For the 14th year in a row, the 2023 Oregon High School Rodeo State Finals was held in Prineville.
Contestants arrived at the Crook County Fairgrounds Wednesday before competing during a “Hawaii” themed night on Thursday.
Friday is pink night and Saturday, the last day is retro day.
The event is free to the public.
Central Oregon Daily’s Steele Haugen went to the Rodeo Finals today to see how everything was going.
You can find the times and days here.
Do you remember those high school days on the basketball court? Game on the line, you get fouled, a 1-and-1 bonus, and nerves out of control because you know you have to make that first free throw at least.
Come this summer basketball season, free throws are a whole new game.
“In the new rule, all of the team fouls will reset at the end of each quarter. On the fifth foul, the team will automatically be awarded two free throws. There’s no more one plus the bonus,” said Assistant Executive Director for the OSAA Monica Maxwell.
RELATED: Coaches, players react to shot clock coming to Oregon high school basketball
The National Federation of State High School Associations recently made the rules and it was adopted by the Oregon Schools Activities Association shortly after
“I think it’s to become more in line with what the college level was doing, sort of what we did with the shot clock. You know, just become more in line with other levels of basketball,” said Maxwell. “I think the more these levels become the same, the easier to transition will be from the level.”
The OSAA is asking schools to start implementing these new rules during summer basketball, and Wednesday was the first practice for Summit High.
“Obviously, at some point, though, we need to be able to look at, you know, logistics of what is this game going to look like and what impact are the rules going to have on us,” said head boys coach Jon Frazier.
Frazier says he doesn’t think the new rules will have too much of the style of play the Storm like.
“The main one is going to be that shot clock and just understanding, you know, how do we use the shot clock to our advantage, especially in the quarter situations when that shot comes into play, you know, how are we going to take advantage of it to put ourselves in a position to win,” he said.
5A Oregon player of the year Pearson Carmichael committed to playing for the Boise State as a junior. Now heading into his senior season, he has one more year to prepare before playing at the next level.
“I mean, I kind of like it,” Carmichael said. “I mean, obviously, first getting ready for college, but I think it’s just good for everyone, just kind of like feel like they’re playing at the next level and kind of like, you know, getting ready for the next step.”
Big changes for players and teams, but it is the fans who may benefit most.
“The change to the 1-to-1 rules, ultimately, I think that’s going to lead to just less stoppages of play for foul shots and just more game action,” Frasier said. “So, you know, I think for fans, for people that are coming to watch games next year, I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun for them, and I think it’s going to improve the game overall.”
The Bend Lava Bears softball team fell to Lebanon 4-3 in the state 5A semifinals Tuesday. It’s the second year in a row Bend has fallen one game shy of playing for the title.
Bend, the No. 2 ranked team in the state, hosted the No. 3-ranked Lebanon.
The Warriors took an early 4-0 lead and were able to keep the Lava Bears at bay for the victory.
Bend scored three runs in the bottom of the third inning, but could not find a way to get the tying run to cross home plate.
The Lava Bears ended the season with a 26-3 overall record.
Ace pitcher and UCLA commit Addisen Fisher will return for her senior year next season.
RELATED: Queen of the mound: Lava Bear Addisen Fisher’s journey to top prospect
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.
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
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
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
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:
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.
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.”
