main-
tain that consistency.”
He started each of those
games in the absence of Lil-
lard, who has struggled this
season with lower abdominal
tendinopathy. Lillard, a six-
time All-Star and the Blazers’
stalwart leader, has been both-
ered by the injury since the To-
kyo Olympics and had already
missed 11 games prior to the
announcement that he would
have surgery.
See Simons / A7
Craig Mitchelldyer/AP
Portland Trail Blazers’ Anfernee Simons (1) drives to the basket in front
of Sacramento Kings’ De’Aaron Fox Sunday in Portland.