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February 14, 2013
Eagles finally coming home
Hay ‘n’ Tray
THROWDOWN Hayden Peterson Travon Langston sports writers
Lockdown “D” is not enough to get the “W”
h.peterson@eaglemail.ceu.edu t.langston@eaglemail.ceu.edu
Jordan Weihing
All-Star Weekend kick off
sports writer j.weihing@eaglemail.ceu.edu The USU Eastern’s Women’s Basketball team went 1-3 on their four-game road trip these past two weeks. They started off their road trip beating Snow 68-53. As always, Eastern played some lockdown defense, causing 22 turnovers. Eastern was able to make 23 points off of Snow’s turnovers alone. They played a consistent game, maintaining their lead the entire second half. The bench gave a big boost to the team scoring 40 points. Larissa Quintana and Abby Call were able to come off the bench and score a combined 22 points. Quintana showed her excellent free throw shooting ability getting all of her 12 points from the free throw line. Gabriella Borges and Quintana tied for the high scorers, each scoring 12 points. Hailee Parry played some lockdown defense with four steals. On the second game of the four-game road trip, Eastern lost to Salt Lake Community College 69-44. The Eagle’s defense was impressive seizing 15 steals and causing SLCC to commit 25 turnovers. Parry was the high scorer on the team with 12 points. She also had a great defensive game with five steals. However, Eastern had a tough time hitting shots. They were 1/15 from behind the 3-point line. Overall their field goal percentage was 19 percent. Eastern continued their road trip as they made the 18 hour bus ride to play North Idaho College on Feb. 7. They lost 49-69. Eastern kept on par with North Idaho in shooting. Each team hit 21 field goals. The only difference was that the Eagle’s were only able to make it to the foul line six times, while North Idaho was allowed to attempt 40 foul shots. Head Coach David Paur was upset with the officiating during the game , he said “I would say in a normal game we would of lost by 5-8 but not 20. . . the foul line murdered us, we had as many field goals as them. . . you just can’t beat 40 foul shots compared to six.” Parry was high scorer in that game with 11 and Borges was right behind her with 10. Brooke Slade had a great defensive game with five blocks. On Feb. 9 Eastern went up against College of Southern
This week Travon and I will be discussing four topics about the NBA All-Star Weekend and debating on the best performances from each of the topics throughout the past 20 years. The five topics will be: best All-Star game, best dunk in the dunk contest, best threepoint shooting performance, and we will also discuss this year’s participants and those who we feel got left off the teams, but were deserving to be there.
What was the best AllStar game ever?
Rachel Scoggins plays tough defense, and gets a trap in the corner.
Idaho to finish off their four-game road trip. They lost 58-70. Amy Arbon was high scorer of the game with 15 points. Parry supported her teammate dishing out five assists. Isabella Costa dominated defensively with four steals and three blocks. The team had a tough time hitting their free throws. Their free throw percentage was 61 percent compared to CSI’s 85 percent. Coach Paur said, “we lost the game in the last four
photo courtesy Tyson Chappell
minutes of the first half.” During that time, CSI went on a scoring spree. “It’s very hard to overcome that.” Eastern was playing catch-up-game from that time forth. On Feb. 21 Eastern will have another road game, which will make five in a row, against Colorado NorthWestern. After that they will return home to play Snow College on Feb. 21. The Eagles will remain at home that Saturday Feb. 23 to go up against Salt Lake Community College, which will also be the last home game.
It is no “stretch” to believe that Perkins belongs here Kameron King
sports writer k.king@eaglemail.ceu.edu One of USU Eastern’s stars is Jeff Perkins. He brings height and passion to the team. He is a very hard worker and contributes to the team every day. Everybody knows him as the crazy, hyper and funny guy. Perkins is always singing or dancing; he is the class clown everywhere he goes. But on the court, he is aggressive and takes the game seriously. P e r k i n s wa s born in Seattle,
Wash. He says that one of his favorite childhood memories is playing basketball in his friend’s backyard. They would leave the hoop at seven feet so they could all dunk on each other. What you may not know about him is that he used to play the drums. He loved practicing them and playing cool beats. He was always creating a ruckus throughout the house or wherever he may have been practicing. He played his freshman season at Eastern Arizona; and transferred to USU Eastern his sophomore season. Perkins came to Eastern because he
played in a game last year where Coach Roe coached the opposing team. Roe asked him to be a part of the 2012-13 Eagle squad and “it was an easy decision” to join because he already liked Roe’s coaching style. He says he loves playing for the Eagles because of the team is as a whole is a lot of fun. “They’re always so humorous and fun to be around.” He says his favorite part about playing basketball is how exciting and fun it is when it gets competitive. His basketball idols are Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant. “They have killer instincts, and do what
they want out on the court.” His most memorable moment of basketball is when he competed in a dunk competition with NBA players. He finished in second place, only losing to a professional dunker. After this year he hopes to continue his dream of playing basketball. He says that basketball is what makes him himself, and makes him happy. Coach Roe says, “Jeff is a great kid and is a talented, athletic man that has lots of potential. He is a always making people laugh with his jokes and personality. He is fun to have on the team. ”
photo courtesy Tyson Chappell
Back in action Baseball season opener in Arizona Ryan Nelson
