Mount Hood

Softball opens season at 3-2

Simson Garcia | Sports Editor

Wolves softball is back again on the diamond. The 2017 GNAC championship contenders emerge once again and have another season to look forward to. In January they were picked in the preseason coaches poll to finish third in the conference. From Feb. 2-4, they returned to the turf in the Desert Stinger invitational in Las Vegas, Nevada, to open their first five games of the season.
The Wolves started things off right on their first day of competition on Feb. 2 in two games against Eastern New Mexico, 7-2, and Sonoma State, 4-3. Things flipped and the Wolves fell twice on Feb. 3 versus Concordia-Irvine, 12-0, and Cal-State San Bernardino 11-8. Finally, the Wolves went up against Notre Dame de Namur sealing the weekend off correctly in a win, 13-6.
Batters were surely up against New Mexico and so was the ball. Home runs set the tone for the Wolves in the second and third innings to go up 3-1. If it wasn’t homers, it was hard slugging as first-year outfielder Ayanjmna Arceneaux run batted in junior infielder Jenna Kelly off double to right-center field to a score of 4-1 in the fourth. Then in the fifth, Arceneaux helped again by scoring on a single from first-year utility player Tyler Creach to put the game away.
The offensive momentum transferred onto the defense as junior pitcher Haley Fabian threw a complete game earning a win in the process and striking out nine players.
The later game against Sonoma State saw the Wolves down early 3-0 by the fourth inning. Unable to get things going with a mere two hits, the fifth had the Wolves revive their wounds after an Arceneaux single to left that ran in senior outfielder Zoe Clark. After a single rounded Arceneaux to third, she advanced home on a Sonoma error to further ensure the deficit at 3-2.
Inning six came around and so did the Wolves. The Wolves got their fourth homer of the day from freshman catcher Mariah Deleon to win the game. Senior pitcher Lizzet Dominguez got the start and win by throwing a complete game and allowed only three hits in the comeback.
An opportunity to stay undefeated closed the next day. No openings for a score were present against Concordia as the Wolves went hitless. A pop-up or walk was all the Wolves could conjure up and in all, nine batters struck out. The Eagles, who were just lurking on the outside of the top-25 Division II preseason poll offed the Wolves’s defense scoring 12 unanswered in the last three innings to shutout the Wolves.
In the fourth game against Cal-State San Bernardino, the Wolves continued their struggles giving up five early runs. Three more runs extended the Coyote lead by the top of the fourth. Down 9-3 in the bottom of the sixth, back-to-back singles to center field via the Wolves scored two. But Cal-State outpaced the Wolves stretching the lead to 11-5 in the seventh and final inning. A make-or-break situation for the Wolves in the bottom half had them RBI three but a ground out and strikeout ended hopes. Fabian played her second complete game, with her first loss of the season.
The Wolves faced off against Notre Dame de Namur for their fifth and final game where the Argonauts pushed out to a 3-0 lead early. But the bottom of the second was in the Wolves’s favor as eight batters in total locked in and the resulting home-run by junior infielder Ryann Huffman scored two to grab the lead at 4-3. After scoring two more, the Argonauts knotted the game at 6-6. But a 5-0 Wolf run in the sixth established a comfortable lead and the win. Dominguez completed the game with her second win of the invitational to put her at 2-0.
The 3-2 Wolves will now look ahead as they’ll play six more games from Feb. 9-11 in the West Texas A&M Lady Buff.

Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu

Photo by: wouwolves.com

Keeping it going: men’s team extends win streak to 14

Morgan Swaim | Staff Writer

As the regular season winds down, every game becomes more important for the men’s basketball team. Luckily, this past week’s two victories on Jan. 30 versus Concordia, 86-72, and Feb. 1 against Montana State-Billings, 71-60, showed that the Wolves are one of the teams to beat across the nation.

The Wolves grabbed the first victory at home despite Concordia’s best efforts. In that first game, junior guard Riley Hawken, who played at Concordia during his first year of college, was able to get hot against his former team. Scoring 11 points in 16 minutes, Hawken’s offense helped the team jump out to a 45-31 lead at halftime.
Throughout the second half, the Wolves were trying to break the game open even further. At one point the lead was 20, but the Cavaliers were able to keep the game from becoming a blowout due to the effort of senior forward Christopher Edward, who scored 33 points in an attempt to upset the Wolves.
The key to maintaining a large second-half lead was strong bench play. Senior guard Demetrius Trammell had another great game as a reserve, shooting 4/5 from the 3-point line and scoring 14 points in the second half alone.

The second game was on the road where four players reached double figures on the offensive side of the ball in the comeback.The first half provided some adversity for the Wolves, as they found themselves staring at an eight point deficit going into the final 20 minutes. Trailing 42-34, the team came out in the second half on a mission.
The Yellowjackets were only allowed to score 18 points, shooting only 22 percent. The Wolves were locked in with their winning streak on the line, and outscored Montana State Billings 37-18 in the second half to keep the streak alive at 14.

