Lassen remained within striking distance of the high-powered Braves through the game’s first 16 minutes, but according to Lassen head coach Paul Moore, Justin-Siena put on a “shooting display,” pouring in 30 points, in what would be the decisive third quarter.
Final Score
Justin-Siena – 74
Lassen – 42
Lassen’s Carlotta Kloppenburg tried to single-handedly keep pace with the hot shooting Braves, with all 13 of her points coming in the third quarter. Raeyel Shephard and Haylee Shaffer, finished the night with nine and eight points respectively.
While obviously disappointed, Lassen ends a season that saw a Lady Grizzly basketball team play for a North Section CIF championship for the first time since 1984.

On a personal note- special thanks to Paul Moore, for being one of a small handful of the most reliable coaches, with instant information, win or lose, making the job of dopey sports guys like me that much easier and that much more fun. Now we get to do it for LHS softball.

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Final Score
Central Valley – 54
Lassen – 40
Lassen was without starter Sierra Hicks, who suffered an injury in Lassen’s second round win over Gridley. Raeyel Shephard led the Lassen ladies with 11 points, Carlotta Kloppenburg finished with ten points.
Lassen (16-12) moves into the state playoffs, which will have the Lady Grizzlies traveling to Napa, (Ca.) for a Tuesday, March 9th, game against Justin-Siena High School (27-4).

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Click here  for complete playoff brackets for all North Section divisions. Brackets will automatically update following games.

Contributions to this story provided by Terry Wood.

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That Old North Wind

Did you feel the brisk nor’easter swirling down from Canada on Sunday afternoon? That was the collective sigh of relief of thirty-three million Canadians as their Olympic hockey team won the gold medal in an exciting overtime victory against Team USA.

Given the level of importance attached to this game (is the self-esteem of an entire nation enough?), I was almost afraid to root for my own countrymen. I like the Canadians, but it’s hard to stomach the potential mass suicide that might have occurred if the Canucks lost the match. We could not take the chance that the year-long mourning period that would surely follow would affect our already flailing economy.

As for the US, the defeat only cost us a case of Molson Canadian Lager, to be paid for by President Obama.  I was most proud of our young men; they did phenomenally well, considering that they weren’t even expected to medal in the Games. The Canadians, with professional salaries that ranged from 130 to 150 million dollars depending on who was on the ice, were Olympic ice hockey’s equivalent of the New York Yankees. The upstart Americans were the Florida Marlins…this time around.

When seen in that light, I understand why the Canadians had their jumping spots chosen along the Lions Gate Bridge.  Should we tell them that the eighteen-and-under American juniors not only won the international hockey title in Canada this past year, but that our fourteen-and-under squad did as well? They better hope that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman allows the professionals to compete in the next Olympics to be held in Russia. I’m just saying….

More Olympics Notes

Nordic Combined medals for the United States? Really? This was pretty darned cool! I loved this sport—possibly because I was tired of events that were determined by subjective judging. I like athletes competing, their physical abilities the only thing being timed or measured. They were in control of their performance. The only thing better than the gold and silver medal wins would have been a sweep including the bronze. But I suppose we shouldn’t be greedy. Team USA was already on their way to collecting more medals than any other in the history of the winter Olympics.

Curling: a sport or not? I tried to understand; I really did. It was mildly entertaining, and I began to recognize and appreciate the strategy of the game.  But an Olympic sport? I’m sorry, but darts in the pub was what came to mind, which had me looking for pints of Labatt sitting around the tables framing the ice. Is it the players’ upper body strength gained through vigorous sweeping that makes this an athletic event? I couldn’t tell. I was, however, impressed with the high-tech quality of the brooms. Wish I had one for my kitchen.

Bobsledding medals? What is the world coming to when the United States medals in this sport? Where were the East Germans and Soviets?  I know, I know. East Germany is no more, and neither is the USSR. But I remember their overwhelming dominance of most winter sports back in the day.  I used to resign myself to watching the flag of one of these countries rising behind the podium.  I can still hear their incredibly long, intimidating (to my young mind at least) anthems playing in my head.

I kind of miss those days; they were the big bullies on the block, making it easy to root for anyone who opposed them.  The complaint used to be that it was unfair; they were obviously fielding professionals against the amateur athletes of every other nation. This isn’t the case any longer.

