Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 11, 2009)
Heppner Gazette-Times, Heppner, Oregon Wednesday, February 11 2009 - SEVEN Mustang earns outstanding wrestler award Mustangs w in huge games on the road Heppner hosted its first ever major wrestling tournam ent on Saturday Fifteen teams competed in the Bank of Eastern Oregon Invitational including all 10 o f the teams in Hepp- ner’s wrestling district plus Colton, Baker, Riverside, Umatilla and Irrigon Competition began at 10 am and lasted until 8 pm Baker edged out River side for the team first place trophy by a score of 185- 175 The Mustangs finished sixth overall, third among 2A teams and second against their district competition Two Mustang wres tlers fought their way to the championship finals, Chance Day at 152 pounds and Wacy Coil at 160 pounds Day is ranked fifth in Oregon and Coil is ranked eighth, but both wrestlers would have to face a higher ranked op ponent for the gold medal Day faced his friend from Irrigon, Kyle Sullivan who is ranked third in Or egon Day has never been able to beat him in their previous m eetings This time however, in front of the home crowd with the gold medal on the line. Day dominated from the opening whistle, ultimately winning by a major decision 19-7 Most of Sullivan’s points came from Day giving him a free one point escape Sullivan is known for being a punishing leg rider and for his quick switch to get on top Day avoided being in the defensive down position the whole match Top Photo: Andre» Bara goes for the pin during a match in Sat urday’s wrestling tournament. Bottom Photo: Jarreid Miller takes his opponent to the ground. -Photos by Sandy Matthews by repeatedly giving the free escape and then taking him down for two points It proved to be a winning strat egy For his performance, Day received tournament O utstanding W restler, an accolade awarded by vote from all the attending head coaches In the next match. Coil faced the sixth ranked w restler in Oregon from Adrian In what could be a preview o f the district championship at 160, the two wrestlers battled back and forth and in the end Coil came away with a silver medal and second place The other medalist for H eppner was Jarreid Miller at 125 pounds After losing his first match to Zach Cody from Crane, Miller fought his way through the wrestle back to face Cody again in the consolation championship At the end of the regulation six minutes, the score was tied 10-10 and the match went into overtime Neither wrestler scored for the first 50 sec onds of the 60 second sud den death round Then after a flurry of action, Miller came out on top with a two point takedown to win the bronze by a score of 12-10 H eppner had thir teen wrestlers compete in the tournament and seven placed in the top five Be sides Day, Coil and Miller, the Mustang placers were Cody Nelson, Grant Smith, Dillon Lutcher and Tyler Robinson, each of whom placed fifth Andrew Bara and Zach Hintz, two of the most improved wrestlers on the team this year, also scored important team points by w inning m atches for the Mustangs Also competing for Heppner were Zach Yocom, Conner Pappas, Drew Bran non and Alex Fuentes “ This was a great show ing for this young team,” said Coach Morgan “Last year we placed eighth out of 10 teams at districts, and before that we were tenth To finish second in this tournament among our district team s shows the strong growth of this pro gram A tournament like this goes a long ways toward gaining respect and putting Heppner on the wrestling map We owe a lot of thanks to all of the volunteers who gave up their Saturday to make it happen We received many com plim ents from other teams, coaches and officials Many co u ld n ’t believe it was our first home tournament and that most of the help had never done this before It went better than we had dared hope ” Cards finish first in Big Sky East Division The lone Cardinals split their weekend games, cruising to a win in Arling ton Friday night and losing a heartbreaker on Saturday against Condon/Wheeler in Fossil The win on Friday sealed the deal on a first place finish in the Big Sky East Division for the Car dinals The Cards ran out to a solid 25-4 lead in the first quarter at Arlington, playing an opponent with just six players dressed down. With the outcome never in doubt, the Cards worked in the en tire bench and tried different player combinations on the way to the 58-29 win Zac Orem led the team in scoring with 13 points Matt Hams had 12 and RJ Ramos had 11 The C ardinals dom inated the boards 46-14 led by Clay Morter with 11, Alex Riet- mann with seven and Gun ner Jessen with five Cory Peterson and Alex Rietmann each dished out four assists and Zac Orem had three blocked shots to lead the team lone shot 45% from the floor in the contest “ This was one of those games we needed to have,” said Coach Dennis Stefani The kids came out and took care of it early, al lowing a lot of playing time for everyone ” On Saturday, the Cardinals traveled to Fossil for a rematch with Condon/ Wheeler The Cards defeat ed C/W when they played in lone last week The Knights Cory Peterson goes up for a shot against Condon in Fossil on February 7. Photo by Theresa Crawford led by nine midway through the first quarter before two RJ Ramos buckets in the last 1 30 narrowed the lead to five The Cards scrapped back to within one before hot three point shooting by the Knights stretched the lead out to 10 With 1 47 remaining in the half, Condon made a three point play to take their biggest lead of the day, 37- 26 The Cards put up three points before the Knights hit another basket to build the lead back to 10 with under a minute to go With 36 sec onds on the clock. Gunner Jessen drove the key, made the layin and was fouled When he hit the free throw, the Knights’ halftime lead was a bit smaller, 39-32. T he C a rd in a ls opened the third quarter with an 11-2 run and out- scored the Knights 23-14 in the period to take a 55-53 lead into the final frame The last quarter was nothing but high adventure The game was tied four times but the Cards held the lead until the Knights hit a pair of free throws with 1:28 remain ing to go up by two Clay Morter's fifth foul with 29 6 