January

 

Record sports January 8, 1998

¥ Modoc girls win big Willows tournament

¥ Area sports schedules for week

¥ Elks sponsor annual Hoop Shot

Modoc girls win Willows tourney

Modoc's girls basketball team got off to a splendid start by winning the predominately big school Willows Invitational Tournament Dec. 29-30.

"We didn't play all that well in the championship game, but played a great fourth quarter, thanks to Leah Siegel's defense," said coach Mike Martin. "She took over the game in the fourth."

Modoc dropped Ursuline of Santa Rosa 53-42 in the championship game.

The Braves survived a slow start and 25 turnovers in the title game.

Ursuline led after the first period 17-15 and at the half 26-25. The Braves took a one point lead in the third, but Kayte Christensen picked up her fourth foul and sat out until the fourth period. By the end of the third, the game was tied at 37-37.

In the fourth, Leah Siegel turned up the tempo on the de fense and stole the ball six times, adding four assists off those steals to Jennifer Kern. The Braves ended up outscoring Ursuline 16-5 in the final period.

Kern led the Braves with 18 points and 12 rebounds. Christensen added 12 points and 11 rebounds. Andrea Knox added 13 points, Lynda Lake had six points. Wendy Stafford had six steals in the game and Lake picked off four.

In the semi-final game, the Braves whipped Willows 59-29 behind Christensen's 27-point night. Lake added eight points, Siegel had seven, and Jennifer Kern had six. Siegel had six assists and five steals.

The game was over early as the Braves took a 31-8 first period lead. Modoc scored just two in the second period and nine in the third, but pumped in 17 in the fourth. The Braves' defense held Willows to single digit scoring each quarter.

Modoc opened the tourney against Windsor and set the tone in the first, going up 28-0 and leading 28-5 when the first eight minutes ended. By half-time the Braves held a 39-17 lead and rolled to a 58-33 win.

"We played very well in that game and our press just ate them up," said Martin. "I had expected them to be tougher. But we did play well."

Christensen had 14 of her team-high 21 points in the open ing period and Andrea Knox added eight in the first pe riod. Knox finished with 12 points and Kern added nine.

"We're not clicking real well right now and we're probably a little behind where we were last year at this time," said Martin. "I'm hoping that by the Etna game (January 16), we're in better condition and are starting to jell as a team."

Modoc is still able to beat teams because of their overall talent, but Martin said they need to come together better if they're going to dominate. Coming off a Willows big school tournament win is a major plus for the season.

Christensen was named the Most Valuable Player at Willows and Kern was named to the All-tourney team.

The Braves played Burney at home last night, after press-time, to open league play

Area sports schedules

Modoc High School boys and girls opened Shasta Cascade League play against Burney last night after press time for the Record. Modoc does not have another game until Etna comes to visit January 16.

Game times for league games are as follows: JV girls 4 p.m.; JV boys, 5:30 p.m.; varsity girls 7 p.m. and varsity boys, 8:30 p.m.

Modoc's wrestling team goes to the Reed Tournament in Sparks, January 9-10 then goes to the Burney Rotary Invitational January 16-17.

For the Big Valley Cardinals start Evergreen League play at home against Happy Camp January 9.

Surprise Valley is home on January 9 in a league game against McCloud and on Saturday they travel to Dunsmuir.

Elks Hoop Shoot is Jan. 9

The 26th annual Elks Hoop Shoot is set for January 9, 3:15 p.m. at Modoc Middle School in Alturas.

The event is open to all youngsters ages 8 through 13 and all young people are encouraged to participate. The Alturas Elks Lodge sponsors the local event and local winners qualify to go on. The Hoop Shoot is a free-throw shooting contest and is a national competition.

For more information, contact Steve Riley at 233-3531.

Record sports for January 15, 1998

¥ Modoc girls dominate Burney

¥ Brave boys open league with win

¥ Modoc wrestlers 5th in huge tourney

¥ Big Valley girls looking strong

¥ SV Hornets open evergreen league play

¥ Cedar Pass Ski Hill enjoying good snowpack

Modoc girls trounce Burney easily, Etna in town this week

Modoc girls started the Shasta Cascade League the way most people expected, with an easy win over Burney 66-32.

This week Modoc has Etna at home Friday night and travels to Trinity Saturday, both SCL games. On January 20, Fall River comes to Modoc.

Modoc head coach Mike Martin figures Etna and Mt. Shasta to be the toughest two teams in the SCL and thinks Etna has a chance at giving Modoc a tough game.

"They're a good team and we expect them to be tough," said Martin. "If we play our game, we'll be fine; but if we're off, they could give us some trouble. It won't be an easy game."

Martin said Etna has quality players and expects them to press the Braves. The Lions have lost only three games this season and have their sights on knocking Modoc off the throne. Tuesday night Etna lost to Mt. Shasta's girls, 60-40.

Dethroning Modoc will be no easy task. Modoc's starting five is as strong or stronger than last year and Martin feels his bench strength is solid. Martin has brought up sophomore Megan Orner and Freshman Jessica Kern to the varsity.

"I'm confident in our team play right now and the starters are playing very well," said Martin. "I feel I have a very good eight-per son rotation and even our second team is good."

The Braves beat Burney's Raiders 66-32 last week, in a game that was only close at the tip-off. The Braves rolled up a 26-4 first pe riod lead and by the half led 43-12. The Braves outscored Burney 14-1 in the third to lead 57-13 when the fourth period started.

Martin only used his starting lineup about half the game, and the reserves played very well.

Kayte Christensen led the Braves scoring with 19, Andrea Knox added 11, Megan Orner had nine, Leah Siegel added eight and Jennifer Kern had seven. Knox and Siegel each hit a three-point shot.

Modoc's junior varsity also won its game, 46-43, with Tatum Dunn leading the way with 16 points.

Modoc opens SCL with win over Burney, faces Etna here Friday nite

For the Modoc boys basket ball team, winning their Shasta-Cascade League opener last week was just a matter of trying a new de fense. The Braves used an ef fective zone to hold a much taller Burney team to an ice-cold 2-26 from the field in the second and fourth quarters as Modoc came away with a 62-44 win.

Since quickness is Mod oc's strength, coach Lane Bates usually likes to put his squad in a man-to-man. However, he was also aware that Burney would be showing up with a team that could start a front line that went 6-5, 6-7, 6-4, while Modoc doesn't list anyone over 6-3 on their ros ter. Therefore, Bates had the Braves practice the zone specifically for the Raiders.

It turned out that Modoc needed it. Burney held a 14-9 lead after the first quarter be cause they kept dumping it down low to their big guys who were able to take the smaller Braves to the bucket.

Therefore, the Braves threw a tightly packed zone at the Raiders in the second quarter and dared Burney to hit from outside. The Raiders couldn't do it. They were 0-7 from three-point range on the night and in an eight minute second quarter they could only manage one field goal and six points. Modoc was therefore able to take a 25-20 lead into the locker-room at halftime.

"The kids did a nice job with that defense," Bates said. "We wanted to play behind their big people and then have the guards collapse down on them when they got the ball. I thought it was a good team ef fort."

The Braves also got a big boost in the first half when se nior sixth man Duane Knighton came in and changed the tempo of the game with his aggressive and hus tling style of play. Knighton seemed to be everywhere as he got 11 points on 5-7 shooting, six rebounds, three steals, two assists and a blocked shot.

"It's really nice to have a kid like that who can come in and do so many different things for you," Bates said of Knighton.

While the defense was clicking in the second quar ter, Brave guard Ryan Camp bell was also figuring out how to attack the Burney defense. The answer for most of Camp bell's 19 points was to drive the middle and hit amazing double-clutching up-and-un der shots while spinning around Burney's tall trees.

The Braves also got a stel lar performance from sopho more center Brett Hamilton. The youngster banged inside with the big boys and came away with 13 points on 6-8 shooting and seven rebounds.

However, just when Modoc thought they had Burney fig ured out, the Raiders came up with their own strategy for beating the Modoc zone de fense - get down the court be fore the Braves can get set up in that defense. The Raiders at one point hit five fast-break lay-ups in a row while also out rebounding the Braves 13-5 the third quarter. As a result, Burney had regained the lead at 39-38 as the teams headed into the fourth quarter.

Since Modoc had turned slow-footed in the third quar ter, Bates had the Braves start running a half-court trap out of a zone to "get them moving again." The Braves got mov ing quickly as they scored the first six points of the quarter to take a 45-39 lead.

Each team scored one more basket to make the score 47-41 before Burney's 6-7 center Dane Howell went down on a lay-up attempt with an injury. From that point on, the Braves went on a 15-3 run to put the game away easily.

Modoc has a tough three games in five days stretch coming up. They host Etna tomorrow before traveling to Trinity Saturday. They then come back home on Tuesday, the 20th to face Fall River.

Modoc wrestlers fifth in huge Reno Tournament

Modoc wrestling team placed fifth at the Reed Invitational in Reno last week, out of some very big schools including the Nevada State Champs, Wooster.

"The competition was intense and we held our own," said Modoc coach Shaun Wood. "It was a long tourna ment. We wrestled until 11:45 p.m. on Friday and then from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday. Everybody got tired and a little flat on Saturday."

The highest place finisher for Modoc was 215-pound Iven Wilson, who placed second, losing only his final match.

Greg Jacques, Modoc's 179-pounder took a fourth in a tough weight class.

Tony Willis at Heavyweight, Phil Weed at 152, Teddy Simmons at 125, and Richard Lutz at 119 each took a fifth. Eric Hunter placed sixth at 140 and Dan Flournoy placed sixth at 189.

"We had several wrestlers who finished just one match out of the medals," said Wood. "Overall, I was pleased with our performance against some very tough competi tion."

The Braves head to the Burney Invitational this week end and it should be more in line with their level of compe tition. Wood expects the Braves to be favored to win the 23-school tournament and figures the toughest challenges from Trinity, Kelseyville and Corning.

"We're back to more of our pool at the Burney tourna ment and we should do very well," said Wood. "I expect to place in 11 of the 14 weights."

Cardinal girls open with a win

The Big Valley girls bas ket ball team picked up a win last Friday night after a see saw battle against Happy Camp in Bieber.

Cardinal coach Janiece Criss started her squad in a press that helped them take an early lead. However, the In dians came storming back to take a 10 point lead before the Cards could get their press working again. Big Valley finally came back to take a two point lead at 58-56 in the last minute of the fourth quarter. BV then made a de fensive stop and got the ball in the hands of Ileah Jackson who was fouled.

Jackson went to the line and hit one of two to make the score 59-56. Happy Camp still had one more chance to send the game into overtime by hit ting a three-pointer, but the Cardinal press came up with one last steal to ice the victory.

Jackson had 30 for Big Val ley while Carrie Scwebach also hit double figures with 15 points.

The Big Valley JV took a 29-12 loss to Happy Camp. Carly Nordell and Kelsey Hunsacker were the high scorers for a six member team that got worn down in the sec ond half against a Happy Camp squad that suited up 11 players.

Boys basketball: A weak second quar ter cost the Cards in their first Evergreen League game as they lost 57-50 to Happy Camp. In the other three quarters, the Car dinals outscored the Indians 17-15, 19-17 and 10-9, but were on the wrong end of a 16-4 run in the second.

Kasey Criss poured in 16 for Big Valley while Corado Reginnato added 10.

The Big Valley teams are in the midst of a long homes tand. Tomorrow night they will host McCloud with JV girls be ginning at 3:30. Since McCloud does not have girls varsity team, the boys JV will play at 5:00 and the boys var sity will be at 6:30. On Satur day, Tulelake will be at Big Valley with girls JV starting at 1:30 fol lowed by boys JV at 3:00, girls varsity at 4:30 and boys varsity at 6:00. Next Tues day, January 20, Sur prise Valley will make their annual appearance in Bieber. Games will again begin at 3:30 with girls and boys var sity playing at 6:30 and 8:00 respectively.