Final, Dark Olympic Note

The Vancouver Olympics opened with a tragedy; the death of a Georgian luger on a practice run. It created a definite pall over the opening ceremonies, leaving athletes and spectators alike to question a course that was known to be incredibly fast and dangerous.

I refuse to minimize the loss of any life. I’m sure that Nodar Kumaritashivili’s family didn’t expect to be informed that he’d been killed rather than having competed well for his country.  This is why I found the IOC’s comment about him being at fault so distasteful.  If ever there was a case where silence was the better part of valor, this was it.

This comment created more questions when they shut down the course and moved the competition to another run, which seemed highly suspicious if they truly felt that the fatal accident was the athlete’s fault.  And no, I’m not suggesting that the Canadian or International IOC was covering things up.

I am suggesting that they made a horrible situation worse.  It’s always sad when a life is lost and the only concern of the officials is to shift any possible blame away from themselves.

OT Debate

The NFL is finally succumbing to the pressure of the extreme left in football. The side that insists that everything must be fair and even-handed and that everyone should get an equal opportunity to score. What—the previous 60 minutes wasn’t enough time?

 I am puzzled by the proposal for a new overtime rule. If a team scores a touchdown on the first possession of the overtime period, the game is over. If they score a field goal, then the other team gets the ball and an opportunity to score.

How is this fair and equitable? What happens if the defense steps up and scores a safety?  Is there a handicap awarded if a starting quarterback is injured, because honestly, it’s not fair that a team has to rely on its back up QB.

AND—did I hear this right—the new rule would only apply to the playoffs?

I’m of a different opinion than the majority of football fans, which I suppose puts me in the Independent or Green Party of football. I don’t think there should be overtime periods. What’s wrong with ties? I’d like to see teams have to go for broke, be gutsy and run trick plays at the end of games. Two point conversion attempts are exciting to me; I’m just funny that way.

As for the playoffs and Super Bowl, where there must be a winner? I propose a five-minute period in which the offense must play defense and the defense must play offense. Don’t you think that would prove who truly has the team with the most depth and talent? I’d like to see Troy Palamalu at quarterback, and the speedy corners would run great reverses. How difficult would it be for the defensive line to turn around and play the other way?

 I suspect that the best defenses would win the day, even on the offensive side of the ball,  but we’d still be left with the same debate if the first team that got the ball scores.

Obviously something other than the luck of a coin toss needs to be used to determine who gets the ball first. Something that calls for skill, and would therefore demonstrate a team’s superior aptitude.  So let’s go for a multiple choice, three-question apiece examination based on the Wunderlich test. Each team can have a combination of halfbacks and offensive tackles answering the questions. This affords each team an equitable start, as this offers an average of the historic lowest and highest scoring athletes on this haloed test.

Seriously, Mr. Commissioner, you have so much else on your plate in the next two years to tackle, not least of which is making sure that the owners and players continue playing. I’m afraid a walk-out or lockdown would sour my (and many other Americans’) taste for professional football, especially in these trying times. So many families are struggling with multiple jobs, lay-offs and the highest number of mortgage defaults in history.  An agent-led athlete not making 8 million dollars a year, or an owner not able to purchase the largest Trinitron screen on earth, won’t garner sympathy.

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Five Lassen High School wrestlers competed in the North Section Masters Tournament, at the Redding Convention Center, (2/26-27). Two earned trips to the “State Finals.”Individual results for the Lassen High Wrestlers at the North Section Masters Tournament.
> 127 lbs. - Byron Treece – 3rd place
> 173 lbs. - Brad Memmott – 4th place
> 217 lbs. - Darren Lee – 1st place
Darren Lee and Byron Treece have qualified for the California State Wrestling Championships, held at Rabobank Arena, in Bakersfield, (Ca.) March 5th and 6th.

Photos submitted by Rodney Hartrum. (Click to enlarge)
 

Other Lassen wrestlers competeing at the Masters Tournament were, Alex McConnell, (135 lbs.) and Ben Thomas, (154 lbs.).

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Wednesday 2-10-10
1.

