▶️ Fisher, Lava Bears fly past Comets, move on to semifinals game

The No.2 ranked 5-A softball team in state, The Bend Lava Bears took care of business against Crater on Friday, earning a 7-0 victory.

Bend now takes on Lebanon at home on Tuesday.

In 4-A the Crook County Cowgirls took on the top-rated Henley Hornets and held their own, losing 9-8.


In baseball, Ridgeview lost to West Albany 8-2 in an away game.

Also traveling, the Mountain View Cougars who lost to Wilsonville 4-1.

At the 4-A level,  Crook County lost to No. 1 ranked Scappoose 8-1.

In 3-A, Sisters lost to Cascade Christian 9-2, and the La Pine Hawks fell to Banks 8-4.

▶️ Culver baseball, softball shows up big on senior night

The Culver baseball and softball teams both played in their final regular season home games on the year. The boys and girls both played in a double-header.

Softball defeated Regis 9-1 and 18-2, while the baseball team had a few closes victories, 2-1 and 9-7.

The baseball team is currently is second play in league play  (13-5) and the softball team is sitting at that third-place spot in league (12-7).

Both teams are expected to play in the postseason.

You can find scores and schedules here: 

▶️ Queen of the mound: Lava Bear Addisen Fisher’s journey to top prospect

▶️ Mountain View bests highly ranked 5-A Ridgeview in league leader shootout

▶️ Mountain View bests highly ranked 5-A Ridgeview in league leader shootout

The Mountain View Cougars baseball team hosted the Ridgeview Ravens Friday night and bested the Wolfpack in a high scoring 14-13 victory.

This put the Cougars on top of the Intermountain Conference with only a few games left in the season.

Caldera, Bend’s newest high school, still without a senior class yet, lost to Redmond 8-6 in their game.

For the rest of the baseball and softball scores visit: https://www.osaa.org/activities/sbl/schedules

▶️ Outlaws get two huge wins over La Pine, conference play tightening up

After losing 3-2 to La Pine on Tuesday, the Sisters Outlaws bounced back with two wins over the Hawks, 4-3, and 4-2 Friday.

La Pine is now 10-2 in the Mountain Valley 3-A Conference, while Sisters stands at 7-2.

The Hawks take on Pleasant Hill next, they have a double-header, at home April 28th at 2 and 4:30 p.m.

Sisters also has a home double-header April 28th against Elmira at 2 and 4 p.m.

▶️ La Pine baseball plays doubleheader at Vince Genna Stadium’s new turf field

▶️ Queen of the mound: Lava Bear Addisen Fisher’s journey to top prospect

▶️ Central Oregon wrestling prodigy doesn’t give up a single point the entire season

A local middle school wrestler, Leif Larwin, is achieving things most people can only dream about.

COVID shut down his 6th grade season. But since then, he not only hasn’t lost a match, but during his 8th grade season, he didn’t even give up a single point in 29 matches.

Larwin wrestles at Pilot Butte Middle School and comes from a wrestling family.

MORE OREGON WRESTLING NEWS:  Oregon girls high school wrestling becomes sanctioned sport

MORE CENTRAL OREGON WRESTLING NEWS: Redmond High School wrestling team attributes success to academic coach

His bother Eric, just recently broke his own record, for most falls/pins in a single Bend Senior High season and father, coach of the Lava Bears for 15 years.

To hear more about Leif and his success from coaches, watch below:

Storm baseball dominates Tualatin; Bend softball exciting win against Wildcats

On Friday the Summit Storm (6-2) hosted 6A Tualatin (6-3). The Storm only needed five innings to defeat the Wolverines, for a 15-5 victory.

In softball, the Lava Bears down by one late in the game, would come back to defeat Westview 9-7. The Lava Bears are 8-2 this season.

▶️ Oregon girls high school wrestling becomes sanctioned sport

For decades in the state of Oregon, it’s been the boys who have ruled the mats of high school wrestling. But now it’s more and more girls putting their foot on the line and getting their hand raised.

Girls wrestling just became a sanctioned high school sport in Oregon.

“Wrestling coaches are behind this, this movement,’ said head Redmond High School wrestling coach Kris Davis. “This is what’s keeping wrestling alive and in the forefront, I think, is girls wrestling right now, especially in the college ranks. And so I think everybody is really pushing for this type of, of movement of growing girls wrestling.”

MORE OREGON WRESTLING NEWS: Redmond High School wrestling team attributes success to academic coach

MORE OREGON WRESTLING NEWS: MaKenna Duran becomes first girls wrestling champion at Crook County High

It is the first sport the Oregon School Activities Association has added since softball in 1979.