Hornets open EL with pair of losses

Surprise Valley's boys and girls basket ball teams opened up their Evergreen League schedules in Cedarville last Friday against McCloud.

The boys varsity fell be hind by 12 in the second quarter against McCloud, and could n't recover despite con sistent play in the third and fourth quarters. The young Hornets, with just one senior on the squad, ended up taking a 70-53 loss.

The Hornets did make sev eral small runs to get the Mc Cloud lead down to single digits but McCloud used their fast break to go on runs of their own to answer back.

Junior forward Tom Har ris led SV with 16 points. He was particularly hot in the fourth quarter going 4-4 from the field. He also had five re bounds in the final stanza.

Chris Harris and Avon Ray got 12 and 9 points respec tively on the inside.

Surprise Valley also got a promising per formance from sophomore Mike Northrup who was just recently moved up to the varsity level. Northrup came off the bench to shoot 2-3 from three-point land on his way to eight points while also contributing two steals on the defensive end.

The Hornets only had a short time to re cover from the McCloud loss as they had to travel to Dunsmuir on Satur day to face the team that is generally thought to be the class of the EAL. The pattern of the game was very similar to the night before. Surprise Valley got outscored 12-10 in the second quarter and then actually outscored Dunsmuir in the sec ond half before los ing 69-55.

Chris Harris led in the scoring column with 20, while Northrup had 17 and Tom Har ris had 12.

The Hornet JV also fell to 0-2 in league after losing 71-35 at Dunsmuir. Anthony Schultz hit four treys on his way to scoring 13 points.

Girls basketball: The SV girls varsity got a break on Friday night because Mc Cloud is not fielding a girls varsity team this year. It turned out to be a good time for a bye since two Surprise Val ley starters are out with in juries. The understaffed Hornets still had to play Dun smuir on Saturday and lost 52-43. It was also the first game in 28 days for the Hor net girls squad and coach Lon Holloman pointed out that the team may have needed a game to get rid of the rust.

Surprise Valley fell behind 44-26 in the third quarter be fore making a major run to wind up trailing by nine. Heather Tufts led the way with 16 points while Brooke Beeman tossed in 10.

Holloman predicts that the girls EAL will be very bal anced this year.

"The league is going to be real tough," he said. "We're all evenly matched. Every body's going to beat everybody else. It's just a matter of who can win on the road."

One team that can win on the road is the Hornet JV, which posted an impressive 53-23 win at Dunsmuir to go along with an easy 47-26 win over McCloud in Cedarville. 5-11 freshman Ashlynn Dol cini has been a strong per former scoring 23 against Dunsmuir and 14 against McCloud.

The Surprise Valley teams must now play three road games in a row over the next five days. Tomorrow they play at Tulelake. On Satur day they will meet Happy Camp in the Dunsmuir gym for a neutral site game. Next Tuesday, the Hornets will head down the 299 to face Big Valley.

Ski Hill open on holiday;

Super Bowl fun slated

Cedar Pass Ski Hill has some fun planned for Super Bowl Sunday, Jan. 25. Come by the Ski Hut where the game will be televised and enjoy a potluck barbecue throughout the day.

"We have plenty of snow, and got another foot," said Tim Harris on Tuesday morning.

The Hill will be open for skiing Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 17 and 18, plus be open on the holiday, Monday, Jan. 19 from 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

On Super Bowl Sunday, hot Chili will be provided and beverages will be available through concessions. Bring hot dogs and hamburgers, as the barbecue will be available throughout the day. Everyone's invited to enjoy the skiing and the "extras."

 

Record sports for January 22,1998

¥ Braves stage pair of comebacks

¥ Modoc girls carving up the SCL

¥ Big Valley back on track

¥ Modoc wrestlers win Burney Invite

¥ Waterfowl hunt in Modoc productive

Braves' 'cardiac crew' stage two last second come backs

When the Modoc boys bas ketball came out to warm up for Tuesday, the music that was playing over the gym loud speakers was the heavy metal polka stylings of "Weird Al" Yankovic. The musical se lection could have hardly been more appropriate since the way the Braves have gone 3-1 in the Shasta-Cascade League thus far can best be de scribed as "weird."

The Braves are, after all, a team with a consistent pattern of letting the other team build up a double digit lead in the first half before mounting an exciting comeback and win ning on a last second shot.

That pattern was evident again against Fall River on Tuesday as Modoc came away with a 50-48 win to stay among the leaders in the SCL. The Braves fell behind 15-6 in the first quarter and trailed by six early in the fourth quarter before Ryan Campbell hit the winning shot with three sec onds on the clock. Was this the miracle comeback game of the year? Hardly. Rather, it was just another day at the of fice for the Braves this sea son. Campbell had hit an other last second game win ner just three days earlier and Modoc overcame a 17 point deficit against Etna last Friday.

"I'll tell you one thing, you'll get your money's worth when you come see us play," senior guard Eric Lancaster joked after beating the Bull dogs.

"We just come out dead," Campbell noted of the horrid first quarters the Braves are now famous for. In that case, the Braves are leading the league in resurrections.

Modoc coach Lane Bates noted that while he wasn't too worried about his half-time speeches, "I've been working on my pre-game speeches."

What is Modoc's secret for overcoming bad first halves? One reason Bates identified is that he is coaching "smart guys." The Braves have shown a remarkable ability to identify where adjustments need to be made as the game goes along. For example against Fall River, Brian Ri ley, the Bulldogs' 6-9 center, exploded for 19 points in the first half. However, Modoc kept the ball away from him in the second half and held him to just seven more points for the rest of the night.

Lancaster ventured the the ory that the Braves are in bet ter shape than their opponents and therefore just wear people down (including Modoc fans).

Both Bates and Lancaster also observed that, even the Modoc offense is struggling, at the defensive end, the Braves have been able to come up with steals when they most need them.

In the Fall River game on Tuesday night, the Bulldogs opened up by shooting 6-7 from the floor and they held a 17-9 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Braves got back to within striking distance in the second quarter as Bryan Parker got eight of his team high 13 points in one short time period.

The Braves finally took the lead at 5:16 in the third after sophomore Cody Holloway made a steal at mid-court and went to the other end for a lay-up, foul and three point play to make the score 32-31.

The lead would be short-lived however as Fall River bolted back to a 43-37 lead at the end of the third quarter.

Early in the fourth quarter Modoc got a lift off the bench from junior post player Jeff Doss. In the first two minutes of the fourth quarter he hit a three-pointer, made a steal, grabbed a rebound and blocked one of Riley's shots. While Doss was doing all of that, Campbell was hitting on three drives to the rack, the last one coast-to-coast (on the court - not the hardward store) after grabbing a rebound.

While Doss and Campbell were putting nine straight points on the board, Modoc was holding the Bulldogs scoreless at the other end for the first 3:23 of the quarter. The Braves would also limit FR to just two buckets the en tire quarter.

After Fall River finally scored and Lancaster an swered with a basket, Modoc held a 48-45 lead until Fall River's Riley scored his final points of the night on a trey that tied the score at 48-all with 41 seconds left.

After Modoc committed turnovers on their next two possessions, the Bulldogs had the ball out with 10.7 seconds left and a chance to win the game. The Braves needed a huge play and got it from Lancaster who tipped away the inbounds pass, dived to the ground, got the ball and called timeout with 6.9 seconds left.

The play called in the Modoc huddle was to get the ball to Campbell in the key. After all, they had done the same thing in their last game against Trinity and Camp bell had hit the last second shot to give the Braves the win.

Campbell said he didn't feel pressured knowing the outcome of the game was in his hands, he was flattered.

"It gives me more confi dence when we go in with the play coming to me," he said.

That confidence showed as Campbell got the ball and hit a left-leading fade-away five-footer to give Modoc a 50-48 lead with 3.2 seconds left.

Fall River still had one more chance to tie or win the game, but Holloway, guard ing the inbounds pass, tipped the ball and Lancaster was able to get to the ball before it got to any Bulldog. He ap peared to hit a three-pointer as time ran out but the referees did not count it.

As mentioned earlier, the Braves got a win over Trinity in their first road game last Saturday when Campbell hit almost exactly the same shot at the end of the game, only this time going to this right. Parker led the scoring against Trinity with 15 and Duane Knighton had 14.

The only Modoc loss in SCL play came last Friday against Etna. What the Braves showed in that game was how poorly they could play yet still have a chance to win the game on their last possession. The Braves missed their first seven shots, fell behind by 17, committed 25 turnovers and shot just 10-17 from the free throw line. Yet despite all of that, they had a good shot at winning the game.

After Etna took a 34-17 lead in the second quarter, Parker led a Modoc charge in the third by going to the hoop five straight times and making all five. He would end up with 22 points and eight rebounds.

Despite Parker's efforts, the Braves were still down by nine with just 5:24 left. Modoc came back with two baskets each from Parker and Brett Hamilton, who had 14 points for the game. Hamilton's and Modoc's final basket made the score 56-54 with 1:08 left. From that point on, Mod oc's defense would allow just one free throw made in Etna's final four possessions. The problem was that Modoc couldn't come up with any points of their own and ended up on the short end of a 57-54 score.

The Braves are 3-1 and very much in the champi onship hunt in a league where every team has at least one loss. Modoc will now have to go on a three game road-trip. Tomorrow night they travel to Weed and then play at Burney next Tuesday. On Friday, January 30 they will play at Mt. Shasta.

Modoc girls carving up SCL

Modoc girls varsity coach Mike Martin figured the Etna Lions would be one of the toughest teams in the Shasta Cascade League and stressed the Braves would have no easy time against them.

Right . . . and the moon is made of cream cheese.

The Braves wasted no time in setting the tone of the game with a 14-2 first period and cruised to a 53-23 win. Modoc led 26-10 at the half and 41-22 after three. They outscored Etna 12-1 in the final period.

It wasn't a pretty picture for the Lions. Still, Martin is nervous about a Mt. Shasta team that beat the Etna girls last week. There may be some cause of concern over the Bears, but the Braves are obviously not the Lions.

Modoc has Weed there this Friday night, then goes to Burney Tuesday. They meet Mt. Shasta there next Friday.

"We're playing well, and we're hoping the Mt. Shasta game allows us to use our starters longer," said Martin. "They're going to be the toughest team we have to play in league. Honestly, we need to get our starters more work, but it's difficult in some games."

What's difficult is the fact that the Braves generally have set the tone of the game early and by the end of the fist period have a com manding lead. The reserve players also do an excellent job.

"I expected Etna to be a little tougher than they were," said Martin. "The Trinity and Fall River games were about what I expected. We're looking forward to the Mt. Shasta game, but I have to keep reminding the girls that they have to get up for each game."

In the Etna game, Kayte Christensen had 14 points and Jennifer Kern added 13. Kern is shooting her excellent jump shot with more regularity. Christensen picked up 12 re bounds and Kern grabbed 11. Megan Orner added seven, Leah Siegel had six and Andrea Knox had five. Knox added four as sists and Siegel had five steals. Holly Brown led Etna with 12 points

Modoc whipped the Trinity Wolves Saturday in Trinity with Christensen out nursing a sore ankle. Jennifer Kern, Knox, and Siegel stepped it up for another lopsided win.

The Braves led 15-2 after one and 28-17 by half. By the end of the third Modoc held a 46-35 lead and outscored Trinity 13-6 in the fi nal eight minutes. Knox led the scoring with 19, Jennifer Kern added 11, Siegel had six, Megan Orner had nine and Lake had nine.

In the Fall River game Tuesday night it was almost over before it started as the Braves took a 27-8 first period lead and led 42-12 at the half. By the end of three, Modoc led 61-15 and cruised to a 70-24 win. The starters played a total of about nine minutes 9 (out of 32) in the game.

