By AJ MAZZOLINI
East Oregonian

PENDLETON — Buckaroo Bryan Beard added his name to the list of Eastern Oregon high schoolers who have accepted scholarship offers this month when the 6-foot-9 center signed on to play basketball with the Oregon Institute of Technology next year.

The decision wasn’t hard to make, the senior said, after he met with Tech’s basketball coach Danny Miles in the spring. Miles will be in his 42nd season as coach of the Hustlin’ Owls by the time Beard takes his first step on the court in Klamath Falls next year. In that time, Miles has crafted one of the most successful NAIA programs in the country, winning national championships twice in the previous decade. The coach has reeled off 937 victories in his time with the school — the second highest career tally across all levels of college basketball.

“When I originally had gone there for a visit and we’d gotten introduced, I didn’t have any idea of what they’re all about,” said Beard, who signed his letter of intent on Nov. 9. “They have a good winning history and they also have a lot of fan support from the town.”

By AJ MAZZOLINI
East Oregonian

HILLSBORO — The Scio Loggers showed why they’re the favorites in Oregon Class 2A football on Saturday. A perpetual running attack logged nearly 400 yards as Scio hammered Weston-McEwen 46-8 in the state playoff semifinals at Hillsboro Stadium.

A spectacular season for Weston-McEwen ended in the most unspectacular way possible as a very good TigerScot team looked everything but that against the dominating Loggers.

The TigerScots (11-1) couldn’t contain the run game that Scio (12-1) brought to the line on every play of the game. The Loggers carried the ball for close to eight yards per touch and never once attempted a pass.

By AJ MAZZOLINI
East Oregonian

HILLSBORO — Close to 250 miles separate the Weston-McEwen High School in Athena and the turf inside Hillsboro Stadium, the site of the TigerScots semifinal playoff contest on Saturday. That distance didn’t stop what looked like half of the town’s 1,100 residents from making the trek to watch the school’s playoff game.

“A lot of people don’t even have any kids on the team but they still come to the games,” said Julie Peterson, mother of TigerScot running back Tyler Peterson. A woolen scarf with the Weston-McEwen colors matched her exaggeratedly long two-toned fake eyelashes.

That fan support — the kind represented by Julie’s outfit — goes double for the road games, her husband Lorne said.

By AJ MAZZOLINI
East Oregonian

I’ve reported on high school sports in Eastern Oregon for a little less than two months, roughly two-thirds of the fall sports season. In that time, I’ve watched countless athletes illuminate after a victory on the pitch. Others have slumped to the turf after a hard-fought loss. Still others were left standing emotionless on the court, the moment of jubilation or grief having not quite settled.

The young athletes that I’ve talked with will always register with these specific sports for me because that’s where we met first. When I hear the name Crystal Schmidt, my mind will forever zip to Hermiston volleyball — even though she’s told me track is really her best sport. Bryan Beard makes me think Pendleton tight end long before basketball center — even though I’m told he’s much more dominant on the court.

That line blurred a bit in recent weeks as schools pack in their fall sports season and the basketball hoops, wrestling mats and swim caps come out of storage. Because unlike the athletes that I’ve painted in my head, the real ones that go to these schools don’t go into hibernation with winter. They just change jerseys.

_By AJ MAZZOLINI
East Oregonian

How do you swim without water?

It’s not the opening to a corny joke, but rather a riddle that Hermiston swimming coach Kevin Hamblin has been trying to solve since he took over the team in 2007. The town of Hermiston has no year-round swimming facilities. The team’s only real option involves commuting to Pendleton every day after school to use the Blue Mountain Community College pool for practice.

That’s 45 minutes on the bus there, 45 minutes back, leaving the Bulldogs with an hour in the water and a severe handicap on the season.

“You talk to any high school coach and if someone told them, ‘You can only practice for an hour a day and you have to travel 30 miles to do it,’ they’re going to say, ‘I can’t get a good program going,’ ” Hamblin said. “And they’d be right, you can’t.”

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By AJ MAZZOLINI
East Oregonian

Outside, temperatures lingered above 50 degrees despite the calendar having just flipped to November. Inside the Hermiston High School gym, senior middle blocker Crystal Schmidt was catching fire at the net. The 6-foot-1 hitter landed nine of her 19 total kills in the clinching third set as the Hermiston Bulldogs ran over Milwaukie to reach the OSAA playoffs in Class 5A.

