A10 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 2016
Herald
HeraldSports
Bucks, Dawgs
shine in opener
Teams wrap up fi rst competition with high expectations
By ERIC SINGER
Staff Writer
On Thursday afternoon,
more than 700 athletes from
more than 15 schools from
eastern Oregon descended
on Pendleton High School
for the 25th annual Buck
Track Classic.
It marked the ¿ rst oppor-
tunity for athletes to get a
crack at competition in the
2016 season, as well as the
¿ rst time for coaches to re-
ally see the progression and
development of their run-
ners, throwers, and jumpers
after only a few weeks of
practice.
“It gives the kids a mark
to work at the rest of the
season,” Pendleton coach
Dustin Breshears said. “It
also gives us coaches points
on what to do and where to
go with our workouts and
practices moving forward.”
After everything was
completed, the Pendleton
Buckaroos and Hermiston
Bulldogs could only smile
at their results as each team
Spring power
rankings:
First edition
T
he schedule usually governing
the monthly prep power
rankings was disrupted due
to the end of winter sports bleeding
over into March. With that in mind,
,¶ll do the ¿ rst edition
of the spring power
rankings now, and
we’ll get back to it
in a couple of weeks.
We’re a week into the
spring sports season
now, so we have some
Sam
data to use in ranking
Barbee
these.
FROM THE
SIDELINES
Before we jump
in, let’s take a look
at the ¿ nal winter power rankings,
shall we?
1. Hermiston wrestling: state
championship (10x), four state
champions (Sam Colbray 4x, Andy
Wagner 1x, Bob Coleman 1x, Valen
Wyse 1x).
2. Hermiston girls basketball:
24-4, fourth place in 5A OSAA
Tournament
4. Stan¿ eld boys basketball:
16-6, 3rd in Columbia Basin
Conference
5. Hermiston boys basketball:
13-13, lost 87-45 to Wilsonville in
play-in round
/et me ¿ rst say how excited ,
am it’s again spring. I love baseball
more than I should, and the smell
of leather and pine tar is one of my
favorites. Okay, now that I’ve had
my moment, let’s look at the area
teams.
. Stan¿ eld baseball: 3-0, OSAA
No. 13
This stat will surprise you.
It surprised me and I knew it.
In three games, the Tigers have
scored 48 runs and allowed...zero.
Yeah. Three games. Three shut
outs. Three ten-run rules. That’s
domination. That’s a team that has
something to prove. Included in this
tear is a perfect game (from Dylan
*rogan in ¿ ve innings, but still a
perfect game. I don’t care what you
say). They’ve scored 22 runs in a
game. They’ve hit three triples in a
game. They’ve had a guy get two
triples in a game. This is a really
good baseball team, folks, and I
would suggest going to watch them
play. They can do it all: play solid
defense, throw strikes and get guys
out, they hit line drives, they bunt,
they run the bases well. It’s just a
good baseball team. As someone
who appreciates and loves good
baseball, Stan¿ eld is a dream.
Again, I would suggest making the
10-minute drive and heading down
to Madigan Field. It’ll be worth it.
. Umatilla baseball: 2-0,
OSAA No. 1.
I tweeted this out on
Monday. I know it’s early. I
know. But this is awesome for a
struggling program. The Vikings
are 2-0 and the top-ranked team in
the 3A division. How cool is that?
How cool is that for the players,
who came to practice every day
last year while they lost most of
their games? How cool is it for
the coach, Dave Dever, who has
cultivated improvement so soon?
How cool is it for the school, that
they can boast successful athletics
in each of the three seasons? Now,
let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.
1
2
See RANKINGS, A12
had very successful days.
For Pendleton, the team
did much better than the
coaches had anticipated.
“I was very pleased and
surprised ... a lot of the kids
did way better than we had
expected,” Breshears said.
“We had kids hitting (per-
sonal records) and beating
times from last year in just
the ¿ rst meet, which is very
exciting as a coach.”
One of those surprises
was junior sprinter Soren
Wolf, who in his ¿ rst year
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STAFF PHOTO BY
E.J. HARRIS
Pendleton senior Lukas
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as a member of the track
and ¿ eld team, earned the
top time in the boys 100
meter dash at 11.69 sec-
onds, and was a key cog in
the Buckaroos 4x100 meter
relay team that earned the
top time of 45.11.
“He’s been a part of our
cross country team for the
last two years and we ¿ nal-
ly got him to come out for
track this year,” Breshears
said. “He’s very talented
but still very raw in the
sport, but he’s a true gam-
er and will do whatever we
ask.”
Two performances the
Buckaroo coaches were not
surprised at were seniors
Nolan Bylenga and Del-
aney Clem, as each showed
their talents on Thursday.
Bylenga was a part of both
the 4x100 and 4x400 meter
relay teams that took ¿ rst
place, and earned the top
times in both the 400 meters
(51.49) and the 1500 me-
ters (4:16.95), while Clem
breezed to victories in the
1500 meters (5:17.84) and
the 3000 meters (11:27.55).
For Hermiston, the Bull-
dogs showed that their
strengths in 2016 are in the
sprints on the girls side and
distance and ¿ eld events on
the boys side.
Junior sprinter Audrey
Lincoln just barely took the
top time in the 100 meter
dash with a 12.99 — barely
beating Monument fresh-
man Sophia Pettit’s time of
See TRACK, A11
GROGAN GOES PERFECT IN 2016 DEBUT
Junior righty strikes
out 12 in fi ve innings
By SAM BARBEE
Staff Writer
Stan¿ eld baseball coach Bryan
Johnson is depending on talented
right-hander Dylan Grogan to be
a foundational piece to the Tigers’
pitching staff in 2016 as they en-
deavor to win their third straight 3A
Eastern Oregon League title.