seconds left sent the Knights to the line again Making just one, they held a three point margin C o ry P e te rs o n knocked down a pair be fore the Knights went back Heppner JV boys fall to Enterprise, beat Huskies By Jennifer Wilson The M ustangs had a tough third quarter Friday night and gave up a 46-33 win to the Enterprise Out laws At h a lf tim e, the score was tied at 16 but the Outlaws came out with full court pressure in the third quarter and scored three t times with no answer from the Mustangs At the end o f the third quarter, the Outlaws had outscored the Mustangs by 12 points “ We gave up some costly offensive rebounds to them and they made a run and we couldn't recover,” said Coach Ken Grieb “ I was pleased with the overall effort but we came up a little short ” Dan Jeffries led the Mustangs with nine points while Jake Bowles added in six points The Heppner ju n io r varsity boys team then traveled to Elgin on Saturday for a win against the Huskies to the line again, and again made one Trailing by two, a Matt Hams jumper rimmed out but the rebound fell right into Cory Peterson’s hands P e te rso n ’s shot fell ju st short and in the melee, the Knights were fouled with 3 2 seconds left Hitting one, they built their final margin of victory, 73-70. Matt Hams led the team in scoring with 23 points Clay Morter chipped in 15 The Cards scratched their way to a 44-32 re bounding edge over the tall C ondon/W heeler squad Clay Morter led the charge with 17 while Tanner Riet mann added nine and Gun ner Jessen had six Cory Pe terson led the team with five assists and Clay Morter had three blocked shots lone shot 42% from the floor (28- 67) and Condon/W heeler shot 43% (27-63.) “All in all, I thought our kids played well,” said C o ach D en n is S tefan i “ Playing in Fossil on the small floor shut down our running game and Condon took advantage of that with their big kids being able to set up on defense Our kids played hard and I was proud of the heart and effort they gave ” The Cardinals will finish out the regular sea son hosting Helix on Fri day night and traveling to Maupin for a showdown with the number one team on the West side of the Big Sky, South Wasco County By Jennifer Wilson The Mustangs earned a 71 -64 victory over the Out laws Friday night After get ting beat by the Outlaws on their home court, the Mus tangs wanted revenge They played so hard to get the win that three players shed some blood and one even lost his lunch, but in the end, the Mustangs proved to be the better team “We came out and played intense for 32 min utes and that’s what we need to do to w in,” said Jared Huddleston Chris Lien started out the game with a three- point shot, but w ith the Outlaw “big guys” making their presence known in the key, the M ustangs trailed 15-12 at the end of the first quarter The Mustangs capi talized on the bonus and then double bonus situation at the end of the second quarter, picking up six points from the free throw line Kyle Fuchs had four of those six free throw points To wrap up the third quarter, Jared Huddleston made a three point bucket Enterprise answered back with three points of their own in the last remaining seconds of the quarter mak ing the score 54-43 in favor of the Mustangs. Enterprise refused to surrender in the fourth quar ter, outscoring the Mustangs 21-17 With seconds left on the clock and the score 71- 61, Trenton Neil put up the last shot from behind the three point line to make the final score 71-64 Despite the effort by the Outlaws, the Mustangs were able to pull away for the win “ T his was a hard fought game and a great atmosphere for high school b a sk e tb a ll,” said Coach David Norton “We played great team defense and took care of the ball Our fan sup port tonight was a huge part of our success ” Jared H uddleston led the Mustangs with 24 points, w hile Chris Lien added 18 points The Mustangs (10-2 BMC) traveled to Elgin last Saturday night for a close 86-83 victory The Elgin Huskies shot 12 for 19 from the three point line while the M ustangs shot 13 for 21 Needless to say, it was a hard fought win “ It was a track meet Both teams shot the lights out This is a big win going into Pilot Rock this week,” said Coach David Norton Jared H uddleston led all scorers with a career high 33 points Chris Lien had 24 points while Brent Eckman added 17 points Cody Orr posted a double double with 12 points and 12 rebounds Lady Mustangs split weekend match-ups By Jennifer Wilson The Lady Mustangs traveled to Enterprise on Friday to take on the Out laws but couldn’t pull off the win as the Outlaws took control in fourth quarter The O utlaw s sealed the 46-37 victory with a solid second half effort The M ustangs led at the end of the first and second quarter Taighler Dougherty led the defensive efforts of the Lady Mustangs in the second quarter with a stripped ball and great hustle to tie up loose balls By the time the third quarter started, the M us tangs were down by three but still in the game The Outlaws scored a quick basket in the begin ning of the fourth quarter and immediately stole the inbounds pass for another bucket, which set the pace for the Outlaws The Out laws led by as much as 12 points in the fourth quarter and it proved too much for the Mustangs to overcome Erin Price led the Mustangs with nine points Jessica Hughes added in seven points Traveling back out of the mountains Saturday morning, the Mustangs re mained hopeful for a win against the Elgin Huskies With a great defen sive effort, the Lady Mus tangs took the 35-21 win over the Huskies Matilda H akansson led the Lady M ustangs with 8 points The Mustangs are now 6-6 in the Blue Mountain Con ference Lindsay named Hoop Shoot District Champion HHS Basketball Schedule F o llo w in g is the Heppner High School bas ketball schedule for the 08- 09 season -•Tuesday, Feb 10: vs Pilot Rock JV/V at Pilot Rock, 3 p m -•Friday, Feb 14 vs Union JV/V at Heppner. 3 pm •denotes a league game Jacob l.imlsay of Heppner captured the ('Ik's Hoop Shoot District Championship on Saturday, January 31. in Hcrmistnn. Jacob made 20/25 shots to earn him the title. He »ill trasel to Salem on February 14 to compete in the state competition. Contributed Photo I