“It’s nice to add another sport,” said OSAA Executive Director Peter Webber. “Something would probably be long overdue, and we’re excited to get that going and work out the details as we go through.”

According to the OSAA, girls wrestling participation in the U.S. increased 46% to 53,000.

In Oregon, it went from 850 to more than 1,100 just last year.

“It’s grown a lot,” said first-ever girls state champion wrestler at Redmond High Mackenzi Sharon. “It used to be pretty small, not very many girls, but there’s a ton of tough girls here, and I think wrestling each other growing up has definitely pushed towards that.”

Central Oregon girls’ wrestling had one of its best years in 2023, from bringing home girl’s team titles to the first-ever girl’s state champions at Crook County and Redmond High.

“I’m pretty excited to see where it takes our program to have us separate and have like our own fundraising and we can just kind of take it in the direction we need to go to improve the best for the girls,” said Sharon.

It’s not just the returning champions who are excited about the news but also the girls just starting.

“I think it’s really great because people don’t really talk about wrestling that much, girls wrestling especially,” said first-time wrestler Reina Barnes. “So I was like, I think it’s amazing that it’s like our own sport now.”

Currently, coaches are eagerly waiting to see what girls wrestling as a sanctioned sport is about.

“We’re kind of in a waiting game with OSAA right now to kind of see what this looks like because they haven’t done it since 1979,” said Davis, “So yeah, we haven’t, we haven’t been through this yet. So we’ll see how it goes.”

 

▶️ La Pine baseball plays doubleheader at Vince Genna Stadium’s new turf field

The La Pine Hawks baseball team played in a doubleheader at Vince Genna Stadium and its new turf infield Friday night.

The Hawks lost to South Umpqua in their first game 7-6 and defeated Joseph 13-10 in their second game.

“State championship is our one goal,” said senior Dawson Cook. “That’s our only goal. We want to play good quality baseball all year and just continue to keep getting better and better.”

La Pine had to play at the Bend Elks stadium because the school baseball field was unplayable due to recent weather.

The Hawks play Elmira at home Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. 

▶️ Madras High School breaks ground on new soccer complex

Parents, athletes, coaches and school board members gathered at the Madras High soccer fields on Wednesday evening. With shovels in hand and some symbolic scoops of dirt, celebrations for a long waited groundbreaking were happening.

The soccer field will soon turn into an improved soccer complex thanks to a bond passed in 2021.

“Much needed with the amount of kids that we have and the amount of soccer players that there are,” said head Madras boys soccer coach Clark Jones. “Now, it’s it’s been a while coming, and it’s going to be nice to see it.”

RELATED: 509J School District seeks funding to help with inflation impacts on bond 

A new 2,000-square-foot field house with concession space, restrooms, locker rooms and a coach’s office is in the works.

“Before we had had to, like, change outside and like, we’re just like dressed down and pull our trousers down and stuff,” said junior David Diaz. “Now it’s just better because they’re building us locker rooms.”

“Our equipment shed leaked, and we had to end up getting rid of a bunch of soccer balls, and we had mold on stuff, and it took hours and hours of cleaning that stuff and having to purchase new stuff and so I’m really looking forward to not having to deal with that,” said head Madras girls coach Shawn Darrow.

The complex will also add something the facility has never had before, field lights. A win for parents who spectate and students who play.

“Most of the time our games have gotten postponed because football is taking up the field or something else is going on over there because of lights,” said junior Idaly Romero. “And it’s going to be too dark to play here. So I think that’s going to be really cool and I think it’s going to bring more attention to our program.”

The school district is hoping the complex will be complete by the start of the soccer season this fall.

Even seniors who won’t be able to use the new amenities are happy for the next generation of White Buffalo athletes.

“It hasn’t happened in a while. like nothing big has happened here,” said senior Diamond Amiya. “There’s been so many holes, like been a lot of twisting ankles. So it’s going to be cool to see that none of that happens anymore. And it’s going to be cool just to see what it does for the future players that come next.”

The $24 million bond also goes towards several updates and upgrades for other schools around the district.

If you ask anyone whose been involved in the program throughout the years, these soccer upgrades are a major score and a long time coming.

“That’s a bond that lasts for quite a while, and people are going to be paying for this for a while,” said Jones. “So hopefully they’ll get something that looks relatively good, and hopefully we can come in and showcase our kids, and hopefully we get crowds that night that we have not had before. So I’m excited about that.”