Christensen led the scoring with 18, in cluding one three-pointer, Knox added 11, Lake had nine, Jennifer Kern had six, Jessica Kern had seven and Siegel had five.

Modoc's junior varsity girls beat Fall River Tuesday night 41-19. Leading scorers were Rebekah Richert with nine, Tiffany Parker and Sara Howell with eight each.

Modoc lost to Etna 48-40.

Big Valley Cardinals win three in league

Big Valley's Cardinal boys put together a good series of three wins in the Evergreen League this last week.

On January 16, the boys beat McCloud 61-60 in over time when Renden Ellenberger got a put back off a 12-footer by Kasey Criss with one second left in the game.

The Cardinals blew a 53-46 lead with 1:46 left in regula tion, said coach Bryan Gerig, then in overtime overcame a five-point deficit. Criss led the scoring with 27 points and Ellenberger added 10.

On Saturday, the Cardinals beat Tulelake 66-64, surviv ing 12 three-point ers by the Honkers. Big Valley led 36-26 at the half and 46-45 after three. They built up another 10-point lead in the fourth, but Tulelake's shooters drained some treys to keep it close. Criss led the scoring with 22 points.

Tuesday night, Big Valley beat Surprise Valley, 74-44. The score was close at the half, with Big Valley leading 31-29, but the Cardinals outscored the Hornets 43-15 in the second half. Criss led with 22, Corado Reginatto added 14, Ellenberger had 12 and Jason Oney added 10. Tom Harris had 25 to lead the Hornets.

Big Valley is now 3-1 in league and meets Dunsmuir at home Friday, and Butte Valley at home Saturday.

The JV Cardinals beat Big Valley 63-41 after taking a 39-13 lead at half. David House had 22 points and Calvin Jackson and Mike McClain each added 15.

Big Valley tripped Tulelake 43-42 with Carlos Escalante's final-second free throw making the difference. House had 16, Jackson added 14. Tulelake was 12-1 coming into the game.

The Cardinals beat Surprise Valley 64-36 Tuesday with Jackson getting 18, Clint Haury 15 and Mike Lemke 12. Surprise Valley was led by Craig Carpenter, Mike Carpenter and Joel Ruiz each with 11.

The JVs are now 11-1 over all and 4-0 in league.

Braves win Burney Rotary Invitational

Modoc Brave wrestlers put on a good showing at the Burney Invitational last weekend, coming home with the championship and another win over league rival Trinity.

"We were without three key wrestlers and I didn't ex pect us to win it," said Modoc coach Shaun Wood. "But our kids really did well. We had some excellent perfor mances and while it was close until the finals, we took care of business."

Modoc's next match is a duel at Burney with Burney and Trinity Wednesday. They then travel to the big time Corning tournament on January 31.

The Braves amassed 189 points in the Burney Rotary meet, ahead of second place Trinity's 156.5. Corning had 145, Bonanza 119.5, Kelseyville 98, Lakeview 88, Durham 88, Pershing County 83, Tulelake 78. Big Valley finished with 29 points in 16th place. Modoc's JV finished 13 out of the 26 schools.

Modoc's Greg Jacques won the individual title at 171 pounds and was also named the Outstanding Heavyweight wrestler in the event.

Teddy Simmons, Modoc, won the individual title at 125 pounds, beating Brines of Durham. Simmons is ranked number one in Division Four.

Dan Flournoy took a second place at 189 pounds, losing to Misquez of Corning.

Other placers for Modoc were: Justin Cavasso, third at 112; Phillip Weed, third at 145 pounds; Eric Hunter, third at 140 pounds; Tony Willis, third at 275 pounds; Richard Lutz, fifth at 119 pounds; Andy Nowak, fifth at 160 pounds and Dirk Lundgren, fifth at 171 pounds.

Wood was pleased with the winners and said that he was especially pleased with freshman Tony Willis and junior Phil Weed.

For Big Valley, Russ Carpenter took a fifth at 275 and also had the fastest pin of the meet. The Cardinals' Luke Stevenson took a third at 215.

Surprise Hornets drop 3 EL games

The Surprise Valley Hornet girls are without the services of a couple of key players, and as a result dropped three Evergreen League games this week.

 

Tuesday night the girls lost to Big Valley 49-31 after stay ing close the first period 15-11. By half, the Cardinals led 28-16 and outscored the Hornets 21-15 in the second half.

Jeanne Bunyard and Heather Tufts led the scoring with 10 each.

On Saturday, the Hornets lost to Happy Camp 59-39. Happy Camp got up early. 17-4, in the first period and the Hornets fought back to trail 24-18 by half. Happy Camp put together a 35-point second half, while the Hornets hit 21. Bunyard and Stacy DePaul led the scoring with 10 each.

Last Friday, Tulelake beat the Hornets 49-32 after Surprise Valley led 12-10 in the opening period. By half the Honkers led 29-22 and the Hornets managed only 10 points in the second half while Tulelake added 20. DePaul led the scoring with 10.

The SV Hornet junior vas rity is doing very well. They beat Big Valley 52-10 Tuesday behind the scoring of Cassie Cockrell and Tracy Reeves who each had 12.

Cockrell and Reeves also led the girls to a 50-17 win over Happy Camp Saturday. Cockrell had 16 and Reeves added 15.

Friday the Hornets lost to Tulelake, 48-28.

Waterfowl hunt on Modoc Refuge was productive

January 11 marked the end of the 1997-98 waterfowl sea son at Modoc National Wildlife Refuge, and the fi nal num bers for hunting have been tallied.

Refuge staff reported that 1851 hunters took 2533 ducks and 385 geese. The most nu merous ducks bagged was as fol lows: 1122 Mallards, 379 Wigeon, 284 Gadwalls, 261 Pin tails and 201 Green-winged Teal. The goose har vest was 356 Canada Geese, 24 White-fronted geese, four Snow Geese and one cackler.

Due largely to the longer season and more liberal lim its compared to past years, the duck season that just ended pro duced some good numbers. The total number of ducks har vested was 60% greater than the average for all sea sons dur ing the 1990's and the total number of hunters was the second highest for the same period.

The goose season and limit remained similar to those of recent years. As a result there was no significant change over last year. The total number of geese harvested was up just slightly over the previous season, but down a whopping 83% from the aver age for the 1990's. This drop in harvest ap pears to be due to a decline in the number of smaller sub species of Canada Geese using the Alturas area rather than a decline in the local resident population. Since the late 1980's there has been an increasing trend for the medium-sized geese to stop in the Willamette Valley and not migrate to Modoc County. Other geese may fly straight through to the Central Valley. While this has reduced the number of geese on the refuge, it has greatly increased the odds that any goose a hunter does shoot will be a big "trophy" Modoc honker, and that's what draws most folks from out of town to hunt in this area.

Anyone with questions concerning the hunting pro gram or any other aspect of the refuge public use program is wel come to contact the refuge at 233-3572 for more informa tion.

 

Record sports for January 29, 1998

¥ Modoc girls in league lead, Mt. Shasta next

¥ Braves boys stay ahead in the SCL

¥ Cardinal girls working for Evergreen lead

¥ Hornets Homecoming yields no win

Modoc heads to Mt. Shasta to settle questions

While there seems to be some question in the Mt. Shasta area about Modoc's girls basketball proficiency, that question will be answered this Friday night when the Braves play a visit to the Bears camp.

The Braves finally come home for a game February 7 against Trinity. They then travel to Fall River, Feb. 10 and Etna Feb. 13. The finish with home games against Mt. Shasta Feb. 17 and Weed Feb. 20.

The Bears and Braves are tied for the Shasta Cascade League title, each un beaten, but the Bears should probably relish the league lead this week. It'll change Friday night.

"We know they're a good team," said Modoc coach Mike Martin. "We have to go over there to play and that may give them a little boost. But they are still going to have to stop us."

Actually, a tougher game could be good for Modoc since the starters are only play ing about a half (or less) of each game now.

Tuesday night the Braves beat Burney in Burney 53-28. Mt. Shasta beat the Raiders by eight. The game started strong for Modoc with the Braves leading 22-3 af ter one and 32-18 by half. By the end of the third, the Braves led 44-24 and allowed Burney just four points in the fourth.

Kayte Christensen led Modoc with 18 points, Jennifer Kern pumped in 16 and Leah Siegel added seven.

Last Friday night, Modoc whipped Weed, there 56-28. again without any dif ficulty. Modoc opened up a 21-5 first period lead and led 32-13 by half. By the end of the third period, Modoc led 46-15 and cleaned up in the fourth.

Christensen led with 13 points, Andrea Knox and Wendy Stafford each added eight and Kern had seven.

Braves have hold on SCL, test is Friday

The Modoc Boys Basketball Team continued their win ning ways over the past week with road victories over Weed and Burney. Their ways of winning also continued to be the same as well. While the Braves have achieved a 5-1 Shasta-Cascade League record that has left them alone in first place, they continue to do it in a way that leaves Modoc fans with graying hair, ulcers, elevated blood pressure and chewed off fin gernails.

On Tuesday night, the Braves held a 10 point lead at half-time over Burney and continued to hold a lead of between five and eight points through most of the second half. The term "most" does not include the final two minutes, which was when the Raiders came back to tie it up. The two teams traded buckets until Bryan Parker hit two key free throws down the stretch to give Modoc a 62-59 lead. Burney tried a last sec ond three-pointer to tie the game again but missed.

Look at it this way, at least now the Braves are having other teams come back on them to make it exciting rather than the other way around, which was how it was through the first four games of the SCL season.

Against Burney, Modoc got balanced scoring from Parker with 16 points, Brett Hamilton with 15 and Ryan Campbell with 14.

Campbell was the leading scorer with 22 in last Friday's 59-49 win over Weed.

"Ten points is an easy win for us," Modoc coach Lane Bates joked.

Actually, 10 points for this team is a blowout. Still, wins are wins and the Braves are piling them up.

"At this point our record is better than I would have hoped," Bated said. "I'd have been really happy at 3-3 or 4-2."

However, the SCL season is only half over, and with three more road games on the schedule in what is turning out to be very balanced league, Bates isn't just tossing out a cliché when he says, "We have to take it one game at a time. We can't look past any body in our league." In the SCL this season, that's the honest truth.

With the Braves having al ready played Burney twice now, the one team they haven't faced yet is Mt. Shasta, the team Modoc goes on the road to play tomorrow night. The boys varsity will play at Mt. Shasta around 8:30 p.m.

Lady Cards tie for Ever green lead

The Big Valley girls bas ketball team pulled into a first place tie in the Evergreen League on Saturday with a 54-41 win over previously un beaten Butte Valley. Both teams are now 4-1 after the first half of the EAL sched ule.

The critical portion of the game between the Cardinals and Bulldogs was the third quarter, and that was when junior Ileah Jackson simply took over the game. Jackson went 5-6 from the field and scored 12 of her team's 16 points during the eight min utes of the third stanza. The Car dinals went from a three point half-time lead to a 12 point lead heading into the fourth quarter. Jackson would finish with 22 points on 10-17 shooting, 19 rebounds, four assists and two steals.

"She can really control the tempo of the game," BV coach Janiece Criss said of Jack son. "She can really change the way a game is going."

Actually, 22 points could be consid ered a somewhat slow night for Jack son, who is no stranger to the 30 point club. However, against Butte Val ley, she was getting plenty of support from her teammates who were shooting over 50 per cent from the field them selves. Nicole Silva was 5-7 from the field on her way to 12 points and six rebounds. Amy Plemons came off the bench to have what Criss called her best game so far. Plemons was also 5-7 from the field to finish with 10 points and five rebounds.

