Category: 2A Sports
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Week One Football Notebook
Week one is always rough for predictions and preseason top-10 lists, and this year was no exception. However, some of the performances, both individual and team, were truly noteworthy. Here is what the film shows:
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2A Football Preview
Per usual, we will only discuss the top-10 for the 2A preview. Lack of available film, vast roster and coaching turnover, and the transition to 9-man make going league by league for 2A impossible. This fall will be hectic and widely unpredictable, but we will give it our best shot. 10) Willamina This is 100%…
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Westside Walk-Off: West Takes Down East in First-Ever Overtime Shrine Game
The game lived up to the hype, and then some. You can ask us for a game MVP, but we are not sure we could give you one. The game plan that we thought could give the West a chance worked wonders. Gunner Yates was allowed no significant lanes to run through, and as a…
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2022 East-West Shrine Game Preview
It’s Shrine Time. It’s East vs. West, all for the Shriners Hospital. It’s Gladstone vs. La Grande, Rainier vs. Vale, and Coquille vs. Heppner. A conglomeration of all the most high-profile matchups of the last four years culminating in this one charity event. Each year, the Shrine game takes shape as the closing act, the…
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Looking Ahead: Future Football Championship Matchups
Predictions of week-to-week matchups can be pretty easy. Once information is widely available and head-to-head matchups have reached a certain point, a week’s worth of triangulation and predictions can be made in as short as a half an hour. Even making predictions at the start of a season about who will play in the championship…
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Hits and Misses: Boys Basketball
Our process for projecting how things will shake out in various sports is complex and varies by season and year, and it is ultimately scrutinized internally and refined to produce better results next time around. This process churns out, on balance, more accurate predictions than faulty ones. Usually, we keep this hand wringing in-house, but…
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Hits and Misses: Football
Our process for projecting how things will shake out in various sports is complex and varies by season and year, and it is scrutinized internally and refined to produce better results next time around. This process churns out, on balance, more accurate predictions than faulty ones. Usually, we keep this hand wringing in-house, but in…
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2A Football Preview
What did you miss most about a ‘normal’ football season? A full playoff? Non-sub-50-degree kickoffs in week two? For us, it was the crisp sunset of an early September evening giving way to the overhead lights of a freshly-prepared football field. The scenery that goes into, and the product that ultimately comes out of those…
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Rapid Reaction: East Rolls West, Peiffer Puts On a Beatdown
The East rolled, and it was never in question. Here’s the breakdown: Sweet Jesus, Sebastian Peiffer. Way to go out, young man. A one-man wrecking ball in the middle, he breathed life into an East offense that was off to a sluggish start in the first half. The persona of the Gladstone community and football…
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2021 East-West Shrine Game Preview
Finally, it’s Shrine time. It’s East vs. West, all for the Shriners Hospital. It’s Mazama vs. Marist, Heppner vs. Kennedy, Cascade Christian and Santiam Christian vs. Amity and Rainier. A conglomeration of all the most high profile matchups the last four years culminating in this one charity event. Each year, the Shrine game takes shape…
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Hits and Misses: Looking Back on Our Boys Basketball Previews
Our process for projecting how things will shake out in various sports is complex and varies by season and year, and it is ultimately scrutinized internally and refined to produce better results next time around. This process churns out, on balance, more accurate predictions than faulty ones. Usually, we keep this hand wringing in-house, but…
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Hits and Misses: Looking Back on Our Football Previews
Our process for projecting how things will shake out in various sports is complex and varies by season and year, and it is ultimately scrutinized internally and refined to produce better results next time around. This process churns out, on balance, more accurate predictions than faulty ones. Usually, we keep this hand wringing in-house, but…
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Boys Quarterfinal/Sweet-16 Preview and Predictions
Banks vs. La Grande: This could get ugly. The Braves come into this one undefeated and, by virtue of COVID, still technically defending state champions. La Grande, as much as they have outperformed their contemporaries in the east, may be way too outmatched. It wouldn’t be surprising to see this one end up with a…
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Rapid Reaction: Wart-less Warriors Hold Off Western, Could Be 3A Front-Runners
Back in the day, Amity, Dayton, and Western Christian (Western Mennonite at that time) had a “tobacco road”-style triangular rivalry in the old West Valley League. Seeing these teams duke it out in a non-jamboree setting for the first time in a long time should be the headline, but there is much, much more to…
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2A Football Preview
This preview is going to be different than the others for one simple reason: 2A football is an abject mess. The predictability of 2A is nearly zero outside a handful of teams. We’re going to talk about our top-ten exclusively simply because they’re the brightest stars in a sky of confusion and uncertainty. Honorable Mention…
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Boys Basketball Preview: Northwest Corner
Cowapa League For the first time in the better part of a decade, the road to the 4A title no longer runs through the Cowapa. No longer is the preeminent team, or ‘teams’ as has been the case for the better part of the last decade, part of the Cowapa. The center of the 4A…
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Boys Basketball Preview: North Valley
Tri-Valley Conference One senior-heavy team exits, one senior-heavy team enters. There’s some certainty of who will end up at the top of the TVC, but below that it could get tricky. Here’s what we have: Gladstone is going to be a trendy pick to win it all and for good reason. Jeremy DeVoe, Jude Ashpole,…
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Boys Basketball Preview: South Valley
Oregon West Conference – Those that have been with us since the start would know last season we sort of got addicted to covering the OWC. This was not necessarily because of the talent or the coaching, though both are abundant in this conference, but because every single game held the weight of a play-in…
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Girls Basketball Preview: South Valley
Oregon West Conference Philomath Warriors 2019-2020 Record: 24-1 2019-2020 League Finish: 1st 2019-2020 Final Rank: #1 Only a global pandemic kept the Philomath Warriors from winning the state title last season. Player of the Year Sage Kramer and Coach of the Year Ben Silva were 23-0 against 4A opponents last season and will return to…
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Girls Basketball Preview: South Coast
Sky Em League Cottage Grove Lions 2019-2020 Record: 19-6 2019-2020 League Finish: 1st 2019-2020 Playoff Seed: #8 Prior to the COVID-19 shutdown, Cottage Grove was getting ready to face off with likely champion Philomath in the state quarterfinals. Sporting a 17-5 record against 4A opponents, Cottage Grove had their best season since they won the…