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About Hermiston herald. (Hermiston, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 12, 2018)
A10 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2018 HeraldSports Follow sports on Twitter @HHeraldSports DAWGS OPEN MCC PLAY WITH WIN Kathy Aney Umatilla’s Trent Durfey goes up for a layup Saturday during the Columbia River Clash championship game against Nixyaawii in Umatilla. Vikings win own tourney By BRETT KANE Staff writer Staff photo by E.J. Harris Hermiston’s Ryne Andreason grabs a rebound in front of La Grande’s Hunter Youngblood in the Bulldogs’ 67-47 win over the Tigers on Tuesday in Hermiston. By ANNIE FOWLER Staff writer drian Mendez tends to fly under the radar, but Saturday night the Hermiston senior made his pres- ence known. Mendez scored 18 points — 13 in the first half — and hauled down eight rebounds to help the Bulldogs to a 72-64 victory over Kennewick in the Mid-Co- lumbia Conference opener for both teams at the Lions Den. Cesar Ortiz also had 18 points and eight rebounds as Hermiston improved to 3-0 on the season. “It feels good,” Hermiston coach Casey Arstein said of opening league play with a win. “Adrian had his best game of the year, and Jordan (Ramirez) did a nice job distributing the ball. Cesar is a shooter and he was ready to go. It’s exciting when they play well. It was Adrian’s night, and the guys were excited for him.” The Bulldogs, who trailed 36-33 at the half, went on a 22-point tear in third quar- ter, fueled by Ortiz’s 12 points — nine of which came from three 3-pointers. With the Lions (3-1 overall, 0-1 MCC) holding a 42-40 lead, Ortiz drilled a 3 from downtown Pasco to put the Bulldogs out front for good, 43-42. Cole Smith followed with a trey from the right baseline, and Ortiz added another deep ball from the right wing for a 49-42 lead. A BOX SCORE Dec. 8 Hermiston 19 14 22 17 — 72 Kennewick 19 17 14 4 — 64 HERMISTON: Andreason 14, Ortiz 18, James 3, Smith 8, Ramirez 11, Mendez 18. KENNEWICK: Beauchene 1, Benavidez 20, Chavez 13, Sim- mons-Dumo 3, Collier 8, Mayovsky 5, Pearson 2, Childs 4, Bai. McElroy 8. Dec. 4 La Grande 9 8 15 15 — 47 Hermiston 12 27 17 11 — 67 LA GRANDE: Myer 3, Jenner 12, Bell 5, Tsiatsos 4, Wiggins 4, Mendoza 7, DuVernay 3, Youngblood 5, Green Chandler 4. HERMISTON: Andreason 18, Ortiz 7, Thacker 1, James 6, Smith 3, Davis 7, Madrigal 7, Ramirez 10, Mendez 8. Kennewick would pull within 53-50, but a basket by Ramirez at the buzzer gave Hermiston a five-point lead. A balanced scoring attack in the fourth quarter, which included an 8-for-12 per- formance at the free-throw line, helped the Bulldogs secure the win. “This is one of the better games we have played,” Mendez said. “Everyone played well tonight. We had to help each other out and we worked worked hard as a team and pulled it out. We help each other out, we will be better off.” Ryne Andreason added 14 points, and Ramirez 11, and Hermiston forced 10 turnovers, including steal and a layup by Ramirez with 45 seconds left to put the game out of reach. Hermiston vs. La Grande The last time Hermiston played La Grande, Kaden Green Chandler dropped 20 points on the Bulldogs. Adrian Mendez helped hold Green Chandler to four points as Hermiston cruised to a 67-47 nonleague win Dec. 4 at the Dawg House. Ryne Andreason led the way for the Bulldogs with 18 points, and Cesar Ortiz added 11 rebounds and seven points, but there was one stat that was not pretty — the Bulldogs shot 25 of 46 (54 percent) from the free-throw line. “We are usually a pretty good free throw team,” Hermiston coach Casey Arstein said. ”Kind of killed the momen- tum. Cesar and Ryno (Andreason) didn’t shoot the ball well, but I saw some good things.” Namely the second quarter. Leading 12-9, the Bulldogs went on a 27-8 tear in the second, getting 10 points from Andreason and five from Ortiz. The Bulldogs could have blown the game wide open if not for their 9 of 20 performance from the charity stripe. Trailing 39-17 at the half, the Tigers made a little noise of their own in the third quarter with 15 points, and outscored the Bulldogs 15-11 in the fourth. But the defi- cit was far too big to overcome for La Grande, which had three players foul out. All but two of the Bulldogs scored, with Jordan Ramirez adding 10 points, Blake Davis and Sergio Madrigal seven each, and Andrew James six. Justin Jenner led the Tigers with 12 points, while Cristian Mendoza had seven. No one takes over Vikings territory. The Umatilla boys held firm on their home court Saturday for a 38-25 win over Nixyaawii in Championship game of the Colum- bia River Clash. “It feels great to win our home tournament,” Umatilla coach Scott Bow said. “We were a little slow offensively, but holding a team like Nixyaawii to just 25 points speaks volumes for our defense.” With the score tied at 5-5 with 3 minutes to play in the first quar- ter, Vikings guard Sebastian Gar- cia hit two consecutive 3-pointers to break to game open. Down 13-7 going into the sec- ond quarter, Nixyaawii (5-1) rallied for a 14-13 lead when guard Moses Moses found the net. Guards Magi Moses and Mick Schimmel then combined for seven more points for a 21-18 lead at the half. Schimmel sank a shot to open the second half, but Umatilla (5-1) held the Golden Eagles scoreless the remainder of the third quar- ter and reclaimed the lead as post Jakeb Cook put up a shot with 5 seconds remaining. “We started running our offense better,” Bow said. “We were hid- ing in the wrong spots in the first half, but we finally started put- ting ourselves in better positions to score.” The Vikings held tight to the lead for the rest of the game, allow- ing just one Golden Eagles basket. Umatilla scored 11 unanswered points down the stretch. “I expected us to win this tour- nament,” said Garcia, who led the Vikings with 15 points. “Nixy- aawii is tough and can hit shots that a lot of people can’t, but we play at a high skill level.” Golden Eagles head coach Shane Rivera said Umatilla’s experience got the best of his team. “They’re senior-dominated,” Rivera said. “That usually equals success. I have to give it to Uma- tilla — they capitalized where we didn’t. We rushed some shots and didn’t play with patience.” Schimmel led the Golden Eagles with 10 points. Moses Moses had eight. BOYS UMATILLA JV 47, HELIX 37 -- Helix dropped their shot at seventh place after falling to Uma- tilla’s JV team. The Grizzlies (1-5) host Col- lege Place on Friday. RIVERSIDE 58, STAN- FIELD 42 -- Johan Pena posted 14 points and Cristian Rea had 11 as the Pirates picked up the third- place trophy. The Pirates were down 24-21 at the half, but scored 23 points in the third quarter to pull ahead. Edu- ardo Nunez scored 11 points for the Tigers. Girls UMATILLA 41, NIXYAAWII 33 -- The Vikings won the conso- lation championships after topping the Golden Eagles. STANFIELD 39, MAC-HI 28 -- The Tigers won the battle for seventh place in the Clash’s final round. Savannah Sharp led the Tigers (2-5) with 14 points. Nyah Tejada followed with 10 points.