FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT
A5
S PORTS
THE BULLETIN • THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2022
bendbulletin.com/sports
COLLEGE
FOOTBALL
Oregon’s season
opener is sold out
The Oregon Ducks’
season opener will be
played in front of a capac-
ity crowd.
The Chick-fil-A Kick-
off Game between the
Ducks and reigning na-
tional champion Geor-
gia is officially sold out,
game officials announced
Wednesday.
“This has already
proven to be one of the
toughest tickets we’ve
ever seen for the Chick-
fil-A Kickoff Game,” Peach
Bowl CEO and president
Gary Stokan said in a
statement. “You have the
defending national cham-
pions squaring off with
arguably the most suc-
cessful Pac-12 team in the
CFP era. With two passion-
ate fan bases and the best
neutral-site matchup on
opening weekend, it’s no
surprise we’ve seen such a
strong demand for tickets.”
It’s the 14th time in
18 games the Chick-
fil-A Kickoff Game —
scheduled for Sept. 3
(12:30 p.m., ABC) at Mer-
cedes-Benz Stadium in
Atlanta — will be sold
out. The marquee event
began in 2008 and has
featured an average at-
tendance of 67,064.
The Ducks and Bull-
dogs will battle for the Old
Leather Helmet Trophy,
with the winners wearing
the helmet on the field
after the game, starting
with the head coach.
It’s Oregon first appear-
ance in the Chick-fil-A
Kickoff Game and it will
be only the second meet-
ing between Pac-12 and
SEC teams, with the SEC
claiming the lone victory.
In 2018, Auburn beat
Washington.
“This is going to be a
tremendous matchup
between two of college
football’s premiere pro-
grams,” Oregon coach Dan
Lanning said in a state-
ment. “The game being
sold out already speaks
to the power of these
two brands and the na-
tional buzz around this
matchup, and we look for-
ward to seeing Duck fans
out in full force in Atlanta.”
— The Oregonian
CYCLING
Vingegaard moves
closer to Tour title
PEYRAGUDES, France
— Tadej Pogacar claimed
a third stage win as he
sprinted away from Jo-
nas Vingegaard in the
punishing last climb of a
grueling trek in the Pyr-
enees but failed to take
significant time out of the
Tour de France leader on
Wednesday.
Pogacar, the two-time
defending champion,
attacked in the final kilo-
meter up to Peyragudes
to win Stage 17 stage but
could not drop Vinge-
gaard, who made another
step toward a maiden
Tour de France win.
Vingegaard was run-
ner-up last year behind
Pogacar. The Danish rider
has been impressive
since the start in Copen-
hagen and once again
showed no sign of weak-
ness during Wednesday’s
tough ride featuring four
big climbs.
Vingegaard crossed
the finish line just behind
Pogacar, with Brandon
McNulty completing the
stage podium, 32 seconds
behind the pair.
With the time bonus
awarded to the stage win-
ner, Pogacar moved four
seconds closer to Vinge-
gaard, who now has an
overall lead of 2 minutes,
18 seconds in the general
classification.
— Associated Press
TRACK AND FIELD
A golden
feeling
For Ukrainian high jumper, world
silver might as well be gold
Gregory Bull/AP
Yaroslava Mahuchikh, of Ukraine, competes during the women’s high jump final at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene on Tuesday .
BY EDDIE PELLS • AP National Writer
EUGENE — The second-place finish at world championships was beside the point for Ukraine’s best high jumper, Yaroslava
Mahuchikh.
“For me, it’s gold,” she said Tuesday night, as she looked down at her newly won prize, one nobody would have been right to expect
four months ago after she took a three-day car trip to flee her hometown and get away from the bombing.
Mahuchikh left shortly after her country came
under siege by the Russian military. The war
grinds on.
Though thousands of civilians and soldiers
are dying, Mahuchikh felt it was her duty to keep
doing what she does best, if for no other reason
than to give people back home something to be
happy about. And, she said, to show Ukraine is
strong.
“We will fight for our independence and for
our territory,” she said. “And of course, finally, we
will win.”
She came into the biggest high jump contest of
the year as a favorite, in part because the three-
time defending champion, Maria Lasitskene, is
from Russia and not allowed to compete in ma-
jor events due to the war.
The Ukrainian finished behind the surpris-
ing Eleanor Patterson of Australia, who had one
fewer miss than Mahuchikh at 2.02 meters (6
feet, 7½ inches), which made the difference be-
tween first and second.
Still, this was a night to celebrate for Ukraine,
and for Mahuchikh, who said she felt the
MLB | COMMENTARY
warmth from the stands, where the yellow-and-
blue Ukraine flags dotted a few seats and fans
cheered for her before every jump.
“Now, everything is for our Ukrainian people,
and everything you do, you want to show the
good results,” she said.
