FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT
B3
S PORTS
THE BULLETIN • FrIday, OcTOBEr 21, 2022
ESPN ‘COLLEGE
GAME DAY’
Ex-Duck Ionescu to
be guest picker
Former Oregon Ducks
women’s basketball great
Sabrina Ionescu has been
chosen to be the guest
picker on ESPN “College
GameDay” Saturday as
the college football pre-
game show broadcasts
from Eugene.
“GameDay” will be in
town ahead of Saturday’s
Pac-12 showdown be-
tween No. 9 UCLA and
No. 10 Oregon (12:30 p.m.
on Fox).
The “GameDay” show
will broadcast live from 6
to 9 a.m. from the Memo-
rial Quad on the Univer-
sity of Oregon campus.
Ionescu, who now
plays for the New York
Liberty of the WNBA, is
one of the best players in
college basketball history.
She is the all-time leader
in NCAA career triple-dou-
bles and led the Ducks to
the Final Four in 2019.
On the show, Ionescu
will join other members
of the “GameDay” broad-
cast team in making picks
for the winners of select
games in college football
this week.
“College GameDay”
will be in Eugene for the
11th time overall. The
national road show typi-
cally broadcasts live from
the site of one of the top
games of the week.
The Ducks record when
“College GameDay” is in
Eugene is 7-3, beginning
with a 29-10 win over
UCLA on Sept. 23, 2000.
Overall, Oregon is 16-
11 when the show is at
its games, including last
season when the Ducks
beat the Bruins at the
Rose Bowl.
The last time an
Oregon team hosted
“GameDay” in Eugene was
in 2018, when Stanford
paid a visit and ousted the
Ducks in a heartbreaking
overtime game.
The UCLA-Oregon
matchup is the first game
between two teams
ranked in the top 10 at
Autzen Stadium since No.
3 Oregon defeated No. 7
Michigan State in 2014,
and the first at Autzen
between two top-10 Pac-
12 teams since the No. 4
Ducks beat No. 9 Stanford
in 2010. The Ducks have a
22-game winning streak
at home.
bendbulletin.com/sports
PREP VOLLEYBALL
Ridgeview
is ready
A new belief in themselves has Ravens
prepared for the Class 5A state playoffs
BY BRIAN RATHBONE • The Bulletin
REDMOND — Ridgeview volleyball
coach Kurtis Bower admitted he was nervous
coming into the season taking over a program
with a long history of not only making the
playoffs, but advancing to state tournaments.
After the regular season came to an end
Wednesday night with a 3-0 (25-19, 25-15,
25-16) sweep of Mountain View, the Ravens
are right back where they usually are — in the
playoffs and a win away from advancing to the
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
5A state tournament.
Ridgeview’s Madie Vaughn (8) hits the ball past a pair of Mountain View defenders during the first set in Redmond on
Wednesday night.
“I knew I had a great team coming in,” Bower
said. “But getting it to a point where we are getting to
the playoffs and having that goal in
INSIDE
mind, and to finally getting there and
achieving it is kind of surreal.”
• High school
Perhaps just as, if not more, im-
schedule
and results
portant is how the Ridgeview players
in Score-
feel entering the postseason. They
board, B4
believe they are playing their best vol-
leyball of the season.
“I feel like everything is coming together,” said se-
nior outside hitter Madie Vaughn. “I think we are
ready to go into the playoffs because we have played
a lot of the toughest teams in all these tournaments.
We are ready to go out there and give it everything
we have got.”
While Ridgeview had a second-place finish in the
Intermountain Conference behind IMC-champion
Bend High and will be in contention to host a playoff
match once the brackets are finalized, neither Bower
nor Vaughn would say that it has been a smooth ride
for the Ravens this season.
The year started off with three consecutive losses
and when playing in tournaments against some of
MLB PLAYOFFS | NLCS GAME 3 PREVIEW
Blazers’ season-opening win
gives fans reasons to believe
BY BILL ORAM
The Oregonian
PREP HOOPS
Just weeks after it was
first allowed, a pair of lo-
cal basketball stars have
made Oregon history as
the first to sign endorse-
ment deals as high school
athletes.
On Thursday morning,
Portland Gear announced
that it had signed a deal
with West Linn’s Jackson
Shelstad and Jesuit’s Sofia
Bell. Both are senior bas-
ketball players who have
committed to play for the
Oregon Ducks.
Shelstad is a four-star
point guard for the Lions,
and helped lead West
Linn to a 22-4 record in
the 2021-22 season. Bell is
the No. 26-ranked player
in the current senior class
by ESPN and previously
played for St. Mary’s.
The deal was made
possible by the OSAA
changing its Rule 8.4 ear-
lier in October. The NIL
rule was previously given
the green light by the ex-
ecutive board earlier in
the fall, and was voted on
by the delegate assembly
in October. It allows stu-
dent athletes to profit off
their name, image and
likeness so long as they
follow certain criteria.
— The Oregonian
See Volleyball / B4
NBA COMMENTARY
— Bulletin wire reports
Oregon athletes
sign NIL deals
the state’s top competition nearly every weekend of
the season, the Ravens struggled.
With the regular season winding down, Ridgeview
met in the team room for what Vaughn called a “come
to Jesus moment” to get everyone on the same page as
they embarked on another run to the postseason.
