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Bulldog Pitching Staff finishes as California's best in strikeouts!

McARTHUR - Any high school coach is more than happy to have one good pitcher to rely upon during the spring baseball season. Fall River coach Leo Estes found himself with a ton of hurlers who could get the job done, as his Bulldogs finished a remarkable year with 25 wins and just two losses.

His pitching staff finished the 2013 season atop the state rankings when it comes to strikeouts. Fall River hurlers struck out 284 batters in the 27 game season, putting them ahead of all schools (no matter the size) in the entire state.

The strikeout artists were led by senior Klay Worthan with 103, followed by fellow senior Sterling Humphry with 95 and junior Brad Williams who posted 53. In limited action, senior Jesse Lee whiffed 20, Clay Pasqual added seven, and freshman Jace Neugebauerstruck out six.


FR Gals Pull Off Huge Comeback

MAXWELL - In perhaps the biggest comeback in softball history at Fall River, the Lady Bulldogs rallied from a 12-1 deficit to defeat visiting Tulelake in the opening round of the NSCIF playoffs, 13-12.

The visiting Honkers plated eight runners in the top of the fifth to take that 12-1 lead, but Fall River rebounded to score six of their own in their half of the inning to keep the game going. FR then tied it up in the bottom of the sixth at 12-12.

In the seventh, with two out, Emily Vigil worked a walk and stole second. On a run-and hit call and Vigil on the run, Brook Small looped a single to left that scored Vigil with the winning run.

 Loni Denny (pictured above) picked up the win in relief, hurling the final two innings, while Sarah Estes got the starting nod and struck out four.
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Lady Cards Down Hayfork, but End 2013 Season vs. Westwood

SUSANVILLE - The Lady Cards opened post season play with a 7-5 win over Hayfork on the road last tuesday.

Erica Stevenson got the win with nine strikeouts.

Hayfork scored a run in the first, but the Card tied it up in the third with Amanda Briker reaching on an error and Stevenson getting the RBI.

In the fourth, BV picked up two more tallies, with a triple by Courtney James, Lacey Stevenson reaching on an error to score James and Amanda Bricker singling to drive in Stevenson.

On Thursday the Lady Cards at Westwood was rained out and rescheduled for Friday at Lassen College here.

The Westwood gals won the semi-final game, 14-1 to end Big Valley’s season.

Bricker was tagged for the loss, striking out five.

“We struggled at the plate with our bats,” summed up coach Cheryl Bruce.

BV had just three hits, Nika Johnson a double, Lacy Stevenson and Kayla McCrary a single each.

The split in the playoff tournament put the Lady Cards at 10-6 on the year, after taking second place in the Evergreen League.


FR Over Portola, 6-3

McARTHUR - The FR baseball team earned a berth in the championship with a 6-3 win over Portola here last Tuesday.

Klay Worthan was the winning pitcher, hurling five innings with five strikeouts, with Sterling Humphry getting a save in tossing the final two with five K’s and one hit.

Brad Williams, Izzy Velasquez, Clay Pasqual and Jesse Lee each had two hit, while Tyler Kramer had a single.

Lee stole three bases and finished the year with 30 thefts.

“Portola was no slouch,” summed up FR coach Leo Estes, “we had to play well to win.”


Greenville Stops Cards in Baseball

GREENVILLE - The Big Valley Cardinal baseball season came to an end in the D-6 semifinals, losing to host Greenville, 10-5. The loss put the Cards record at 8-7. No other information was provided to Mt. Echo.


Mountain Echo Sports
Ron Mosher, Sports Editor
   E-mail: echosports@yahoo.com


Bulldogs Come up Short in Extra Inning Thriller


Fall River catcher Clay Pasqual poised to nail Portola runner at the plate in last Tuesday’s
 6-3 semi-final playoff win over the Tigers in McArthur.

REDDING - The Fall River Bulldogs gave their fans a thrilling championship game against Hamilton City here Saturday, coming from four runs down to tie the game and push it into an extra inning, but came up one-run short in losing to the Braves, 6-5, for second place in the Division IV northern section CIF race.