While the Cards were burning up the nets shooting nearly 60 percent from the field, their packed-in zone de fense was holding the Bull dogs to just 16-67 at the other end of the floor, or 24 percent shooting. The disparity be tween the two shooting per centages and Jackson's con trol of the boards allowed Big Valley to get the win even though they com mitted 35 turnovers against Butte's 2-2-1 full-court press. This was probably the first time since James Naismith nailed up a peach basket that a team gave the ball away 35 times yet still won by double digits.

"It doesn't make any dif ference if you're doing every thing else right," Criss noted of the turnovers.

Big Valley also picked up a win last Fri day when they beat Dunsmuir 48-36. Jackson had 24 points while Silva, Plemons and Car rie Schwe bach tossed in six each.

The Cards have a tough schedule remain ing, with four of their five games on the road. Tomorrow night they (along with the boys teams and girls JV) will play at Happy Camp. The league championship may come down to the final game of the season on February 20 when the Cardinals play at Butte Valley.

Big Valley boys basketball: While the BV girls team leads the league, the boys varsity isn't far behind. The Cardi nals also beat Butte Valley on Saturday night to make their EAL record 4-2, good enough for a second place tie with McCloud behind unde feated Dunsmuir.

The Cards took a 58-39 vic tory over the Bulldogs thanks to a balanced contribution from all nine players on the squad. Consider that the BV bench of Corado Reginatto, John Saltzman, Joe Haury and Wyatt Harbert com bined to score more points than the start ing five.

Reginatto used the strategy of al ways tak ing it to the bas ket to come away with a team high 14 points on 5-8 shooting. Crowd fa vorite Saltzman had seven points, three blocks and two steals while Harbert con tributed five points and five rebounds and Haury had four points, two assists and two steals.

For the starters, Kasey Criss had 10 points on 5-9 shooting to go along with seven re bounds, two steals and a block. Chris Clark had nine points and five re bounds.

While the two teams played even through the first quarter, Big Valley began to build a lead in the second by using a full-court press that forced nine turnovers in just that quar ter. Chris Click made a steal and took it the other way for a lay-up that went through the net just before the buzzer to give the Cardinals a 27-18 lead at the half.

Big Valley continued to build on that lead in the sec ond half by com mitting only three turnovers for the rest of the night and by hold ing the Bulldogs without a field goal over an eight minute stretch during the last four minutes of the third quarter, and the first four minutes of the fourth quarter. After Butte Valley finally ended their drought, they were down by 15 with just 4:04 left to play. The Bulldogs then went with a strategy of launch ing three-pointers that didn't go in (0-6 in the fourth quarter) while Big Valley continued to pull away.

Cardinal coach Bryan Gerig noted that his team did well playing a man-to-man against Butte, a defense that the relatively short Car dinals don't get to play very often. They usu ally have to try to pack the paint in a zone to stop the taller teams.

"We did a nice job on the defense," Gerig said. "That's about the first time this whole year we went straight man-to-man the whole game. Butte Valley is a team we match up with well size-wise.

Big Valley lost on the road to league leader Dunsmuir 67-52 on Friday night. Clark, Click and El lenberger each had 10 for the Cardi nals.

While Gerig feels the Cards have a shot at beating Dunsmuir in Bieber on February 13, he doesn't have a lot of confidence in seeing anyone else in the EAL knock off the Tigers, which is what Big Valley would need to hap pen to have a shot at winning the league title. Nevertheless, the Cards are looking strong for getting the sec ond place spot and also a berth in the Sectional playoffs.

To do that, they will need to survive a vi cious stretch of scheduling over the next four weeks. Five of their re main ing six games are on the road with the only home game against a tough Dunsmuir squad.

The boys JV team is 13-1 on the year and undefeated in the Evergreen League. This past weekend they beat Dunsmuir 62-45 and Butte Valley 59-38. David House is leading the squad in scoring, averaging about 18 points a game, while Calvin Jackson car ries an average of 15 points per game.

SV Hornet's Home coming yields no victory

Not even the presence of royalty could bring victories to the Surprise Valley boys and girls basketball teams last Friday. SVHS crowned a Homecoming Queen for 1998, varsity guard Brooke Bee man, but also had two losses to visiting Butte Val ley.

The boys team fell 74-53 to the Bulldogs to go to 1-5 in the Evergreen League. The Hor nets threw a tough 1-2-2 match-up zone defense at Butte, but the Bulldogs re sponded with an impressive double stack offense that they were able to run several dif ferent precision plays out of. Butte Val ley started 7-8 from the field to jump to a 14-7 lead. After that they never looked back. After taking a nine-point lead to the locker-room at half-time, the Bulldogs would end up pulling away in the second half by hitting an incredible 5-7 from three-point land.

Despite the loss, Hornet center Chris Harris was sim ply a workhorse inside. He used his muscle to pull down 14 re bounds while also going 7-9 from the field on his way to 15 points. Tom Harris was top scorer for SV with 23 points. He also had eight rebounds. Nick Fenske had a good all-around game with five as sists, three steals and four re bounds.

The Hornets have a full weekend schedule coming up. Tomorrow night they go to McCloud before returning home to face Dunsmuir on Saturday. The times for Sat urday will be - JV girls at 1:30, JV boys at 3:00, varsity girls at 4:30 and var sity boys at 6:00.

Surprise Valley girls bas ketball: The Hornet girls team is still winless after a 60-40 loss to the Bulldogs. The key swing for Butte was the second quarter when the Dogs used their press and fast break to hit on 11 of their 15 shots - mostly lay-ups. Dur ing that same quarter, the Hornets were suffering through a cold streak of 6-18 on field goal attempts. Thus, it was no surprise that Sur prise Valley went from being in a close game to being down by 22 at the half. The Hornets played Butte evenly in the sec ond half but couldn't over come the deficit they had al ready racked up.

Junior guard Heather Tufts led SV in scoring with 12 points on 6-9 shooting. She also had six rebounds, two steals and a block. Jeanne Bunyard contributed nine points while Stacy Cook tossed in eight. Stacey DePaul led the squad in assists with four.

February

 

Record sports for Feburay 5, 1998

¥ Modoc wrestlers win Shasta Cascade League

¥ Modoc girls have commanding league lead

¥ Modoc boys keep ahead in SCL

¥ SV, BV basketball had tough EGL week

¥ Brave wrestlers second in tough Corning Invite

Brave wrestlers win League meet

After presstime: Modoc's Braves wrestling team won the Shasta Cascade League Championship Wednesday night in Trinity. The meet was close with Modoc winning it all with 219 points, Trinity second with 215.5, Tulelake 77, Fall River 76, Big Valley 50.5, Burney 45, Hayfork 11 and Etna 8.

League Champions for the Braves are: Ted Simmons, 127 pounds; Eric Hunter, 142 pounds; Phil Weed, 147 pounds; Greg Jacques, 173 pounds; Daniel Flournoy, 191 pounds; and Iven Wilson, 217 pounds.

Taking second places are: Tony Willis, heavyweight; Dirk Lundgren 171 pounds; Robert Mendoza, 137 pounds; Justin Cavasso, 114 pounds.

Third places went to: Andy Nowak, 162 pounds; Derek Alvarez, 132 ponds; Richard Lutz, 121 pounds; Justin Semenko, 114 pounds; Wesley Shirk, 105 pounds. Taking a fourth place was Jon Wellemeyer at 154 pounds.

Junior varsity champions were Jeremy Urban 127 pounds; Ross Lundgren, 191 pounds; and David Wolverton, 121 pounds. Second place in the JV were: Chad Araujo, 215 pounds, Robert Cox, 191 pounds and Daniel Irvin, heavyweight. Miguel Sanchez took a third at heavyweight.

Girls win rough one at Mt. Shasta,

Trinity comes to visit Saturday

Modoc's varsity girls team didn't have any trouble beating a rough Mt. Shasta Bears team Friday night 56-47, but it wasn't a game coach Mike Martin particularly enjoyed.

"It was a big win for us, and it just amazed me that we could play as badly as we did and still beat them so easily," Martin said this week. "We didn't run an offense and we shot 25 percent from the floor. We are normally shooting 51 percent."

The saving grace for the Braves is that they hit 28 of 40 free throws. Jennifer Kern did a good job before fouling out of the game in the fourth. She hit five of eight field goals. Wendy Stafford also sparked the Braves with some good hustle defense. The Braves, meanwhile, turned the ball over 24 times, well more than their nine per game average.

"We were making mistakes, but it wasn't because of what Mt. Shasta was doing," said Martin. "We were not running an offense. On the few times we ran an offense we got easy scores or at least good looks."

Modoc popped up with a 13-9 first period lead and a good second period put them up 28-13 at the half. After three, the Braves led 37-22 and pulled out to more than a 20-point lead in the fourth. The Bears hit three three pointers and four free throws in the final two-and-a-half minutes to cut into the lead.

Martin said he never felt the outcome of the game was in question, he was just unhappy with the way the Braves played.

"I look at the Mt. Shasta win as a lucky win," said Martin. "Lucky, because we just happen to have much better players and can win games like that in our league. But we can't play like that and get to where we want to go this season. It will get fixed."

Martin said his defense played pretty well most of the game and didn't have much of a problem with that side of the ball.

Kayte Christensen led the Braves scoring with 20 points, hitting 12 of 14 free throws but only four of 21 field goals. Kern put up 13 on five-of-eight from the floor and three-of-four from the line.

The Braves meet Trinity here this week end in another league game, then head to Fall River Tuesday and to Etna on Friday.

Braves come back to beat Mt. Shasta, lead SCL

It was business as usual for the Modoc boys basketball team last Saturday night. The Braves squad that has surely by now earned the title of "The Most Exciting Team On Planet Earth," once again came back from behind to win in the final seconds - this time over Mt. Shasta by a score of 53-51.

The win put first-place Modoc in the driver's seat in the Shasta-Cascade League. The Crunch-Time Braves now stand at 6-1 with three of their remaining five games at home.

So what if Modoc was down by 12 to Mt. Shasta midway through the third quarter, trailed by five with just over two minutes left and didn't take the lead until there were just 33 seconds on the clock? These are the Cardiac Kids, and they guarantee a full re fund if the game is decided be fore the final buzzer.

What is even stranger than the manner in which the Braves are winning these games is the fact that they are doing so in the same way as in previous SCL games. For example, in the final seconds against Mt. Shasta last Satur day, Cody Holloway tipped the Bear's pass that was grabbed by Eric Lancaster to seal the Modoc victory. The exact same scenario happened in the closing seconds when the Braves beat Fall River on January 20. Against the Bears, Bryan Parker hit the key free throws that put the Braves on tip, just as he did when the Braves beat Burney just three days earlier in the week. And there was yet an other important contribution from a bench player, this time Brandon Roberts with four re bounds and two steals to help key a late third quarter run, as there has been in just about any other SCL win Modoc has chalked up this season.

"We admit it's a little nerve-racking," senior for ward Bryan Parker said of the team's coming back from the edge of oblivion style. "But we know we can do it. We don't get down."

Parker was perhaps the biggest reason for the Braves to have faith (or ice water in their veins) against the bears. He hit for 18 points while also finding time to get 10 re bounds, two assists and a block.

Although the Braves beat the Bears in their usual style, the Modoc team seemed to be more emotional about the win than they have been about oth ers. Parker credited it to the "no love lost" rivalry with Mt. Shasta and to the fact that the Mt. Shasta itty-bitty sauna, er...gymnasium, may be the toughest place to win in the SCL.

"We knew we were coming into a hostile environment tonight." Parker said. "That just made it all the more im portant."

The Braves started the night - what else but - slowly. They got plenty of good looks at the basket in the first half but could only knock down eight of their 25 shots from the field. It was thus no surprise that they trailed 27-20 at the half.

It was more of the same in the second half as Modoc started off by shooting 1-5 from within three feet of the basket. At the other end, Mt. Shasta started off the third quarter by hitting three straight lay-ups. The Bears would take their biggest lead at the six minute mark by a score of 35-23.

