By Wayne Lee – Sports Editor
The Eagle Point High School boys and girls basketball teams each had just one game last week as they both traveled to Springfield Jan. 16 and both came back with a loss.
The Lady Eagles ran into a buzzsaw facing the Millers who came into the game with a 13-1 record and ranked second in the state OSAA rankings as they were steamrolled 56-21. “We came out slow and played pretty flat the entire game,” said head coach Denise Ledbetter.
Indeed, the Lady Eagles managed just four points in the opening quarter to trail 14-4. The second quarter didn’t get any better with Eagle Point getting outscored 15-5 with Jill Garlitz scoring six of those nine first half points to go into the locker room trailing 29-9.
It only went downhill from there as the Lady Eagles came out cold in the second half and were outscored 19-2 in the third quarter to trail 48-11. Elaina Almaraz scored the lone bucket for Eagle Point. Garlitz’ six points, all in the first half, led the Eagle Point offense. Kolbie Ledbetter had five points (four in the final quarter) as did Emary Haning (all in the fourth quarter as well). Almaraz had four steals to go with her four points. Kady Ledbetter had just one bucket in the first quarter but grabbed four rebounds.
“We did a pretty good job on defense,” the coach explained, “keeping their top three scorers to 15 points or less and we had 13 steals, but Springfield beats us on the boards 31-18 that led to 10 second chance points. We also didn’t take care of the ball with 25 turnovers.”
The team now stands at 1-1 in league and 7-7 overall.
Boys basketball
The boys team also traveled to Springfield where they dropped a 61-54 decision to the Millers. It was the Eagles’ eighth consecutive loss, dropping them to 0-2 in league and 2-12 overall. By virtue of their victory, Springfield and Eagle Point are both 2-12 overall with the Millers ranked 30 and the Eagles 33 out of 33 teams.
No box score or additional information were available by deadline.
Wrestling
On Jan. 10 Eagle Point sent their junior varsity wrestlers to the Pirate Invitational that featured eight area teams. The Eagles totaled 110 points to walk off with the team title. Host Phoenix placed second with 76 points and Gold Beach was third with 62 points.
Brett Jermain, Nathan Pickard, Amaree Carter and Easton Goettel all took first pace honors. A half-dozen Eagles placed second including Benjamin Hernandez, Dylan Schleigh, Emanual Cortez Cabezas, Javier Sanchez, Makai Haden and Ryan O’Callahan.
Cameron Toma, Jaden Heppner and Danny Brown placed third, Bryan Kerton, Kaden Asbil and Ulises Nava Torres took fourth and Tre Nesberg finished fifth to round out the scoring.
The varsity team traveled to Redmond for the Oregon Wrestling Classic where the boys took fourth place, finishing just one point behind third place Redmond. Crater took the title with Thurston just behind them. Additional details were not yet available at deadline.