The Bulldogs, defending NSCIF Division V champs in 2012, fell just short in watching Hamilton win their second D-4 title in a row.

The title tilt opened with Sterling Humphry fanning three Hamilton batters with a runner reaching on an error sandwiched in the middle, but a scoreless start for the Braves.

For Fall River in the first, Jesse Lee sliced a leadoff single stole second and scored on a Klay Worthan ball hit to third for a 1-0 Bulldog lead.

It remained 1-0 with Fall River dodging a bullet in the fourth as Hamilton put a runner at third with one out, but Humphry muscled up and struck out the next two batters to end the threat.

In the top of the fifth, however, Fall River couldn’t dodge the bullet as Hamilton racked up five runs to take a 5-1 lead.
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BHS Lift-A-Thon a Big Financial Success

BURNEY - Burney Raider football players - along with those who will be playing as freshmen next year - grunted, groaned and muscled their way through the Burney Raider Lift-A-Thon held at the school gym last Wednesday.

The event, sponsored by soon-to-be-senior Michael Gallagher as his senior project, was a fund raiser for the Raider football program. Gallagher reports that once all pledges are collected the event will have raised $4,200.

Dylan Spooner (pictured above) set a new school record in the Power Lift when he lifted 250-pounds.

Besides the Power Lift competition, both boys and girls competed in the Bench Press lifting.
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Step Back in time Saturday - Car Show & More

BURNEY - You’ll have the opportunity to step back in time this Saturday, when the Mountain Cruisers Car Club presents it’s annual Show ‘n Shine at the Rex Club on main street starting at 10am and continuing until 2 o’clock.

There will be a raffle with plenty of great prizes, and your chance to vote on your favorite car. The club announced they are well on their way to seeing a large number of entries.

Mountain Cruisers will donate the money raised to charitable causes in Burney, Fall River Valley and the Montgomery Creek- Round Mountain areas.

The Burney Rotary Club will also be presenting a fine arts and craft show adjacent to the Show ‘n Shine.

Saturday evening you can dance your way back in time at the Burney Chamber of Commerce Sock Hop at the VFW Hall starting at 7pm.

Money raised at the Sock Hop will go toward financing this summer’s Burney Basin Days celebration, and is open to all those 21-years old and older.


PR’s Set as Locals Earn Trip to NSCIF Track and Field Finals

COTTONWOOD - Michael Peters and John Westlund of Fall River, along with T.J. Arendt (pictured above) of Burney and Magen Fairchild of Big Valley extended their track and field seasons yet another week, after winning at the NSCIF Division IV championships here last Friday. All four earned berths in the Northern Section CIF track and field finals set for this Friday beginning at 4 o’clock.

Peters qualified for two events, after placing first in both the 200m and 400m races. He set a new Personal Record (PR) in the 400 with a time of 52.48 and tied his PR in the 200 at 23.17.

Westlund captured Gold in the 100m race in a time of 11.84 to qualify to move on.

Arendt set a PR in the pole vault at a height of 11-00, a full foot above his previous best. Arendt became the first Intermountain Area pole vaulter to reach the NSCIF finals since Fall River’s Bobby Main a decade ago.

Fairchild, a senior at Big Valley earned a new PR in the 100m hurdles at 17.51 to earn a shot in the prestigious section meet.

Only the first place finisher's qualified to move on.

Others taking fifth place or better finishes at the D-4 finals last week were:
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Vols End Raider Baseball Season

CHESTER -The Burney Raiders spotted host Chester seven runs after two innings, and valiantly tried to pull out of the hole only to fall just short in losing the semi-final game, 8-6.

The Raiders came close enough to have the tying run come to the plate in the final inning.

“It was a tough game,” summed up coach Dustin Fortenberry, “we battle back, but sometimes we put ourselves too far in the hole.”