Modoc began to close the gap thanks to the defensive play of Roberts and Duane Knighton. They combined to force two straight turnovers that allowed the Braves to cut the Mt. Shasta lead to 38-33 heading into the fourth quar ter. Knighton would end up with 11 points on the night.

The Bears were able to hold onto that five point lead until 3:44 in the fourth. That was when they hit the 10 foul mark and the Braves finally started making their free throws. Modoc was just 7-13 from the line in the first three quarters but they went 9-12 from the charity stripe in the final frame.

From the 4:13 mark until the end of the game the Modoc defense would hold Mt. Shasta to zero field goals and just two points from the foul-line. The Bears got those final two points at 2:18 to make the score 51-46.

The Braves then brought the ball up the floor and Parker found Brett Hamilton underneath for two. When Mt. Shasta got the ball back, Holloway made a steal and the result at the other end was that Parker got fouled. He hit both free throws to make the score 51-50 with 1:26 left.

Mt. Shasta went into a stall on their next possession and ended up flinging up a poor shot when the shot clock was at seven seconds. Parker grabbed the rebound and then got fouled at the other end as he was posting up with 33 sec onds left.

Parker again sank both free throws to give Modoc their first lead (52-51) since the first quarter.

Mt. Shasta had a chance to take the lead again, but the Modoc defense continued to be tough as Ryan Campbell came up with yet another steal. That led to Eric Lancaster be ing fouled with six seconds and he put another point on the board for the Braves.

Mt. Shasta had one more chance to go full court in six seconds and get a shot off but Holloway tipped a pass that Lancaster intercepted. Lan caster heaved the ball from half-court towards the Modoc basket and time ran out.

The first place Braves will next host Trinity on Satur day. JV girls will begin at 2 p.m. followed by JV boys at 3:30. The varsity girls will take the court at 5:00 and the varsity boys will finish off the night at 6:30.

SV, BV teams had tough EGL week

Big Valley and Surprise Valley began the second half of the Evergreen League sea son this past weekend. Of the four teams that played, only the Big Valley boys came away with a win.

The Cardinals were able to get a one point win (50-49) on the road at Happy Camp thanks to the last second hero ics of Chris Click. After click scored the final points that put Big Valley ahead, he then took a charge at the defensive end that sealed the win for the Cards.

Kasey Criss was top scorer for BV with 18 points while John Saltzman added 11. The 5-2 Cardinals are still solidly in second place behind Dun smuir in the EAL heading into this Friday's match-up on the road against Tulelake. JV boys will play at 5:00 p.m. while the varsity will take the floor at 8:00.

The Big Valley girls didn't fair so well at Happy Camp, picking up just their second loss of the league season. They will put their 4-2 record on the line against Tulelake on Friday with the JV playing at 3:30 and the varsity at 6:30.

Surprise Valley basket ball: The hot team for the Hornets has been the JV, which posted a 5-1 record in the first half of league play. Just one game behind Tule lake, (who they get to play at home this weekend) the junior Hornets were looking at a shot at a league title.

However, all of that changed on Friday when SV suffered a 39-29 loss at Mc Cloud. The Hornets led 15-14 at the half but then got steam rolled in the third quarter.

"We were just flat," Sur prise Valley coach Lon Hol loman said. "I guess that's the politically correct way to say it."

While Holloman feels the JV team can beat Tulelake in Cedarville, it may not matter now since the Hornets are two games behind the Honkers in the loss column. For a shot at the league title, Surprise Val ley would now need the help of another EAL team beating Tulelake, something Hollo man doesn't feel is likely to happen.

The Hornet girls JV re bounded from the loss quite well the next day with a 44-26 home win over Dunsmuir. Cassie Cockrell was top scorer with 12 points.

The Surprise Valley girls varsity got the night off on Friday since McCloud is not fielding a girls varsity team. On Saturday, they lost to Dun smuir 66-49. Heather Tufts had 15 for the Hornets while Stacy Cook added 11.

The SV varsity team has been a M.A.S.H. unit this season with injuries abound ing. They have had three starters out for most of the sea son due to various ailments. On Saturday things only got worse as starter Jeanne Bun yard sustained what may have been a season ending in jury."Injuries - that's the key to the varsity team this sea son," Holloman said.

The Surprise Valley boys varsity squad lost in McCloud on Friday night and then came home on Saturday to face an undefeated Dunsmuir team. The Tigers took a 61-37 win in Cedarville. Avon Ray led the Hornets with 13 points.

Surprise Valley came back on Tuesday night to force Butte Valley into overtime before the bulldogs got the 75-71 win. That was a major improvement for the Hornets considering that they lost to Butte at home by over 20 points a couple of weeks ago.

Tuesday's game started off very much the same, with the Hornets falling behind 8-0 to start the game.

"I thought it was going to be another long night," coach John Christie said.

However, the Hornets went on to outscore the Bulldogs 30-21 for the rest of the half to take a one-point lead into the locker room.

Surprise Valley held a lead until the final moments of regulation before two straight turnovers in the waning moments allowed Butte to tie the game up and sent it into overtime.

Tom Harris was huge for SV with a 35 point performance.

The Surprise Valley teams will face Happy Camp at a neutral site on Friday night and then host Tulelake on Saturday. JV girls will play at 1:30 p.m. followed by JV boys at 3:00. The varsity girls will play at 4:30 and the var sity boys will tip-off at 6:00.

Modoc grap plers second in Corning

Drop big schools in the process

Modoc's wrestling team made its mark on the north state by finishing second in the Corning Tournament last week end.

Yesterday, the wrestling tning Invitede League tournament. Results were not available at presstime. Look for those re sults as of Thursday night on the Modoc Record web site at www.modocrecord.com. Modoc is favored to win the SCL meet.

"I figured we'd finish in the top five at Corning, if we did really well," said coach Shaun Wood. "Finishing sec ond in the tournament was big time. We wrestled very well. We were also without three guys: Wesley Shirk, Justin Cavasso and Daniel Flournoy."

Modoc lost only to Golden Sierra at Corning. The top 10 (of 30) team scores were as fol lows: Golden Sierra 179, Modoc 153, Corning 151.5, Willows 150.5, Central Valley 123, Shasta 119, Casa Robles 109, Pleasant Valley 103, Oroville 85 and Sutter 83.

"We turned a few heads at Corning, especially when we beat the number one seed in the section, Willows," said Wood. "Our kids are wrestling well right now, and I expect them to continue to improve." Individual champions at Corning for Modoc were Teddy Simmons and Iven Wilson. Simmons won the 127-pound division with a 5-2 victory and Wilson grabbed the 217-pound title with a 4-2 win. Simmons and Wilson are wrestling at the top of their divisions.

Greg Jacques wrestled to a third place finish at 173 pounds and Andy Nowak took a fourth at 162 pounds.

Phil Weed took a fifth in the 147-pound group and Eric Hunter grabbed fifth in the 142-pound class.

Freshman Tony Willis took a third in the heavy weight division. Willis has had a great year and Wood expects him to be one of the top guys in the section over the next three years.

Robert Cox placed sixth at 191 pounds and Miguel Sanchez took sixth at 217. Richard Lutz took a sixth at 121.

The junior varisty Braves will be heading to Portola this weekend and the team is off until the small school cham pi onships in Trinity Feb. 20-21.

 

Record sports for Feb. 12, 1998

¥ Brave girls dominate SCL foes

¥ Modoc boys in SCL lead for title

¥ Wrestling team wins the SCL

¥ Snow hampers Cardinal schedule

¥ Hornets lose a tight one

¥ Modoc hosts Middle School boys tourney

Brave girls dominate SCL

Modoc's girls varsity team stepped up the tempo Saturday against Trinity's Wolves, beating them easily 73-24 and coach Mike Martin expects the girls to continue to roll as the play-offs near.

Modoc travels to Etna Friday night and is looking for ward to hosting a rough Mt. Shasta team here Tuesday. The Braves com plete league play at home Feb. 20 against Weed.

"We played really well against Trinity, and I was very pleased with the fact that we had 22 assists in that game," Martin said. "We ran the man offense very well. It was a good game for us."

The Braves took off to a 26-3 first period lead and by halftime led 49-10. The Braves led by 50, 63-13, after three and added 10 in the fourth.

Kayte Christensen led Modoc with 16 points and pulled down nine rebounds. Jennifer Kern added 15 points and had four assists. Leah Siegel added nine points and picked up four steals. Andrea Knox scored eight and had the same number of rebounds.

The Braves didn't have any trouble against Fall River Tuesday, beating them 55-33, but a sloppy second half didn't set well. But, it's difficult to remain focused when the half-time score is 34-4.

Modoc jumped out quickly to a 23-3 first quarter lead and didn't allow a Fall River field goal in the first half. The Bulldogs scored on four free throws.

'We came out a little flat in the third pe riod," said Martin. "But our starters didn't play in the second period and had probably sat out for about 45 minutes. They were a little stiff to start the third."

Even with the slow start in the third, the Braves still led 46-16 after three.

"What bothered me about the game was the bad passes and ball handling in the second half," said Martin. "We had 34 turnovers in the game. I would expect us to overcome that type of play and get together to take care of the prob lem."

Against Fall River, Christensen had 14 and Jennifer Kern added nine.

Modoc's JV girls beat Trinity 38-30 after falling behind 10-0 in the first quarter and trailing only 15-12 at half. Modoc took the lead in the third 24-17. Sara Howell led the scoring with 15 and Lindsey Delmas had six.

Tuesday night, the JVs beat Fall Rver 44-22 with Howell netting 10, Rebekah Richert getting nine and Tatum Dunn 7. The Bravestook a 7-0 first period lead, and built that to a14-8 second period. Theyled 27-17 af ter htree and added a good fourth period.

Braves lead battle for SCL basketball title

The success of the Modoc boys basketball team in the Shasta-Cascade League this season means that, even with three games left on the sched ule, it's time to start thinking about their magic number for clinching the SCL Title. In the Brave's case, that number is one.

After the past week's win over Trinity and loss to Fall River, the Braves stand at 7-2 and are still in first place in the SCL. Right behind Modoc is Etna with three losses, and everybody else has at least four losses. Modoc plays Etna to morrow night at Etna, and if the Braves can win that game, they could assure themselves that they would do no worse than finish in a first place tie in league. A win at Etna would mean that even if the Braves lost their final two home games against Mt. Shasta (Tuesday, February 17), and Weed (Friday, February 20), they would still have an 8-4 record and every other team, including Etna, would also have at least four losses. The SCL is so bal anced this year that an 8-4 record might be all that is needed to claim the ti tle.

Should Modoc beat Etna on Friday the 13th, all they would need to do to guarantee them selves the league title outright would be to win just one of those final two home games to as sure at least a 9-3 record. However, an Etna win tomor row night would mean both teams would head into the fi nal week of the season in the first-place tie.

On Tuesday night, the Braves lost 50-44 at Fall River in large part because they went 3-17 from the free throw line for the game and 1-9 in the fourth quarter.

"That was the game," Modoc coach Lane Bates said of the team's woeful perfor mance from the charity stripe. "We were in a position to win but we couldn't do it be cause we couldn't make our free throws."

Ryan Campbell led the Braves in scoring with 20 while Bryan Parker added 12.

Last Saturday, Modoc had the lead from wire to wire in a 52-41 win over Trinity. The Braves took a 13-8 lead in the first quarter and then went on a 10-1 run in the final 3:25 of the second quarter to open up a lead they would never relin quish.

The Wolves were a team that decided to live (or in this case die) by the three-pointer. They launched 23 treys as compared with 24 shots inside the arc. Either way, they weren't very successful against the Modoc defense. They managed just 27 percent from three-point land and only 30 percent from closer in.