Diamond Mountain Casino is now offering poker tournaments on Wednesdays at 6:00 p.m. and Saturdays at 11:00 a.m. Tournaments are held in the Diamond Willow Room, located in the Casino.
The final table both days earn players points towards entry into the “Tournament of Champions” to be held in June, 2010.
Diamond Mountain Casino also offers Sit ‘n Go tournaments every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. These tournaments take place on the Lightning Poker Table. Sign ups begin at 5:30 p.m. with play beginning at 6:30 p.m.
Come on in to the Diamond Mountain Casino, enjoy the hospitality of Sierra and brush up on your Texas Hold’em skills.
As Always, Thanks Claire…

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Let’s jump forward in time a bit, shall we?

I can tell what you are thinking.  What is BB ranting about now?

Cue theme song to Star Wars:  The Empire Strikes Back and journey with me into the future world of college football. The landscape, according to outspoken Athletic Directors, journalists and bloggers, will look vastly different. This is the result of our overwhelming, unending dependence on the almighty dollar. The big boys still won’t share the wealth, which makes one wonder if we ever learn our lessons.  What if we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again?

We’ll be asked to ignore the lack of tenured professors in state universities while we applaud the prowess and character of ten million dollar a year head football coaches.  Football, by this time, will far outweigh the importance of Bachelor and Masters’ Degrees. One “student” out of every 10,000 will go on to make a profitable living in the NFL…and they’re the only ones that will matter.

Reasonable odds, don’t you think, for the future of our youth?

We’ll witness the advent of the Super Conferences, which will relegate conferences now known as non-BCS, or non-AQ to the level of third world countries.

The most likely change proposed is the eventual addition of Utah and Colorado to the Pac 10, according to a Salt Lake City columnist. Who doesn’t like this idea? Brigham Young University and the Mountain West Conference. The far reaching consequences of losing Utah and possibly TCU in a reactive move would potentially kill the Mountain West’s addition as one of the mighty BCS conferences. 

Solution? Mountain West  presidents and Athletic Directors should quickly invite Boise State into their fold, thus assuring them the coveted BCS AQ classification and pre-empting any moves made by bigger conferences . BYU, Utah, TCU and Boise State would be a formidable football conference, as well as regionally relevant.

More awe-inspiring, confusing conjectures follow.

Texas and Texas A&M will become members of the Pac 10. Wow. As one member of my family said, Texas is denying this possibility, which means it’s probably true. Oklahoma might like this move, although removing two Texas teams from the Big 12 means they’ll need to replace them with two new ones. If memory serves correctly, TCU does fairly well against the Sooners, and Houston is a potential threat looming on the horizon.

The Big East and the Mountain West will combine to create one large conference with branches in the east and west.  This move would assure that the beleaguered Big East does not lose its AQ standing, while the inclusion of the Mountain West into a preexisting BCS conference means that we don’t need to create a new one. This will also help eliminate the threat of two non-AQ team’s inclusion in the big money of the BCS bowls.

Missouri or Rutgers will join the Big Ten, finally making them the Big 12? Yes, I know that ten plus one equals eleven. Penn State has just been hanging out for years, understanding that not only is eleven an odd number; it’s also a lonely one.

 A new conference name will obviously be called for. Perhaps the Slow Pokes, the Twelve Packs, or the Irrelevants? Hey, this isn’t my line; those words came from the mouth of a Big 10 president, who said that the conference needed a twelfth member so that they could have a conference championship game.  They are tired of being irrelevant for three weeks leading up to the Bowl season.

Surely they’re jesting. They honestly want to have a true conference champion and forego the three-way tie breaker we all watch, but don’t understand? In truth, the only conferences that deliver true champions are the ones without championship games. Teams in these leagues have to play everyone in their conferences—true head-to-head matchups with the victor still standing at the end of the season.

But the money generated from an extra game televised by a major network is too enticing to ignore. Who cares if we’ve already seen the match-up earlier in the season, and that neither team played every team in their conference?

Perhaps the most ambitious suggestion I heard was the idea of combining conferences to create super conferences. This plan is not fully formulated yet, though, as I suspect they most likely mean to combine the existing BCS conferences with the top two or three teams from all of the non-BCS conferences. Then they’ll split them all up regionally, do the hokey pokey and shake them all about.

This will lead to a wealth of haves and have nots in college football’s future. Sounds like they want to create elitist leagues divided into four regional super-powered conferences, each having their own television network and elaborate administration.  I thought the University of Texas already had this, as well as the largest Trinitron screen in the college game—and they want to share?

