Category: 3A 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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3A Football Preview
Where last year featured a 3A classification completely jumbled and devoid of traditional powers at the top, this fall will see a resurgence in traditionalism and a drastic increase in depth. The door may be just as wide open as it was last year, but the amount of A-tier teams able to take advantage is…
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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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Third Time’s the Charm: Challengers Finally Get Over the Hump, Win First Title Since 2009
After all this time, after all this team–and the world–has gone through since March 2020, they finally did it. Cascade Christian finally found the mountaintop. There is so much to admire about this team and the story they bring with them. To know what this victory means is to truly understand their hardship. To hear…
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Coos Bay Cliff Notes: Day Two
Cascade Christian 56 Westside 51 Game of the day, without a doubt. With all due respect to Nyssa-Sutherlin, this game had the on-court talent and an intriguing coaching matchup, with David Henry–Cascade Christian alumni and former player and assistant coach for the Challengers–matching up against his mentor, Brian Morse. Westside had their hot streaks, had…
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Coos Bay Cliff Notes: Day One
Westside Christian 81 Pleasant Hill 51 Westside dominated in the first and second halves, on offense and on defense, with starters and with their bench, from the perimeter and the paint, on the boards and in the turnover battle. There was no phase where Pleasant Hill had an advantage–except for crowd turnout. The Billies brought…
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Rapid Reaction: Umatilla Springs Trap on Santiam Christian, Advances to State Tournament for First Time Since 2008
Well, that was entertaining! Impressive outside shooting, fantastic defense in spurts, an up-and-down pace that could not be kept up with, and a band of elementary-aged cheerleaders behind them: 3A basketball fans, you are going to enjoy seeing this Umatilla team in Coos Bay. Here’s what we saw: Quickly–yes, an elementary-aged cheer squad. Intentional? Regular?…
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Delayed Rapid Reaction: Dayton Beats Amity in OT, Will Host Playoff Game for First Time since 2017
For the first time since 2016, Dayton beat Amity. For the first time since 2013, they did so on the road. For the first time since 1998, this game went to overtime. We called our shot when Jacob Peterson was hired, and we should have stuck to our guns predicting this game tonight. Make no…
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3A 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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Coos Bay Cliff-Notes: Day Two
We were focused entirely on the games at Marshfield High School today, so we were too short-handed to cover both gyms. Hidden Valley 44 Philomath 39 Valley Catholic threw a lot at Philomath: speed, pressure, quickness, and perimeter shooting. There was one thing they couldn’t do, however, and it cost them in the semis: they…
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Coos Bay Championship and 3rd Place Game Previews and Predictions
Cascade Christian vs. Yamhill-Carlton: This all revolves around one thing: how well can the Challengers play defense? Keeping the Seely-Roberts twins under 45 combined points seems to be the tipping point between competing with the Tigers and watching them run it up on you. Can Cascade Christian hold their own against Moroni and Malachi Seely-Roberts…
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Coos Bay Cliff-Notes: Day One
Girls Clatskanie 73 Nyssa 43 Nyssa came out with a lot of energy, and was fueled by their larger fan turnout than Clatskanie. However, the initial burst was limited, and in the end the defending champs pulled away. Clatskanie was bolstered by a career night from Shelby Blodgett, as the senior notched 36 points and…