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Wednesday, January 5, 2022
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WEDNESDAY
January 5, 2022
The 2021
Year in Sports
Blue Mountain Eagle, File
Prairie City’s football team honored the ﬂ ag ahead of its homecoming game on Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. The ﬂ ag ceremony became a tradition after the Panthers walked out with the stars and
stripes to honor men and women in the military who were killed in Afghanistan in late August, and later expanded it to commemorate law enforcement and ﬁ rst responders.
A look back at some sports highlights of 2021
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
U
nprecedented, unpredictable and
unforgettable do not even begin
to describe Grant County’s high
school sports scene in 2021.
With the pandemic shutting
down spring sports in 2020, many questions
remained unanswered about high school sports
by the time 2021 rolled around.
As pandemic restrictions eased across the
state, Grant County’s student-athletes faced
countless challenges, from strict health and
safety protocols to an ultimately delayed,
altered and signiﬁ cantly shortened schedule,
with no shortage of starts, stops and pauses and
little time to prepare for competition.
Nonetheless, the high school teams eventu-
ally returned to action and did not disappoint.
There were plenty of triumphs for Grant
County’s high school athletes through it all.
From a ﬂ urry of state titles in track, softball and
volleyball to a young football team putting up
its ﬁ rst winning season in years, high school
sports gave a pandemic-fatigued community
something to rally around, and the Eagle was
there to cover it.
1. After the pandemic halted their 2020 sea-
son, Grant Union’s track and ﬁ eld team came
back to earn two state titles to ﬁ nish second
overall at the 2A State Track Championship in
Union in late May. Senior Jordan Hall placed
ﬁ rst in the 110 hurdles, while Justin Hodge,
Quaid Brandon, CJ Glimpse and Luke Jack-
son took the top spot in the 4x100 relay. Addi-
tionally, Hodge took third in shotput while Hall
was named athlete of the meet and took third
in the triple jump, fourth in the long jump, and
ﬁ fth in the javelin.
2. That same weekend, the Grant Union/
Prairie City softball team made history when it
took second place in the state tournament, the
best ﬁ nish ever for the program. In a fraught
season of closures, cancellations and interrup-
tions due to COVID-19 lockdowns, the Lady
Pros — with a young roster — dominated
their league with a 14-2 record. The state tour-
ney saw senior Jordyn Young and freshman
Drewsey Williams hit grand slams, while Paige
Gerry hit a home run. The squad’s success in
2021 was signiﬁ cant, given that pitching ace
Halle Parsons and Williams were freshmen.
3. In May, Grant Union’s golf team beat
out a handful of other teams at its annual invi-
tational at the John Day Golf Course. With a
Contributed photo
Blue Mountain Eagle, File
Prairie City’s football team gathers around second-year head coach Nick Thompson during a prac-
tice in mid-October 2021. Thompson, named the High Desert League’s Coach of the Year, led the
team to its ﬁ rst winning season in nearly a decade.
team score of 384, the Pros bested Echo, Wal-
lowa and Heppner under Grant Union’s long-
time golf coach, Ron Lundbom. Prospector
senior Devon Stokes shot an 88 and was the
tournament’s top medalist. Enterprise’s Jacob
Amaro was not far behind with an 89, while
Grant Union’s Maverick Miller, a senior, ﬁ n-
ished out the competition with an overall score
of 94.
4. In July, two siblings from Grant Union
High School competed at the National High
School Finals Rodeo in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Bailey McCracken, then a sophomore, ﬁ n-
ished in the top third overall in barrel racing, an
event where a horse and rider attempt to run a
pattern around barrels in the fastest time. Bai-
ley, who was named “Oregon’s Rookie of the
Year” by the state’s high school rodeo associ-
ation earlier in the year, ﬁ nished in the top 51
out of 187 racers in the aggregate. Meanwhile,
Sam McCracken, a junior at the time, placed
72nd in boys cutting, an equestrian competi-
tion where a horse and rider demonstrate their
ability to handle cattle before a panel of judges.
Sam made his best run ever at the competition
and was poised to place 37th overall, but, in the
third round, a wrong turn on his horse cost him
a mandatory 40-point deduction, which put him
too far behind to catch up. Nevertheless, Sam
came back to score 181 points to ﬁ nish strong.