When those shots weren't dropping, Parker and Brett Hamilton were sweeping the glass as they combined for 27 rebounds.

The Modoc offense was a balanced attack that saw eight players get in the scoring col umn. Campbell orchestrated most of the performance with eight assists. Parker was top scorer with 13 while also adding two assists and a block. Duane Knighton came off the bench to hit his first five shots on his way to 11 points, six rebounds, three as sists, a steal and a block. Cody Holloway added eight points and four re bounds.

Modoc wins SCL wrestling title

Modoc's Braves wrestling team won the Shasta Cascade League Championship last Wednesday night in Trinity.

"It was close the entire tournament," said Modoc coach Shaun Wood. "It came down to the final matches and the guys that really picked us up were the third and fourth place finishers. They made a huge difference. Overall, we wrestled well and I was pleased."

The next outing is the small schools finals in Trinity Feb. 20-21, followed by the section matches Feb. 27, 28 in Redding.

Modoc has several wrestlers ranked highly in the north section. Teddy Simmons is ranked number two at 127 pounds. Iven Wilson is ranked third at 217, and Greg Jacques, Phil Weed and Justin Cavasso are all ranked in the top six.

The meet was close with Modoc winning it all with 219 points, Trinity second with 215.5, Tulelake 77, Fall River 76, Big Valley 50.5, Burney 45, Hayfork 11 and Etna 8.

League Champions for the Braves are: Ted Simmons, 127 pounds; Eric Hunter, 142 pounds; Phil Weed, 147 pounds; Greg Jacques, 173 pounds; Daniel Flournoy, 191 pounds; and Iven Wilson, 217 pounds.

Taking second places are: Tony Willis, heavyweight; Dirk Lundgren 171 pounds; Robert Mendoza, 137 pounds; Justin Cavasso, 114 pounds.

Third places went to: Andy Nowak, 162 pounds; Derek Alvarez, 132 pounds; Richard Lutz, 121 pounds; Justin Semenko, 114 pounds; Wesley Shirk, 105 pounds. Taking a fourth place was Jon Wellemeyer at 154 pounds.

Junior varsity champions were Jeremy Urban 127 pounds; Ross Lundgren, 191 pounds; and David Wolverton, 121 pounds. Second place in the JV were: Chad Araujo, 215 pounds, Robert Cox, 191 pounds and Daniel Irvin, heavyweight. Miguel Sanchez took a third at heavyweight.

Modoc's junior varsity team traveled to the Portola tournament last weekend and came home with tourna ment championship. The tournmanet was a varsity tour nament and having the Modoc JVs win was pretty im pressive.

"I didn't think they would win the whole thing, but we have some kids who are really stepping up," said Wood. "I was a little surprised that we won it."

Individual champions were: David Wolverton 119 pounds; Blake Wilson 171 pounds; Ross Lundgren 189 pounds; and Daniel Irvin at 275 pounds.

Justin Semenko took a second at 112 pounds. Jeremy Urban was second at 125 pounds, Derrick Alvarez was sec ond at 130 pounds, Robert Mendoza was second at 135 pounds, Robert Cox was second at 189 pounds, Miquel Sanchez was third at 215 pounds and Chad Araujo was third at 275 pounds.

Snow raising havoc with Cardinal schedule

"Old Man Winter" has been creating havoc with the Big Valley basketball sched ule. The Cardinals were sup posed to travel to McCloud on Saturday but the games were postponed because snow storms made the roads to Mc Cloud impassable.

BV boys basketball coach Bryan Gerig said he had hoped to reschedule the game for Tuesday, February 10, but the schools weren't able to get together. There is talk of try ing to play the game some time next week although both schools have full schedules down the stretch. It will have to be done sometime before February 20, the date when the CIF Committee meets to pick teams for the Sectional tour nament.

The Big Valley-McCloud match-up is pivotal in the boys race in the Evergreen Athletic League. If the Cards (6-2) can beat McCloud (6-2) they will probably lock up second place, and with it, a playoff berth. McCloud has the tougher re maining schedule, they must still play at Happy Camp and undefeated Dunsmuir. BV has Dunsmuir at home and then goes on the road to face Surprise Valley and Butte Valley, two teams they beat easily at home.

The Big Valley boys team did get a win before the snow fell when they beat Tulelake on Friday. After grabbing a 26-19 half-time lead, Big Val ley continued to extend that lead in the third quarter and ended up with a 58-42 win over the Honkers.

The Cardinals continued to have balanced scoring. Corado Reginatto was top point-getter with 14 followed by Chris Click with 10, Ren den Ellenberger with 10 and Kasey Criss with eight.

The next scheduled game for the Cards is Friday the 13th, against league leading Dunsmuir.

The Big Valley JV boys team had their first loss in EAL play against Tulelake by a score of 41-32. Calvin Jack son led the Cards with 11 and David House added 10. The loss dropped BV into a first place tie with Tulelake. Both teams are now 8-1 in league and will likely share the league title.

Big Valley girls basket ball: After going 4-1 during the first half of EAL play, the Lady Cards have stumbled in their last two games to fall to 4-3. On Friday theY lost 59-48 at Big Valley despite 19 points from Ileah Jackson and 17 from Carrie Schwebach. The Cardinals will try to stay in the playoff hunt when they take on Dunsmuir tomorrow. JV girls are scheduled for 3:30, followed by JV boys at 5:00, varsity girls at 6:30 and varsity boys at 8:00.

Hornets lose tight game

The Surprise Valley boys basketball team suffered a close loss at home Tuesday night, falling to Tulelake by the razor thin difference of 64-62. Tom Harris led the Hor nets with 26 points while Nick Fenske and Chris Harris each added 13.

Last Friday, the Hornets also lost to Happy Camp 76-42. Tom Harris and Chris Har ris each had 13 points.

Both the Surprise Valley girls varsity and JV teams suffered losses on Tuesday night against Tulelake. The game was especially impor tant for the JV squad because Tulelake is unbeaten and the Hornets (now 8-3) were sitting within striking distance of the Honkers.

The Surprise Valley teams have one more game left, next Tuesday, February 17, when they host Big Valley.

Middle School boys host annual tourney

Modoc Middle Schools' boys teams are hosting the 49th annual boys basketball tournament this weekend in Alturas.

The event starts Friday at noon. Modoc's seventh grade plays at 7 p.m. and the eighth grade plays at 8 p.m. that night. The tournament starts up again Saturday at 8 a.m. and runs all day. The seventh grade championship game is set for 8 p.m. and the eighth grade follows.

Teams coming to the tournament are: Modoc, Surprise Valley, Big Valley, Tulelake, Lakeview, Johnstonville and Gerlach.

Admission is $1 for students with an ASB card and for senior citizens and $2 for everyone else.

 

Record sports for Feb. 19, 1998

¥ Modoc boys win varsity basketball title

¥ Modoc girls repeat with ease as SCL champs

¥ Big Valley in the hunt for playoffs

¥ Women's bowlers have successful tourney

¥ Modoc wrestlers are at small schools

Playoff games here Tuesday

With both the Modoc Braves Boys and Girls basketball teams winning the Shasta Cascade League titles, it guar an tees a home court advantage in the CIF North Section Playoffs starting next Tuesday.

According to Modoc Athletic Director and head boys coach Lane Bates, the Modoc girls will get the number one seed in the north state and the boys team will be in the top eight, maybe the top four.

Bates said the girls will be guaranteed a home court ad vantage until the section title game, which will be played at Chico. The boys could get one or two home games, de pending upon their seeding.

The CIF section tournament is single elimination, so one loss and the teams are out. There are 16 teams to start the CIF section tournament.

Braves win SCL, fin ish at home Friday

Who knew?

Who could have possibly guessed back in November that, come late February, the group of players constituting the Modoc boys basketball team would end up being the Champi ons of the Shasta-Cas cade League?

The Braves posted wins this past week over their near est pursuers, Etna and Mt. Shasta, to run their record to 9-2 and clinch Modoc's first league title in boys basketball since 1991.

If you find anyone who says, "I knew it all along," laugh in their face and call them a liar. The fact is, not even Modoc coach Lane Bates thought his team could per form the way they have.

"I'll be honest," Bates said just minutes after the Braves clinched the title. "We were short on numbers. I had to bring sophomores up to fill in some spots.

"I knew we'd play hard; I had no doubt about that. But when you looked at us on pa per against some of the other teams in the league, we just didn't match up."

And Bates was not alone. Most everybody had labeled the Braves as "middle-of-the-pack" material. However, once Modoc went 5-1 in the first round of the SCL and survived a three game road trip to Mt. Shasta, Weed and Burney, Bates reached the conclusion, "We knew we could play with every team."

Bates feels the team has performed well because of their tough defense and be cause, "I think we just real ized early on that playing as a team was our strength."

He also mentioned Mod oc's knack for winning the close ones this year.

"Usually if you can win half of your close games, as a coach, you're happy. These guys do it all the time."

The Braves have had seven close SCL games thus far, and have won six of them, gener ally with impossible come backs.

Tuesday night's title-clincher against Mt. Shasta was not a nail-biter. The Braves came away with an easy 56-47 win. Modoc opened a nine-point lead late in the second quarter and never al lowed the Bears to come any closer than six for the rest of the game.

The Modoc offense was a thing of beauty at times as the Braves shot 50 percent from the field and worked a variety of picks and passes to get easy open shots. Free throws are still downright painful to watch for Modoc fans. Against Shasta, the Braves were just 11-26 from the line and that was actu ally one of their better performances lately. (They were a com bined 5-30 against Fall River and Etna).

The Braves could afford to throw bricks at the backboard because their defense held the Bears to just 35 percent shoot ing. Shasta also went without a basket for the first 5:37 of the fourth quarter.

Bryan Parker got 14 of his 18 points in the second half while also pulling down five rebounds and coming up with four steals. Cody Holloway had 11 points while shooting 4-5 from the field. He also had five rebounds and two steals. Brett Hamilton had eight points on 4-4 shooting and six boards. Ryan Campbell had a strong all around game with 11 rebounds, seven points, five assists and three steals.

Last Friday's game against Etna was more typi cal of how Modoc has been winning this season. The Braves entered the fourth quarter trailing by six and were down four late in the game before two Etna turnovers gave the Braves the op portunity to win 51-49. Brandon Roberts ended up be ing the one who made the most out of the Lions' late collapse. He came off the bench to score all nine of his points in the fourth quarter.

Parker led the scoring with 12 points while Duane Knighton had 11 and Hamil ton registered 10.

The Braves will finish off the league season tomorrow night when they host Weed at 8:30 p.m.

Girls take league with big game win

Modoc's varsity girls team won the Shasta Cascade League Tuesday night with a con vincing 56-35 win over their closest rival, Mt. Shasta. That came on the heels of a less-than-perfect-outing atning the game in Etna, 63-39, Friday, it didn't come without some pensive moments.

The Braves weren't able to shake the swarming Lions early in the game and led only 14-11 after the first period. Modoc widened the gap to 28-17 by the half time break. But Etna came out strong in the third period and cut the Braves' lead to 36-30 when the final eight minutes started. Modoc is not used to having a team close after three peri ods.

Modoc woke up in the fourth period, and led by strong defense, outscored the Lions 27-9 for the win.

"I think Etna shocked us a little," said Modoc Coach Mike Martin. "We had 35 turnovers in the game. But we came out in the fourth period and took care of business."

Jennifer Kern led Modoc with 24 points and Kayte Christensen added 18. Leah Siegel had eight points.

The Mt. Shasta game was entirely differ ent as a focused and business-minded Braves team took the floor at home. Modoc set the tone early and jumped out to a 17-5 first period lead, with most of Mt. Shasta's points coming on free throws.

For the game, the Braves would only allow the Bears nine field goals, while putting in 22 of their own. Mt. Shasta hit 17 of 34 free throws while Modoc struggled a little, hitting 10 of 23. Leah Siegel and Andrea Knox each hit a trey in the game.