Senior Barry Wyrick had a great game offensively to wrap up his four-year high school baseball career, going 3- for-4 with a home run and a double. He drove in three runs, scored two and stole four bases. Wyrick’s home run came on his final high school at-bat.

Freshman Ray Guerrero also had a 3- for-4 game, with Caleb Frazier slicing a pair of doubles with three stolen bases.

Duane White was 1- for-3 with an RBI while Brian Hickman added a single. The Raiders finished the season with a 11-17 mark, but there was a lot more to the year than just wins and losses. It was a year of the longest road trip in school history - to Anaheim and the Anaheim Lions Tournament. A lot of team bonding on that trip, as well as bonding on a weekend getaway to Redding for the Anderson Tournament.

“I firmly believe the foundation for this program has been laid,” stated Fortenberry - in his first year at the helm of the Raiders.

The coach finished up the interview saying he can’t wait to return next year to keep the momentum going in 2014.


 

SPEEDING THINGS UP...

As we zoom through the 21st century, one must think about all the modern marvels that have come along to free up our time. In sports, for example, we have computerized timing of races at track meets that have made life easier and faster when it comes to recording the times of up to eight runners in a race.

That example is just a small step mankind has taken to speed up how we live our lives and free up our time.

Let’s look at the modern conveniences of the past 100-years or so that have given us this free time.

• Indoor plumbing - yep, no more long treks to the little-house-behind-the-big-house, where the yearly Sears and Roebuck catalogs were kept. Plus indoor plumbing and running water inside the home allow us to take less time in showering and bathing. No more waiting for the water to be heated on the ol’ wood stove - in fact no more waiting for the fire to catch on the stove so we could heat the H20. However, maybe we haven’t saved that much time after all, since water heaters and indoor plumbing allow us to take several baths/showers a week as opposed to the Saturday night bath ritual of the olden days... maybe it’s a wash after all (oops, didn’t mean to pun it up there).

• The frozen TV dinner is another time saving device that showed up in the 1950’s. Just take a complete dinner out of the freezer and pop it in the oven... wah-lah, a time saving effort for Mom. Then along came Microwave ovens, and we saved a ton of time by nuking the TV dinners in a fraction of the time of a conventional oven. Yep more time freed up.

• Then there are Cellular phones (and all that jazz). If we forgot to turn off the iron at home, no prob... just use the ol’ Cell phone and call home instantly to keep the house from burning down. Cell phones keep us connected without having to waste time driving all over the place hunting down a pay phone. For those of you too young to know what a pay phone was/is... you shouldn’t be reading this anyway. :)

• Don’t forget the automobile. No longer to we have to saddle up ol’ Bessie or hook up ol’ Dobbin to the wagon. We just grab our keys and hop in the car. Heck, now we don’t even need keys, with these new key-less cars that are out. With the advent of GPS systems in cars, we no longer have to pull off the road and study a map to see where we made the wrong turn, or take the time to eventually do what Mom has been nagging Dad about for the last 100 miles - pull into a gas station and ask for directions. Again, a ton of time freed up in our lives.

• We also have entered the Computer Age, thus saving us a ton of time. No longer do we have to take the time to open a dictionary and spend hours looking up how to spell a word...And that could take days, since you have to have some idea how to spell it in order to look it up. Now we have Spell-check that automatically decides what word we were thinking of using. Sometimes Spell-check even gets it right - although that can be a rare feet, er... feat. With computers and the internet, we no longer have to take time out of our day to go get a paper to collect all the news - just click on Yahoo! and bingo... instant news. I have to admit, however, that I still don’t know why I need to know so much about Lindsay Lohan and her problems, or what’s the latest on Justin Bieber, but who am I to argue with a computer.

So all these time saving items that have come into our lives to free up our time is just begging for one simple question to be answered: Why, oh why, do I find it so difficult to get everything done in a 24-hour period?

Why, oh why, am I always behind schedule and running to catch up?... Guess I’ll have to free up more time so I can research an answer. Have a great time saving week, everyone. Enjoy your FREE time.


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