It was far from his ﬁ rst rodeo. Sam has taken
the top spot in the state in boys cutting the last
two years and second place in 2019.
5. In July, Grant Union’s grapplers brought
some hardware back to the county when the
squad sent two wrestlers to Sweet Home to
compete at the state tourney. Justin Hodge,
fresh oﬀ a state track win in relays and a ﬁ rst-
place ﬁ nish at the state wrestling tournament in
2020, took third overall in his weight division,
while teammate Rylan Cox placed fourth. Tye
Parsons, longtime assistant wrestling coach at
the high school and coach of the county’s youth
wrestling program, told the Eagle in May that
they had a great season given the small window
the Prospectors had to prepare.“Wrestling is a
sport that you spend months getting in shape
for,” Parsons said. “So, to try to get in shape in
two weeks and expect great things is not prob-
able.” Hodge concurred on the short time to
practice and wrestle during the summer instead
of winter. “It was hot,” he said. “Everything
was just oﬀ .” Through it all, eight Prospector
grapplers from the team placed within the top
10 at the district tourney in Culver ahead of the
state tournament. “They stepped up in a season
that is usually a winter sport and saw some suc-
cess,” Parsons said.
6. In August, after taking second overall at
the Drive, Chip & Putt competition at the Eagle
Crest Resort in Redmond, Sawyer Quinton,
then 13, of Canyon City moved on to the sub-
regional round of the competition in Hillsboro.
While Quinton took ﬁ fth in the state and a
third-place medal in chipping, just the top two
advanced to the regional qualifying event in
Pebble Beach.
The event, sponsored by the Professional
Grant Union senior Jordan Hall, left, poses with
the trophy he received after being named male
athlete of the meet at the 2A track champion-
ships in May 2021. Katie Hanson of Gervais was
named the female athlete of the meet.
Golfers Association, the United States Golf-
ers Association, and the Masters Tournament,
moves on to the national ﬁ nals at the Augusta
National Golf Club ahead of the 2022 Masters
Tournament.
7. With a signiﬁ cantly smaller roster than
most of their opponents in their league, Grant
Union’s football team made the postseason
after going 3-3 in 2A Special District 5. The
Prospectors bowed out in the ﬁ rst round, falling
on the road against Lakeview. One of the Pros’
season highlights was scoring a pair of touch-
downs against a powerful Heppner squad that
hadn’t given up a single point in any of their
previous league matchups.
8. The Prairie City football team just missed
the playoﬀ s this year after losing a 51-48 slug-
fest to Alsea. The brutal end to a strong sea-
son saw the Panthers go 6-1 in the High Desert
League. The team also racked up the league’s
Coach of the Year honors for Nick Thompson
and Oﬀ ensive Player of the Year for standout
running back Cole Teel.
9. The Grant Union volleyball team capped
a strong 2021 campaign by bringing home
some hardware. After ﬁ nishing the regular sea-
son with a 19-10 overall record, the Lady Pros-
pectors went 2-0 in the Blue Mountain Con-
ference Tournament to move on to the state
playoﬀ s, where they collected a trophy for ﬁ n-
ishing fourth statewide in Division 2A.
10. Prairie City’s volleyball team ﬁ nished
strong, going 2-1 in the High Desert League’s
tournament to qualify for postseason play. In
their ﬁ rst-round matchup, the Panthers faced
Central Christian of the Mountain Valley
League on the road, falling 3-1.
Contributed photo
Justin Hodge, second
from right, accepts
his third-place medal
at the state wrestling
tournament in late
June 2021.
Blue Mountain Eagle, File
From left, Grant Union sophomore Halle Parsons, sophomore Brilynn Combs, head coach Shanna
Northway, senior Grace Taylor, senior Paige Gerry, sophomore Drewsey Williams, senior Carson
Weaver, sophomore Jaydika Anderson, senior Lauryn Pettyjohn and freshman Addy Northway cel-
ebrate after their ﬁ rst-place ﬁ nish at the Grant Union Invitational Tournament in August. The Lady
Pros placed fourth in state to cap oﬀ the 2021 season.