While the Bears fought back in the second, they still trailed 28-17 at half. The third pe riod started and ran very badly for both teams early. Modoc finally got going at the mid-way point and led going into the fourth quarter 36-24. Then they controlled the final eight minutes for the 56-35 win.

"We dominated that team from the start," said Martin. "We played a good, positive ball game. I feel pretty good about how we're play ing at this point and we just need to finish strong against Weed Friday and enter the play-offs on a positive note."

While no one can predict the play-offs, num ber one ranked Modoc will enter the section tournament as a huge favorite and might run into Mt. Shasta one more time.

In the Mt. Shasta game, Knox led the scor ing with 17, Christensen added 13, Jennifer Kern had nine and Siegel had eight.

Cardinals trip up SV boys and girls

Big Valley and Surprise Valley met up in Cedarville on Tuesday night with dis tinctly different agendas.

For the Hornets, it was an end to what has become a very long, very injury filled sea son. The SV varsity boys and girls ended the season a com bined 1-21 in the Evergreen Ath letic League.

For Big Valley, both the boys and girls teams were coming in looking to stay in the race to finish second in the EAL and grab a playoff spot.

Thus it came as no surprise that the Car dinals came away with wins in both games.

Boys: The Cardinals got a 69-44 win over SV led by Corado Reginatto's 18 points and Kasey Criss' 15.

The win moved Big Val ley's record to 7-3 with games remaining against Butte Val ley on Friday night (a team they've already beaten easily) and McCloud on Saturday. The problem with this scheduling is that the Mc Cloud game, which had to be rescheduled, could end up be ing the game that determines second place in the EAL, and thus a playoff spot. However, the Cards won't tip-off in Mc Cloud until Saturday evening, hours after the CIF committee has already set the playoff brackets. If CIF de cides to take three teams from the EAL, then both teams would get to go, but it is also very possible they could take just one of the teams before the two have had a chance to play. Big Valley beat McCloud by one point in overtime when the two squads met earlier this season in Bieber, so they might get the nod from CIF.

The Cardinals also got a shot at unde feated Dunsmuir this past week when they hosted the Tigers on Friday night.

It was the last regular sea son home game for Big Valley seniors. It will unfortunately be remembered by the Cards as "the one that got away." Big Valley led the league cham pion Tigers by eight points with less than two minutes left and ended up falling 60-58 on a last second Dunsmuir shot.

The Cardinals started slowly on the night and trailed after the first quarter, mainly be cause they were getting pounded on the boards by the taller Tigers. That changed in the sec ond quarter when BV coach Brain Gerig put 5-8 Chris Click on 6-1 Dunsmuir junior Shawn Smith, the guy who had been getting a lot of the tigers' points and rebounds in the first quarter. Click used his superior speed to shut Smith down on the defensive end while also directing the Car dinal offense with four as sists. That allowed the Cards to build a 36-28 halftime lead as Criss and Reginatto scored 20 of their combined 24 points in the first half.

The first half lead was short-lived though as Dun smuir needed less than six minutes in the third quarter to erase the deficit and tie it up at 41-all. However, Big Valley had an answer for the Tiger run - the Cardinal bench. The pine riders were once again great for the Cards, combin ing to score just as many points (29) as the starters.

At the end of the third quarter and early in the fourth quarter, the strategy was to throw long passes over the Dunsmuir press and go inside to John Saltzman and Renden Ellen berger. Saltz man had 13 points while shoot ing a perfect 5-5 from the field and 3-3 from the line. Three of Saltzman's baskets came off assists from fellow sub Wyatt Harbert. Ellen berger was 4-6 with eight points, four rebounds and a block.

Big Valley recovered to build up a 49-43 lead at the end of the third and had their biggest lead of the night at 53-43 after a Har bert basket with 6:21 left in the fourth. How ever, the Cards would score just one more basket on the night - Saltzman on a three-point play at 5:21 - and they would not score any points in the last two minutes. The fi nal BV points came when Reginatto hit two free throws with 2:50 remaining to give the Cards at lead of 58-50.

The score would stay that way until the clock showed 1:42. Even though the Tigers had hit just 3-12 from three point land to that point on the night, they would end up hit ting two treys during a 25 sec ond span to make the score 58-56 with 1:17 left. After Big Valley missed a three point attempt on their next posses sion, Dunsmuir came down and scored again to tie the score with 31 seconds left.

Dunsmuir called time-out to set up their press and Big Valley had to call another time-out when they couldn't inbound the ball. After the BV time-out, the Tigers had the Cards covered on the in bounds pass, but El lenberger was able to get free behind ev ery one else and open for a lay-up. However, the pass to him fell just short and Dun smuir in tercepted it and called time-out to set up for one last shot.

The Cardinals played ter rific defense on that last pos session and forced Dun smuir's Smith to take an off the dribble 17 footer just before the buzzer with Click all over him. The defense couldn't have been any better but Smith's shot still went in to give the Tigers the win.

"I've won some like that and I've lost some like that," Gerig said after the roller coaster ride was over. "I have nothing but praise for my kids. They played hard.

"That was a great one to watch, but a tough one to coach."

Girls: The Big Valley girls ran their record to 6-3 with a 40-25 win over Surprise Valley. The Cards only led by one at the half and were up just 28-25 before scoring the final 12 points to finish off the game.

The Cardinals are cur rently in second place in the EAL with one game remain ing against Butte Valley, a team they smashed with ease on a previous occasion. Since Mc Cloud is not fielding a girls varsity team, the Lady Cards will end their season on Friday night, probably with a 7-3 record and probably with a good shot at the play offs.

Last Friday the Cards posted an easy 52-39 win over Dunsmuir. The game started out close, tied at 15-all mid-way through the sec ond quar ter, before Ileah Jackson (as usual) simply took the game over. She led the Cards on a 8-0 run that would give them a lead they would never come close to relinquishing.

Jackson finished the night with 24 points, 23 rebounds and five steals while control ling the game from baseline to baseline. She got plenty of help from Nicole Silva who seemed to be everywhere with 10 rebounds, seven as sists and three steals. Carrie Schwebach put in 13 points in her last home game.

Wrestlers head to small schools tourney

The CIF North Section Small Schools wrestling tour nament will probably come down to a battle between the top three schools: Modoc, Trinity and Willows.

The two-day tournament, Friday and Saturday will be at Trinity High School in Weaverville. Coach Shaun Wood's Braves won the Shasta Cascade League title there on February 11.

"I think it's going to be pretty tight, but we have some strong kids in many weight classes and we'll take our share of the matches," said Wood this week during prac tice. "We have some kids who will also take some impor tant places along the way."

Wood is expecting finals matches from his SCL champs: Iven Wilson, Teddy Simmons, Dan Flournoy, Eric Hunter, Phil Weed and Greg Jacques. He also ex pects very strong showings from Tony Willis, Andy Nowak, Justin Cavasso, Dirk Lundgren, Robert Mendoza, Richard Lutz, Justin Semenko and Jon Wellemeyer.

Women's City Bowling Tourney was success

The 32nd Annual Wom en's City Tournament was held February 27 through February 1 with the following results.

Team event (Handicap Tournament), Division I: first place -- The Rose Room, Mary Lakey, captain, Jenny Brooks, Ruth Holloway, Maria Mueller, Debbie Buchanan, 2751, ; second place -- Les Schwab, Debbie Buchanan, captain, Dallas Primorac, Penny Keeney, Dolly Gover, Maggie Duncan, 2606; third place -- 4 Corners Market, Shelly Holloway, captain, Connie Goldfarb, Dolly Gover, Becky Arnado, Ruth Porter, 2592.

Division II: first place -- , Alturas Gardens, Kim Gen try, captain; Marie Barnes, Dani Johnston, Yavette Arm strong, Deanna Van Lone, 2825; second place -- Fayes Jewelry, Lois Bailey, captain, Sue Caughey, Carol House man, Sarah Jennings, Bon nie Kasko, 2744; third place -- Benny's, Deanna Olsen, captain, Jeannine Primorac, Cindy Poindexter, Helen Goulden, Lois Cain, 2739.

Doubles event, Division I: first place -- Susan Philpott, Toni Albertson, 1194; second place -- Kim Crites, Lillian McKenzie, 1123; third place -- Marie Barnes, Dani John ston, 1110;

Division II: Liz Neid, Terrie Northrup, 1194; Betty Barlese, Lala Parrish, 1172; Mary Lakey, Jenny Brooks, 1101.

Singles event, Division I: first place -- Marie Barnes, 626; second place -- Dawn Baird, 605; third place, Debbie Buchanan, 596

Division II: first place -- Betty Barlese, 578; Sarah Jen nings, 576; Becky Arnado, 575.

All events, Division I: first place -- Marie Barnes, 1808; second place -- Sue Caughey, 1773; Toni Albert son, 1758.

Division II: first place -- Betty Barlese, 1802; Liz Neid, 1679; Terrie Northrup, 1673.

 

Record sports for Feb. 26, 1998

¥ Modoc girls are favored in section tourney

¥ Girls win league in perfect fashion

¥ Modoc boys top Rio Vista in opening round

¥ Braves blow out Weed in finale

¥ Wrestlers heading to North Section Finals

¥ No justice for Big Valley girls, boys are in

Modoc moves into post season as big favorite

The Modoc Braves girls varsity team goes into the post-season tournament as the unanimous favorite to repeat as North Section Division 5 basketball champions. They are also favored to win the north state in the state tournament. But, that's down the road three games.

Tuesday night the Braves opened the CIF Arco-AM/PM North section playoffs against Champion Christian, the number 16 seed from Sacramento. It wasn't pretty for the Sacramento team as the Braves rolled over them 74-30.

The Braves host Portola in the second round of the play offs Friday night, with game time set for 6:30 p.m. That game will be followed by the boys second round matchup be tween Modoc and either Burney or Mercy, who played Wednesday night. Modoc beat Rio Vista Tuesday to ad vance.

First round action in the girls brackets saw Modoc top Champion Christian, Portola beat Elk Creek, Durham whip Butte Valley, Liberty Christian top Los Molinas, Capital Christian club Rio Vista, Burney beat Hayfork, Mt. Shasta down East Nicolaus, and Westwood beat Biggs.

Matchups in the second round are: Modoc-Portola; Durham-Liberty Christian; Capital Christian-Burney; and Mt. Shasta at Westwood. Of those matchups, the key games are Mt. Shasta-Westwood and Capital Christian-Burney.

"We played well after the first couple of minutes," said coach Mike Martin of the Champion Christian game. "We were just not mentally sharp to start the game and didn't play hard. Once we fixed that, we were fine."

"Fine" is probably an understatement as the Braves used a pressure defense to stifle Champion Christian and put the game on ice in the first period with a 24-4 lead. Lynda Lake came of the bench to spark the defensive effort as she and Leah Siegel and Wendy Stafford harassed the opponent's ballhandlers into mistakes. By halftime, Modoc held a 43-12 lead.

"We came out in the second half hard and jumped right on them," said Martin. "We talked about the need to play hard and sharp at halftime and the girls responded well."

When the third period was finally over, the Braves led 59-18 and would end up with the 74-30 win.

Kayte Christensen led the Braves scoring with 13, Megan Orner added 10, Jennifer Kern had nine, Lake had seven and Siegel had six. Every one of the Braves players scored at last one field goal.

Predictably, the toughest challenges for the Braves will come from either Mt. Shasta, Capital Christian or Westwood. While Martin knows plenty about Mt. Shasta and Westwood, the Capital Christian squad is an unknown. They are ranked third, behind Modoc and Westwood, but Martin said their only losses this season have been to upper division schools.