“We talked about what needed to be fixed and
then we went out and executed,” Vaughn said. “A lot
of things went unsaid. We just had a sit-down talk
and realized that we have the postseason coming and
that we need to turn it on.”
Jae C. Hong/AP
San Diego Padres starting pitcher Joe Musgrove works against a Los
Angeles Dodgers batter during the first inning in Game 4 of a Na-
tional League Division Series game Saturday in San Diego.
Padres turn to October ace
Joe Musgrove vs. Phillies
BY DAN GELSTON
Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — There
was at least one fuddy-duddy
in San Diego who did not see
the humor in a mural painted
this week of the famous San
Diego Chicken using his su-
per-sized yellow foot to stomp
on the side of the head of the
Phillie Phanatic.
Did someone cry fowl be-
cause of the mascot-on-mas-
cot crime?
Or was it just superstition
that made the makeover nec-
essary because of a belief it’s
best not to put the cart before
the chicken?
Whatever the reason, the
mural outside Tivoli Bar and
Grill was quickly gone — yes,
a true cover up because no one
has fessed up to applying the
fresh coat of paint — but the
original art is a bit of a meta-
phor for what’s happening in
the National League Champi-
onship Series.
The Padres are suddenly
putting the hurt on the Phil-
lies.
Yes, the NLCS is only tied
1-1 as it shifts to Philadelphia
for Game 3 on Friday, but the
Padres not only roughed up
October ace Aaron Nola in an
8-5 victory, they have the de-
cisive edge on the mound in
Philly.
San Diego’s Joe Musgrove
survived a TSA-worthy pat-
down and tossed one-hit ball
over seven shutout innings in
an NL Wild Card Series win
over the Mets and followed up
with six solid innings to help
beat the Dodgers in the NLCS.
The Phillies counter with lefty
Ranger Suárez, who walked
five in 3 1/3 innings in his
Game 2 NLDS start at Atlanta.
Musgrove (1-0, 1.38 post-
season) is ready for the mo-
ment.
His story at times almost
seems like a work of fiction
for those who followed the
29-year-old big right-hander’s
career. The El Cajon, Califor-
nia native grew up rooting
for the Padres and former ace
Jake Peavy.
See MLB / B4
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
You won’t find it on a shelf in
the team store. You can’t buy
it online. But here’s some-
thing new the Portland Trail
Blazers have to sell their fans:
A future.
For years, the Blazers have
been a known commodity
with a clear ceiling.
But general manager Joe
Cronin’s reset of Portland’s
roster has the Blazers feeling
interesting and fresh in an
unfamiliar way.
You saw it in Shaedon
Sharpe’s offensive cool. And
in Anfernee Simons’ asser-
tiveness when Damian Lil-
lard was off the floor. In the
tenacity of Josh Hart and
Jerami Grant on both ends of
the floor.
The Blazers didn’t simply
rely on the singlehanded he-
roics of Lillard on Wednes-
day night to win their sea-
son opener in Sacramento.
Instead, it was a balanced
scoring attack and a versatile,
opportunistic defense that
propelled them to the 115-
108 victory.
This year’s Blazers may not
ultimately match the success
they had at the height of Lil-
lard’s partnership with CJ
McCollum — they still lack
size, they’re short on depth —
but for the first time in years
it feels like they have some-
place new to go.
They have room to grow.
Different Blazers? Well,
yeah. The supporting cast
around Lillard has not trans-
formed so dramatically since
LaMarcus Aldridge’s depar-
ture seven years ago.
A victory in the first of 82
games, against a team that
hasn’t reached the playoffs
since 2006 no less, doesn’t
José Luis Villegas/AP
Portland Trail Blazers’ Anfernee Simons (1) goes up for a shot over
Sacramento Kings’ Harrison Barnes (40) during the first quarter
Wednesday night in Sacramento, California.
validate all of the decisions
that brought the Blazers to
this point. They may not
make the playoffs this season,
or even the play-in. But if you
buy into the organization’s
longer-range vision, it wasn’t
hard to find signs of hope on
Wednesday. And that starts
with Sharpe and Simons.
Yeah, Hart and Grant and
Justise Winslow are pros the
Blazers can lean on to win
games and survive the rigors
of a six-month grind. But the
more critical piece to long-
term success is whether their
investments — the financial
one in Simons, the draft pick
on Sharpe — pay off in a big
way.
Face it: For the Blazers to
build a Western Conference
contender while Lillard is in
his prime, they need certain
dominoes to fall.
That makes the lottery
tickets that are Simons and
Sharpe — the two Blazers
with the most upside — the
keys to the Blazers eventually
breaking through. Either as
tradable assets or with their
own ascents to stardom.
They are perhaps Port-
land’s most important players
while Lillard, of course, re-
mains their best.
Their value was on full dis-
play on a night the superstar
Lillard was far from a peak
performance. Playing his first
game of 2022 after abdom-
inal surgery last winter, he
shot 5 of 18 and missed seven
of his eight three-pointers.
On Wednesday, he said
he told Simons, “You can’t
be shy.” The 23-year-old cer-
tainly was not. A first-time
starter next to Lillard, Simons
needed 22 shots to score 22
points, but took over when
Lillard went to the bench late
in the third quarter and closed
the gap on what had been a
double-digit Kings’ lead.
See Blazers / B5