That celebratory moment ranked among countless memories Schmidt made with her teammates this season, a year in which Hermiston won a Columbia River Conference crown, and Schmidt the East Oregonian’s volleyball player of the year award. Schmidt was the most dominating player on one of the most dominating teams in the area this season, leading her team in kills, hitting percentage and blocks.

“Best volleyball season I’ve ever had,” Schmidt said with authority. “By far.”

_By AJ MAZZOLINI
East Oregonian

HILLSBORO — Weston-McEwen has experienced a dream season this fall but the Loggers from Scio will be revving their chainsaws this weekend trying to jolt the TigerScots from their peaceful sleep. Weston-McEwen (11-0) will look to topple the Class 2A giant on Saturday at 2:15 p.m. when the teams meet at Hillsboro Stadium in the semifinals of the state playoffs.

In the realm of hurdles that Weston-McEwen has bounded past this season, Scio (11-1) is more like a mountain — massive and molded from years of football prominence — but with a better running game. The top-seeded Loggers hold a 39-1 record over the last three seasons while winning the previous two state championships.

“The way I look at it, (Scio) is a program that’s on the map and we are now on the map with them,” TigerScots head coach Kenzie Hansell said. “They’ve earned the right to be on the map and now so have we.”

By AJ MAZZOLINI
East Oregonian

PENDLETON — Assistant coach Bill Zyph stood cross-armed under the basket at one end of Mosby Court watching the Blue Mountain Community College men’s basketball team work through passing drills and break-away tactics. Every few moments, the coach would shout a word or two of commands, but the Timberwolves flowed through the motions of a practice without needing much direction.

Zyph and the players were waiting for head coach Larry Bartee to arrive before practice would officially commence, but the Timberwolves broke into spontaneous drills to pass the time. By the time Bartee opened the door to the McCrae Center 15 minutes later, several players had already worked up a sweat.

“The sophomores have really taken to their leadership roles and really have helped push things already,” said Bartee, now in his 31st year as coach of the team. “They come to practice and they go ahead and set it all up and do things. They’re really motivated. They really want to win after last year, after getting that close.”

_By AJ MAZZOLINI
East Oregonian

With a giant portion of last year’s Hermiston boys’ basketball team now gone and graduated, plenty of unfamiliar faces showed up to the tryouts when the team broke its offseason this week. Many of those faces were dribbling basketballs and hoping to land a spot on the varsity roster, but maybe the most noticeable new arrival was the man directing the traffic with a whistle dangling around his neck.

Head coach Adam Strom was hired this spring to fill the hole left by coach Larry Usher, who left the program to pursue other options. Strom came to Hermiston from Wapato, Wash. — the same place Usher coached before he became a Bulldog. Strom said he and Usher were friends who stayed in touch after Usher left for Oregon and the former Hermiston coach tipped Strom off to the opening this year and encouraged him to apply.

“Speaking to one of my mentors, (Usher) said if there’s an opening with an interview process, you can never do too much of that as practice,” said Strom, who is also employed at the school along with his wife. “One thing led to another and here I am.”

_By AJ MAZZOLINI
East Oregonian

HILLSBORO — When the Riverside Pirates fell in the state semifinals match to Catlin Gabel last season, the team vowed they’d make it back again. Buoyed by the kind of determination beyond the normal realm of high school athletes, this season’s installment of the Pirates (18-0) now find themselves one step beyond the game from last year that hung with them well into the soccer offseason.

The final hurdle for Riverside in an otherwise perfect season comes on Saturday at 1 p.m in the form of St. Mary’s (15-1). The top two ranked teams in the state will clash at Liberty High in Hillsboro.

Getting to this point against the Medford-based Crusades might not have happened without last year’s letdown, coach Carlos Velasco said. The returning players — led by goal-scoring seniors like Jovanny Llamas and Erik Ruiz — have developed a unique mentality over the last year with narrow sight fixed directly on this game.

“It was the drive in a way because a lot of the players that were on that team are still playing now,” Velasco said. “It was the drive for them to play even harder this year and do better.”