Next week, the Wolves will have back to back home games. On Thursday, Feb. 8, the Seattle Pacific Falcons make a visit. The game will take place at 7:30 p.m. The first matchup of the year was extremely tight, as the Wolves won 83-79, one of their closest games of the year.
On Saturday, Feb. 10, the St. Martin’s University Saints will also make an arrival to Monmouth. The Saints have a winning streak of their own right now currently at seven. With St. Martin’s sitting at third place in the GNAC conference this game will be one to watch, as it is one of the key matchups left in the GNAC conference-regular season.
Contact the author at mswaim16@wou.edu

Photo by: Paul F. Davis

Federer wins his 20th Grand Slam

Simson Garcia | Sports Editor

The tennis world was in for another Roger Federer show at the Australian Open finals this past Saturday. On Jan. 28, the No. 2 world ranked Swiss rallied to defeat the No. 6 ranked Croatian, Marin Čilić, in five closely battled sets: 6-2, 7-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-1.
After weeks of anticipation, the championship was finally here — but for Federer, the tournament up until then looked like smooth sailing, having never lost a set. For part of the finals in particular, he looked to be the Federer of old, and in other parts looked to be old Federer.
The first set was prime Federer, and was a quick and momentous one. To gain advantage, it only took a few rallies for the 36-year-old to score it at 3-0 before finishing off the set comfortably at 6-2.
Viewers who might have switched stations assuming Federer would get the easy victory in another dominant performance had another thing coming.
Čilić made it a game and pushed Federer like only few have. After some intense interchanging of leads, the 29-year old Čilić gained traction in the second set taking Federer to a long tie break and overcoming him, 7-6, to tie the match at 1-apiece.
Then, Federer hit back in fed fashion dominating the third set, 6-3. He struggled, however, serving against Čilić in the fourth set. The tense back and forth action of the match continued including a very long rally of 18 shots before Čilić won three straight games to go up 6-3.
Three games into the final set could have gone either way but Federer found his serve and stride en route to a 6-1 win and 20th Grand Slam title.  

Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu

Photo by: theguardian.com

Records set by wolf track runners

Simson Garcia | Sports Editor

Record setting performances were produced yet again as Western’s track and field teams took to the University of Washington invitational to display such feats on Jan. 26 and Jan. 27. Numerous changes were made in the record books for Western track including three school records, and one change to the national Division II list for the mile run. Five NCAA provisional qualifying marks were also generated throughout the weekend.
Western senior David Ribich finished third overall in the mile run and came to the finish in just under four minutes with a time of 3:58.88. That is second all-time in NCAA Division II history and the fastest time in 32 years for a Division II mile runner. In doing so, he was the 495th runner in U.S. history since 1957 to record a sub-4 minute mile finish.
Right behind him was junior Dustin Nading, who ran in an earlier heat of the men’s mile and accomplished his personal best time of 4:04.5, also a NCAA provisional qualifying mark and second all-time in the GNAC.

Nading and Ribich, along with teammates AJ Holmberg and Aaron Whitaker ran the distance-medley-relay event the day before winning there and earning an automatic qualifying mark finishing just ahead of four Division I schools. Holmberg, Nading and Ribich were part of the historical distance medley relay at the 2017 Indoor Championships where they were crowned national champions.
Adding more provisional qualifying marks were last year’s All-Americans for track in Olivia Woods and Suzanne Van De Grift. In the 800 meters, Woods and Van De Grift ran to 11 and 17th place finishes, respectively, earning times of 2:10.62 and 2:11.80.
Woods and Van De Grift then coupled with Megan Rose and Kennedy Rufener in the DMR to finish in eighth place with a time of 11:48.58 — also a NCAA provisional qualifying mark and school record.
Rufener, who ran individually in the cross country national championships in December, ran the 3,000 meters to a 9:56.05 time, another provisional qualifier mark to round out the multitude of Wolf achievements.
The Wolves return to the University of Washington on February 10-11 to compete in the Husky classic/open.

Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu

Photo by: wouwolves.com

Wolves drop two games to finish home stand

Morgan Swaim | Sports Editor

The first game of the week on Thursday, Jan. 25, for the women’s team had a high amount of late tension, with the game needing five extra minutes to declare a winner. Northwest Nazarene pulled away from the Wolves in that game during the closing minutes to a final score of 72-67. The second game against the Central Washington Wildcats on Saturday, Jan. 27, concluded the Wolves’s four game homestand going down in the process, 79-67.