sports writer r.nelson@eaglemail.ceu.edu It must be spring because the USU Eastern Eagles are back in action for the 2013 baseball season. The snow is melting and the players are back outside on the field where they opened their season in Yuma, Ari., last weekend, dropping all four games. Head Coach Scott Madsen stated, «I feel this season is going to be a positive one for the players. They are a good group of men that work well together. « The Eagles’ season opener was at The Caballero Classic over the weekend of Feb. 1-2. Their first game was on Friday against Arizona Western College, a top program in the country. AW beat the Golden Eagles in both games. Eastern players could not get a grip on AW pitchers. The team only totaled four hits by Kyle King, Tayson Wilson, Denver Hansen and Bailey Thomas. Arizona scored four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. They then held the Eagles in the top of the seventh to end the game early due
to the 13-0 lead (10-run mercy rule). Coach Madsen said, «That first game was an eye opener for the team, they were a little in shock about being on the field and playing a very talented AW team. They understood that we are much better than we played that first game.» The Eagles played two games against AW the first day and came together better as the day progressed, falling short of the victory by six points. The total hits for the team were nine, and it was spread out evenly across the team. It seemed like the players couldn›t get their hits out of the infield, but they were able to sneak one run in with a RBI from Chance Abrath which allowed Thomas to cross home plate. In their third game, The Golden Eagles kept improving and started to turn things around against Gateway, almost sneaking away with a win. Scoring a run in the seventh inning, the Eagles led by one going into the eighth. Despite the team’s best efforts, they couldn›t hold Gateway from scoring and Gateway managed to pull ahead 3-1. The Eagles fought hard in their second game against Gateway, with a lot of jitters from playing outside for the first time this season subsiding. The game was better, they held Gateway to only three runs, although they weren’t able to get more runs in themselves. In the top of the seventh, they were making a good run for it when Denver Hansen scored on a passed ball which left a runner on second and third base. Unfortunately they were not able to score those runs,
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”
~Michael Jordan
they held the other team to only three runs, but fell short 8-5. Overall the team did well considering this was their first four games this season. Both teams USU Eastern faced were some of the toughest competition in the country. Coach Madsen said, “We make mistakes, that’s going to happen. The team made great strides throughout the weekend improving in every game.” KC Smurthwaite, assistant baseball coach said that he saw a lot of positives from the weekend games, but the team still needs to improve in the coming weeks. “Our first three series are against extremely tough teams. If we can improve every game like we did in the Caballero Classic, we will ultimately find success.” According to Madsen, the team is highly motivated, and they are ready for their next games. Shortstop for the Eagles, Lucas Madsen, had this to say about the games, “I thought over all, the weekend was good. We didn’t win any games, which most would consider a failure, but we felt like it was really not a bad weekend. It was our first time outside this spring. A lot was learned. I feel like this team could go places from what I saw this last weekend.” The Golden Eagles fought hard and fell just short of winning some games. Now with some game time under their belts, the team should play better in the following weeks. The men will next face off with Prairie Baseball Academy, the two-time reigning Canadian national champions in St. George, Utah. The games will be held on the Feb. 22-23.
Travon: For me the best All-Star game was played in 1992 in Orlando, when recent retiree Ervin “Magic” Johnson was voted by fans to come back and play one more time as an All-Star for the Western Conference. Not only did he play against some great friends but also some great rivals in Michael Jordan and Isaiah Thomas. Magic helped the Western AllStars beat the Eastern All-Stars 153-113. Magic lead the way in the voting for MVP as he had 25 points along with nine assists and five rebounds. Winning the MVP that year gave Magic his first and last MVP award in an All-Star game. Hayden: I will agree with you that Magic played well that day Tray, but you can’t forget about the basketball game played with the most fans ever watching a game. The game I am talking about was played just three years ago, Arlington Texas, in the Cowboy’s new stadium. The East came out on top by two points 141-139, led by Dwayne Wade who went on to be the MVP as he made two clutch free throws in the last seconds of the game to seal the deal. Wade finished with 28 points, six assists and 11 rebounds. Both were very entertaining games and featured quite a few shooters.
Speaking of shooters, who had the most impressive of memorable three-point performance? Travon: I would have to say the best shooting performance was when Jason Kapono from the Toronto Raptors caught fire in 2008 and got a score of 25 out of 30. To be able to make that many shots while being timed and in front of such a crowd is amazing. Hayden: I can’t disagree when you throw out a performance like that, but I would have to go with the shooting display of Glen Rice in 1995. The field that he shot against was quite possibly the greatest field of shooters of all time. Names like Reggie Miller, Steve Kerr, Dan Majerle and Chuck Person filled the ballots with votes. After barely qualifying for the semi’s Rice pulled himself together and he beat out Miller 16 to 15 in the finals to take down the shooting legend.
So Tray who do you think will win the three-point see All-Star page 7
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