"I don't know much about Capital Christian, but we hear they are good," said Martin. "We have to take care of Portola Friday night and move into the semi-finals. We're playing well, and we need to be sharp."

Modoc girls finish with perfect SCL

Modoc's girls have been perfect in Shasta Cascade League action for three years, winning each year in strong fashion.

The Braves capped off the 1998 league championship Friday night by beating Weed 51-15 at home, finishing with a 12-0 mark.

Weed didn't pose much of a threat to Modoc. The Braves got up 15-1 in the opening pe riod, and by the halftime in termission, led 28-5. The Braves outscored the Cougars 15-4 in the third quarter to take a 43-9 lead,

Kayte Christensen led the Braves with 21 points. She also had four steals. Jessica Kern added nine points for Modoc while Jennifer Kern pulled down six rebounds and had four assists. Lynda Lake also had six rebounds and Leah Siegel dished out three assists.

Braves drop Rio Vista, ad vance in playoffs

If a basketball team is go ing to pick a certain time of the season to peak, its obvious that the best time to do it would be during the playoffs. That's exactly the strategy the Modoc boys basketball team seems to be employing given their easy 60-42 win over Rio Vista in the opening round of the CIF Sec tional playoffs on Tuesday night.

"I think that was our best game so far," Braves coach Lane Bates said after his team dismantled a very athletic Rams squad. "It's a nice time to be doing that."

Staying alive through all of those horrible first halves that Modoc experienced in the early portion of the Shasta-Cas cade League schedule is suddenly paying off in divi dends of perfectly executed of fensive patterns and defen sive schemes in late Febru ary. The Braves seem to have given up the whole "cardiac kids" approach that got them through Jan uary and have now become the team that steamrolls people in the sec ond quarter.

Modoc went on a 14-2 run in the first 3:45 of the second stanza to take a 30-14 lead that would stand up the rest of the night. The run was keyed in large part by the Braves forc ing seven turnovers in the second quarter off of their half-court zone trap which currently seems impenetra ble. Eric Lancaster led the Modoc band of thieves with four steals and Ryan Camp bell had three.

"The kids really know what they can do in that defense now," Bates said. "I have a real good feel now for what each person can do and when we can gamble and extend."

The Braves got plenty of fast-break buckets from their de fense, but their half-court offense was also well exe cuted. Eleven of Modoc's 20 first half baskets came off of assists. Cody Holloway and Campbell led the team in that category with three each.

The Rams tried to run a 1-3-1 defense and Modoc beat it like a rented mule. "The Ryan and Bryan Show" of Camp bell and Parker slashed through the lane and went a com bined 14-18 from the field in the first half.

"We've seen several 1-3-1's this year," Bates noted.

After taking a 43-23 half-time lead, the Braves did try to make it interesting in the third quarter by missing their first six shots of the second

half against Rio Vista's man-to-man defense. However, the Rams could only manage to hit 20 percent of their shots in the third quarter and were never able to get closer than 15.

Parker would wind up with 19 points on the night while Campbell had 14. Duane Knighton added 11 and led the team in rebounding with eight.

The No. 4 seed Braves now take their 17-6 record into the quarter finals which they will get to play in Alturas. Their opponent will be the winner of the Mercy (No. 5) vs. Burney (No. 12) game that was played on Wednesday night. The game is tentatively scheduled for 8 p.m. on Friday night right after the girls playoff game.

Should the Braves win this weekend, they would then be in the semi-finals next Tues day (March 3) or Wednesday (March 4). Should the seeding hold to form, Modoc would be on the road at No. 1 seed Delta.

Braves end SCL with 72-40 win

The Modoc boys basketball team waited until the last game of the season to finally register their first blow-out in the Shasta-Cascade League, a league that they won with 10-2 record. While Braves fans have become used to the girls' games being garbage time after the first four minutes, this was the first chance to re ally sit back and have fun during the second half of a boys game.

The Braves beat Weed 72-40 on Friday night. The Cougars showed up in Alturas with a 1-10 SCL record and just six players in uniform. Two of them ended up fouling out and Weed had to finish the night with four on the floor.

Of course, it wouldn't have been a true Modoc game if the Braves hadn't allowed the other team to take the early lead. Weed was ahead 14-8 mid-way through the first quarter after hitting on their three-point attempts. How ever, Modoc went into a mid-court trap that forced 11 turnovers in the first half (22 for the game) and led to a 20-2 run by the Braves during the last part of the first quarter and the early part of the sec ond quarter.

Eric Lancaster led the way on the trap with four steals fol lowed by Duane Knighton and Cody Holloway with three each. Modoc only coughed the ball up nine times on the evening and thus put up 80 shots as compared with just 47 for the cougars. The large shot differen tial was also caused by Modoc controlling the boards. Knighton, Jeff Doss and Brett Hamilton each ripped down nine rebounds.

Although the Braves only hit on one-third of their field goal attempts, they still man aged to get all nine players on the team into the scoring col umn. Bryan Parker was top scorer with 15 followed by Holloway with 10. Ryan Campbell finished with nine while Knighton, Doss and Hamilton all registered eight. Doss got all eight of his points in the fourth quarter including hitting two treys.

Lancaster put in six points while Brandon Roberts had five and Travis Dunn scored three.

Braves at CIF

North Section wrestling finals

It's been a week of tough and long road trips for the Modoc Braves wrestling team, more than planned or an ticipated.

The small schools championship meet was held last weekend at Trinity High School in Weaverville. While the wrestlers got the first rounds in Friday, a power outage canceled all of Saturday's matches. So, they came home and headed back to Weaverville on Tuesday to complete the small schools titles. The traveling took its toll on the Braves, although coach Shaun Wood said he won't use it as an excuse.

"It was pretty brutal for us, we've been on the road a lot this season," Wood said Wednesday. "We didn't wrestle as well as we could have on Tuesday, but, hey, it's been a great year and we have eight kids in the section tourna ment." Wrestlers had to be in the top four at small schools to advance to sections.

Friday, the team heads to the North Section finals in Redding's Convention Center. Modoc High School is host ing the section tournament, but it's in Redding.

Opening rounds will start Friday at 1 p.m. and end at 6 p.m. On Saturday, wrestling starts at 9 a.m. and ends at 4:30 p.m. The championship matches will start at 5 p.m.

To qualify for state, wrestlers must win the North Section finals. Modoc wrestlers with a good shot are Teddy Simmons and Iven Wilson.

On Tuesday, Wilson was the only Modoc wrestler to claim an individual small schools title. He won the 217 pound division. Wood figures Wilson has a good shot at winning the overall section title and heading to state. "But, he'll have tough matches all along the way," said Wood.

Modoc's 127-pound wrestler, Teddy Simmons, had a bit of a tough go in Trinity, placing second in the small schools. Wood believes Simmons also has a legitimate shot at qualifying for the state finals, but he'll have to beat the number one seed.

Also taking seconds at small schools were Eric Hunter at 142 pounds and Dan Flournoy at 191 pounds. Wood feels that both wrestlers will place high at the section meet.

Phil Weed took a third place at 147 pounds at small schools and should do well this weekend.

Greg Jacques finished in fourth place in small schools at 173 pounds, and Wood said he'll have to step it up to place high in the section. Also taking fourth places were Tony Willis at heavyweight and Andy Nowak at 162 pounds.

Justin Cavasso took a sixth place for Modoc at 114 pounds.

No justice for Big Valley girls

Don't try to discuss the con cept of "justice" with the Big Valley girls basketball team this week. While Plato might have believed just could exist, the Lady Cards will tell you there is no such thing - at least not when it comes to the North Section playoffs.

Just consider the following situation. The Big Valley girls team took second in the Evergreen League. The Big Valley boys team also took second in the EAL. The re sult? The boys team played in the Sectional Championship tour nament this week while members of the girls team got to start working out for the track season a week earlier. This Cinderella did not get invited to the big dance.

While the Lady Cards probably cheered for the BV boys as loud as anyone on Wednesday night, they had to be wonder ing, "Why not us too?"

The girls team finished off the season at 6-4 in league and 7-14 overall. They were the only team to beat first place Butte Valley, back in late January in Bieber. On Fri day night they traveled to Dorris to take on the Bulldogs and lost 72-42 despite a 28 point performance from Ileah Jackson.

The Cardinal boys team beat both Butte Valley and Mc Cloud to end their season at 9-3 in league and 11-12 over all.

On Friday the Cards dou bled up the score on the Bull dogs and won 70-35. Corado Reginatto led the scoring with 15 fol lowed by Renden Ellen berger with 12 and Chris Click with 10. All nine Big Valley players scored at least one basket.

The Cardinals were given the No. 14 seed in the NSCIF playoffs and played at No. 3 seed Chester (18-3) on Wednes day night. Should they win that game, they would then face No. 6 seed and EAL champion Dun smuir (21-2, 12-0 in league) on Saturday at Dunsmuir.

March

 

Record Sports for March 5, 1998

¥ Modoc girls play for title in Chico

¥ Modoc boys eliminated by Mercy

¥ Pair of Modoc wrestlers play at section

¥ Cardinals knocked out of playoffs

¥ Ski Hill hosts racing weekend

¥ Gala Bowl is just for the fun of it

Modoc's girls play for Section Title Saturday

Modoc's varsity girls basketball team is powering through the North Section CIF Division 5 tournament, not unexpectedly.

On Saturday, the Braves play for the North Section Championship at Chico State. They'll meet Shasta Cascade League rival Mt. Shasta at 2:30 p.m. The Braves haven't had a lot of trouble with Mt. Shasta this year, although the Bears play a rough brand of basketball. Modoc has whipped Mt. Shasta 56-35 at Modoc and 56-47 in Mt. Shasta. Mt. Shasta beat Capital Christian 54-47 Tuesday.

While Modoc coach Mike Martin has Mt. Shasta's num ber, he doesn't like the thought of playing the same team a third time. The neutral court and referees should be in Modoc's favor. A win Saturday will give the Braves a third section title and the top seed in the CIF Division 5 State tour nament. It would also give them a home court advantage to start the state finals.

"I really don't like having to play a team three times, but we've controlled the game both times before, and I don't see anything different happening this time around," said Martin. "We are playing better now than we have and ev eryone's healthy. I'm pleased with how we're playing and the girls are fo cused."

Martin said his "buzz" defense is working better now than it did all of last year, and he feels that pressure hurts his opponents. One of the big reasons the defense is working better is the play of Wendy Stafford, who along with Leah Siegel make life tough on opposing guards. Against Liberty Christian Tuesday, Stafford had nine steals. She has had a very solid season.

On Tuesday, Modoc dropped a scrappy and good shooting Liberty Christian team 65-31 at Modoc. Liberty tried to live by the three, and while they made several, they also died by the three when misses turned into fast break op portunities for Modoc.

The Braves set the tone early when they went up 16-0 in the first six minutes of the opening period. When the quarter ended, Modoc led 16-2. The Braves, with most of the starters on the bench increased their lead to 30-11 at the halfway point of the second period and wound up leading 37-11 by half.

Liberty Christian started the third period by shooting only three point tries, which would see them boost their score to 27 by the end of the quarter. Trouble was, Modoc took advantage and led by 30, 57-27. Neither team put the ball in the hole much in the fourth pe riod and Modoc came away with the 65-31 win, eliminating Liberty Christian and sending the Braves to the title game.

To Liberty Christian's credit, they played the game hard and fought to the end.

Kayte Christensen led the Braves with 23 points, Jennifer Kern added 11, Andrea Knox had eight and Megan Orner had nine.

Friday night the Braves destroyed Portola 64-24 after tak ing a 24-0 first period lead when the Tigers tried to use a press and run with the faster and taller Braves.

Martin used his entire team in the game, starting with the second period. The reserves didn't allow Portola to get on track either.

By the end of the opening period, Modoc led 27-5 and by halftime held a 41-13 advantage. T