From the start of the battle with the Nazarene Nighthawks, three point shooting was hard to come by for the Wolves. The team shot 20.7 percent (6/29) from beyond the arc as they tried to maintain pace with the Nighthawks. The shooting from three-point was the main obstacle in capturing a win as the game came down to just a few shots going in the opposite direction of the Wolves. As the Wolves faced a 61-59 deficit with time winding down, junior Ali Nelke tied the game with just one second left to force overtime. The momentum did not carry over into the last five minutes as Nazarene edged out the Wolves in the final result. Offensively the team was led by forward Savannah Heugly with 18 points, and guard Shelby Snook with 14 points, both seniors on the team.

The Wolves came into the second game on Jan. 27 trying to halt Central Washington — extending their winning streak to four, and attempting to avoid a three-game losing skid.

The balanced attack from the Wildcats proved to be too much. Five of the Wildcats’s players scored in double figures, as the Wolves could not keep up the scoring pace. Early on the Wolves were facing a deficit — being outscored by seven points in each quarter of the first half, trailing 47-33.

After the Wolves cut the lead to nine at the end of the third quarter, the game continued to swing Central Washington’s way as it carried on late. The difference in bench points was a dominating factor in the game, with a 41-20 advantage in favor of the Wildcats.

With the streak of home games now being over, the Wolves sit at 8-10 overall on the season, with a 4-8 record against GNAC conference opponents. The team will resume action on Feb. 1, on the road against Western Washington. On Feb. 3, the Wolves take on Simon Fraser in Burnaby B.C.

Contact the author mswaim16@wou.edu

Photo by: wouwolves.com

Wolves ranked 4th in the nation after pushing win streak to 12

Morgan Swaim | Staff Writer

This past week was a pivotal one for the Wolves. With a ten game winning streak on the line, the team traveled up north to play two GNAC teams located in Alaska. On Jan. 25, the University of Alaska Fairbanks had the first attempt to face the Wolves, who started the week ranked sixth nationally. The Wolves dominated that match up in a 81-54 blowout. During the second road trip, against the University of Alaska Anchorage on Jan. 27, the two teams mostly traded baskets back and forth, but the 12-point lead established by the Wolves early on kept the game out of reach, 72-62.

The Wolves wasted no time jumping out to a lead on Fairbanks and held the lead the entire game, outpacing Fairbanks 16-6 in the first six minutes. The lead extended to 27 by the time the game was over. Senior guard Dustin Triano found a high amount of success off the bench this game, logging 25 minutes and scoring 13 points.

The second game of the week had the Wolves pitted against the University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves. The team was lead by superb defensive play in the first half, holding the Seawolves to just 19 points on 6/22 shooting. Senior Tanner Omlid had an excellent all-around performance, scoring 22 points while adding seven rebounds and four assists. On the defensive side, Omlid also recorded three steals and two blocks in the victory.

This past week was beneficial for the team. The Wolves moved into the top spot of the GNAC standings with a 11-1 record in conference play. Western Washington had been undefeated against conference rivals, but saw that streak snap as they lost back to back games this week. These wins also move the Wolves up in the national standings, going from six to four, with an overall record of 19-1. This also comes after the fifth ranked Bellarmine University Knights dropped their second game of the season last week.

On Feb. 1, the team will be traveling to visit Montana State Billings in an attempt to extend the winning streak even higher and climb up national ranks.

Contact the author at mswaim16@wou.edu

Photo by: wouwolves.com

Western baseball crowned preseason conference favorites

Morgan Swaim | Staff Writer

Wolves’s baseball has caught the eye of GNAC coaches around the conference as the team to beat heading into the 2018 season. This comes as no surprise, as the team has garnered respect due to previous success. Over the past five years, the Wolves had captured the GNAC title three times, including last year’s conference championship.

This year’s team will look to continue dominating opponents with their deep pitching rotation, despite the absence of last season’s ace, Brady Miller, getting drafted to the MLB in June 2017. The Wolves will have four returning pitchers from last year’s squad, with seniors Jake Simmons and Cam Walker leading the way.

A big part of the team’s chances to retain the conference championship is the play of key returning seniors, catcher Justin Wakem, and infielders Jay Leverett and Nyles Nygaard. Wakem was able to garner First Team All-GNAC honors last year, as he posted the second highest batting average (.368) in the entire league.

Returning infielder Jay Leverett will be looking to build upon his First Team All-GNAC junior season as well, hopefully receiving similar recognition for his play in 2018. Nygaard, who was a crucial part of the team’s past success in 2017, led the team in hits (51).

The rest of the GNAC conference will make it difficult for the Wolves to repeat,

with three other teams in the conference receiving at least one first place vote in

the first preseason poll. The team will begin their journey to back to back league

titles starting on the road in California on Feb. 8, against Biola University.

Contact the author at mswaim16@wou.edu

Photo by: wouwolves.com

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