If Thursday’s performance was
any indication, Johnson won’t have
to fret much about the lanky junior.
Grogan spun an abbreviated perfect
game in his 2016 debut, tossing ¿ ve
full innings allowing zero baserun-
ners while striking out 12 Union
Bobcats in just 57 pitches as the Ti-
gers throttled the Bobcats 16-0.
“You can’t ask for much more
out of the gate,” Johnson said of the
win. “The kids were focused and
dialed it in.”
Grogan was effective and ef-
¿ cient from the ¿ rst pitch. His
mid-80s fastball was too much for
Union hitters, and he deftly mixed
in change-ups and breaking balls to
keep the hitters off balance. He re-
lied on the heater though, not want-
ing to speed up the Bobcat bats,
which were consistently behind
the hard fastball. In the top of the
second inning, Grogan struck out
the side using nothing but fastballs
against the four, ¿ ve and six hitters
in Union’s order.
It was a demonstration of what
Grogan can do if he throws strikes,
something he struggled with as
a sophomore. Of the 57 pitches,
46 were strikes. He threw three or
more balls in an inning just twice.
“Dylan’s biggest thing this year
was just throwing strikes,” Johnson
said, adding he threw about 80 per-
cent strikes. “And he did that. Good
velocity. He was dialed in and it
was good.”
Grogan, though, wasn’t overly
excited about his stellar pitching
STAFF PHOTO BY SAM BARBEE
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performance. The normally lev-
el-headed and quiet Grogan, who
also stars in football and basketball,
was more focused on his team than
his individual statistics.
“The most important thing is
Stan¿ eld won,” he said.
He said he received a bit of rib-
bing from his teammates about let-
ting some at-bats go too long, but
most of it was good-natured.
Offensively, Stan¿ eld was bal-
anced, well-rounded and received
contributions from the entire order.
Six Tigers had two or more hits.
Three Tigers had two or more RBI,
and eight Tigers had at least one run
batted in. Eight Tigers scored runs,
and Stan¿ eld batters struck out just
four times.
It was a departure from the be-
ginning of last season for Stan¿ eld,
which Johnson described as “lazy
À y ball disease.” The Tigers strug-
gled staying on top of the ball, pop-
ping everything up. Stan¿ eld lost its
¿ rst three games of 2015.
“That’s sort of been our goal, see
how many balls we can hit hard,”
Johnson said. “In practice we’re
tallying that up in (batting practice).
We had eight to 10, I think. So,
that’s some good quality at-bats.”
Brody Woods had the standout
offensive performance, going 2-for-
4 with a double and four RBI in his
varsity debut. Thyler Monkus was
2-for-3 with two runs scored and an
RBI, and Keith Wampler was 3-for-
4 with a run, an RBI and a nice bunt
single to start the bottom of the sec-
ond.
Monkus led off the ¿ rst with a
looping single into left, and even-
tually scored on a Grogan ¿ elder’s
choice to take a 1-0 lead. The one-
run lead would last until the third,
when Stan¿ eld broke things open in
a big way.
The Tigers sent 15 batters to the
plate in the third, scoring ten runs
on eight hits. Grogan had two hits,
See BASEBALL, A12
STAFF PHOTO BY SAM BARBEE
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Hermiston sweeps aside Liberty
Bulldogs get strong
performances from
Kopacz, Naylor
By SAM BARBEE
Staff Writer
The Hermiston Bulldogs used
a seven-run second inning in
the opener of a doubleheader to
down the Liberty Falcons 9-2,
then got a three-run go-ahead
double from Breyanna Naylor
in the bottom of the third to give
them a 6-4 win in ¿ ve innings and
a sweep of the Falcons on Friday
at Rocky Heights Elementary in
Hermiston.
“I couldn’t be more excited,”
Hermiston coach Kate Gree-
nough said. “The girls carried
over their enthusiasm from Game
1 to Game 2, and they didn’t stop.
There was not one point where I
thought they would cool down.
So I couldn’t be more proud of
them, and it’s every exciting for
them to win two games for them
to know that they can.”
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Hermiston Mikayla Kopacz is greeted at home plate after hitting a three-
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doubleheader Friday in Hermiston.
The theme of Friday’s games
was capitalizing on mistakes.
Liberty committed ¿ ve errors in
Hermiston’s 6-4 win, and booted
four balls in the Bulldogs’ 9-2
victory.
It was a reversal of fortune
from Hermiston’s 10-3 loss to
Ridgeview earlier this week,
when the Ravens scored four un-
earned runs in the ¿ rst inning.
Friday, it was the Falcons’ turn
to hand the opposition outs, giv-
ing Hermiston ample opportuni-
ties to score runs, which it did
consistently. Hermiston turned a
Falcon error into a run three sep-
arate times over the course of the
doubleheader.
“That’s what happened on
Tuesday, but it was the other way
around,” Greenough said. “We
gave away outs, and they scored
runs. So, today it was our turn.
But we didn’t stop. We didn’t
just score on those errors.”
Hermiston’s offense was led
by Mikayla Kopacz who was
5 for 6 with a double, a ho-
mer, three RBI’s and three runs
scored. Breyanna Naylor added a
3-for-5 day with a double, three
RBI and two runs scored.
Down 2-0 early in the opener,
Kopacz led off the second with a
single, and Julissa Almaguer fol-
lowed with a walk. Naylor sin-
gled to load the bases and Alex
Barton walked to bring in Ko-
pacz. Kiersten Miller reached on
an error, scoring Almaguer. Then
Kylie Hinkley singled, driving
in Naylor. After Jamie Hinkley
popped up, Becca Englebrecht
walked home Barton and Sydney
See BULLDOGS, A11