The silver medal goes alongside the gold
she won at the world indoor championships in
March. That came shortly after she escaped her
hometown of Dnipro, which had come under at-
tack by Russia and, she said, is under siege today.
See Track / A7
PAC-12 FOOTBALL | COMMENTARY
Five reasons San Diego
Mariners All-Stars Rodriguez, France
enjoy American League’s annual victory State is the obvious
expansion option
BY LARRY STONE
The Seattle Times
LOS ANGELES — If you
considered the All-Star Game
to be the national coming-out
party for Julio Rodriguez’s
mega-stardom, most of the
heavy lifting was done Mon-
day in the Home Run Derby.
“After that, everyone
knows who Julio is,” said
teammate Ty France.
On Tuesday, Rodriguez
was quiet, or at least as quiet
as a fun-loving, effervescent
21-year-old can be in the
American League’s 3-2 win,
going 0 for 2 yet still man-
aging to charm the national
television audience.
If you viewed the game
as an opportunity to show-
case the too-little-recognized
skills of France, well, it didn’t
quite work out according
to plan. The last player se-
lected to the game and the
last non-pitcher inserted
into it, France struck out in
his only appearance, yet still
headed back to Seattle with
the giddy countenance of
someone who just had a life-
time dream fulfilled — in his
hometown, no less.
And if you regarded the
Mid-Summer Classic as an
annoying interruption of the
Mariners’ win-a-day stam-
pede through the American
League, well, I’ve got good
news. The game is over,
a perfunctory American
League victory at Dodger
BY JON WILNER
The (San Jose) Mercury News
Abbie Parr/AP
Seattle Mariners’ Ty France (left) and Julio Rodriguez in the dugout
during the MLB All-Star game Tuesday in Los Angeles.
Stadium fueled by Giancarlo
Stanton’s two-run home run.
Because the AL always wins
— nine in a row, and 21 of
the last 24. How does such
dominance happen?
“We’re just better, I think,”
deadpanned White Sox re-
liever Liam Hendriks, who
had a starring role in a lit-
tle J-Rod comedy act in the
eighth inning. “No, I just
think in games like this, it’s
all a matter of kind of luck.
Everyone on that field is
amazing at their job. They’re
the best of the best, and I
think the American League
has managed to pull out a
couple of timely swings at the
right time.”
And now, more to the
point, on Friday the M’s host
the division-leading Hous-
ton Astros, led by Ameri-
can League manager Dusty
Baker, and find out if the
All-Star break was a momen-
tum-killer.
Oh, and Seattle is now on
the clock. The next time the
All-Star Game is held, it will
be next July at T-Mobile Park,
with the Mariners as the host
team for the first time since
2001.
It seems vaguely possible
that 2001 was the last time
something else happened,
but we won’t get into that
here, except to say that the
Mariners’ single-minded
mission in the second half
will be to end that storyline
once and for all.
See Mariners / A6
The array of lifeboats avail-
able for the Pac-12 seemingly
has been reduced by one.
The conference is no longer
discussing a merger or alli-
ance with the Big 12, accord-
ing to an ESPN report.
In the realignment game,
nothing is official until it’s of-
ficial — and sometimes not
even then. But if we presume
the leagues don’t reconsider a
partnership, the Pac-12 seem-
ingly is left with three paths to
survival:
· Join forces with the ACC
under an ESPN media rights
umbrella.
· Stick together (without
the ACC) as a 10-school con-
ference.
· Stick together (without
the ACC) and expand.
If expansion is the preferred
outcome, one school stands as
the obvious addition: San Di-
ego State.
The Aztecs have been pre-
paring for this opportunity for
a decade and borrowed from
the expansion blueprint used
by Utah, which spent years
readying itself for the moment
the Pac-12 called.
Here are five reasons the
Aztecs make so much sense
for the conference:
1. The competitive factor
Admittedly, we don’t have
a good handle on San Diego
State’s Olympic sports, but it
doesn’t matter.
Realignment is about foot-
ball, men’s basketball, and
football.
Also, football.
On the field, the Aztecs are
6-1 against the Pac-12 since
2017, with wins over Utah,
ASU, UCLA, Stanford and Ar-
izona.
They have won at least 10
games in five of the past six
seasons (excluding 2020) and
were ranked in the end-of-
year AP poll in 2016 and 2021.
While SDSU hasn’t
reached the same level of
success as Cincinnati — or
Boise State under Chris Pe-
tersen — the program is on
the next tier.
Add the resources and
cache that would come with
Pac-12 membership, and the
Aztecs would more than hold
their own on a weekly basis.
Meanwhile, the men’s bas-
ketball program is plenty wor-
thy of an invitation, having
qualified for the NCAAs in
nine of the past 12 years.
(Had COVID- not inter-
vened, the Aztecs would have
been a No. 1 or 2 seed in the
2020 tournament.)
Also, have you seen the state
of Pac-12 basketball lately?
SDSU would enhance the
overall product.
See Pac-12 / A6