I can already hear ESPN’s war cry as other networks gain exclusive new contracts in upcoming years. This possibility can’t be good for them.

All of this is, naturally, because of money. And it brings to mind the debate that all college football fans will likely have to face. How big do we want—or need—the game to be? Big enough to eclipse secondary education? Yes, football revenues help a lot of programs at universities, but the salaries that coaching staffs receive have grown much faster than the revenues taken in.

This means that the conferences are looking for new ways to create revenue to support not only the football programs and athletic departments, but the university staff and its educational system.  This means more advertising, increased hype, heavier recruiting and bigger stadiums.  Sports—especially football—will play a larger role on campuses than ever before.

So what came first: education or football? It’s definitely food for thought. For now, I’d rather pretend to be an ostrich and bury my head in the sand—because I don’t have the answers.  Neither do the college presidents or the NCAA. If their solutions are not fair to all involved, we’ll have congress’ intervention to look forward to as well.

Is college football experiencing the pinnacle of its success? Has it reached its height?  Has it become the most popular sport in the US, second only to the NFL, just to decline as a result of greed, a false sense of entitlement, and the public’s ennui—and the disillusionment that follows?

I hope not, because I love college football. The Boise State Broncos, as many of you know, are my team. I have a solution for them if the earth does change its directional rotation and the four super conferences come to be.  They can become an independent and play Notre Dame and the armed forces teams every single year while picking up games from each super conference.  The revenue from those games should keep them in good stead, and the elephant in the room—the oft-maligned weakness of the WAC—will finally be put to rest.

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Click here  for complete playoff brackets for all North Section divisions. Brackets will automatically update following games.

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Girl’s Final (at Riverside Park)
Lassen – 3
Wheatland – 0
Amanda Keeton scored two goals, with Molly West adding Lassen’s third score. Autumn Norton assisted on two of Lassen’s three goals.
Lassen, (10-1-1) will host West Valley, (10-1-1) for the North Section championship, Saturday, February 27th. The title match is scheduled to begin at 12:00 p.m. at Riverside Park.
This will be the third meeting of the year between the two teams. West Valley won 2-0 at home, with Lassen winning in a shoot-out at Riverside Park, Feb. 4th. (Even though it went in the books as a tie).
That shoot-out earned Lassen the #1 seed and home field advantage in the championship match.

Boy’s Final (at West Valley)
West Valley – 7
Lassen – 1
Lassen was without two starters, including leading goal-scorer, Jordan Guess, due to inuries. The Grizzlies end the season at 6-6-1.
Lassen head coach Dennis Michael’s entire roster is eligible to return for the 2010-11 season.

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Girls Playoffs
Division IV 
Despite losing their last two games of the regular season, the Lassen Lady Grizzlies were able to secure the number two seed and a first round bye in the Division IV playoffs.
Lassen, (14-11, #2) will open the post season, Thursday, February 25th, against the winner of Tuesday’s, (Feb.23rd), Mt. Shasta (15-9, #10) at West Valley (9-16, #7) game.
Thursday’s tip-off is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. in “the Cave”

Division V
Portola (18-8, #6) will host Los Molinos (9-11, #11), Chester (13-7, #9) travels to Colusa (14-11, #8) and Quincy (12-12, #12) is at Fall River (15-6, #5). All three games are scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 23rd.

Division VI
Westwood (10-9, #7) hosts Herlong (11-8, #10), Thursday, Feb. 25th. 

Boys Playoffs
Division IV
The slumping Lassen Grizzlies (10-15, #9) open the playoffs at Wheatland (10-15, #8), Wednesday, Feb. 24th. Lassen dropped six of it’s last seven regular season games.

Division V
Chester (15-7, #8) hosts East Nicolaus (17-7, #9) and Portola (13-4, #12) travels to Fall River (18-6, #5). Both games are set for Wednesday, Feb. 24th.

Division VI
Big Valley (12-10, #2) and Loyalton (9-8, #4) earned first round byes. Both will open post season play, Thursday, Feb. 25th, at home. Westwood (13-12, #8) hosts Princeton (9-13, #9), Tuesday, Feb. 23rd.

Click here  for complete brackets for all North Section divisions. Brackets will automatically update following games.

To submit your stories and pictures, or if you just have something on your mind, use our handy submission form, or email your stuff to scott@lassensportsnetwork.com