A10 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2018
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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.