‘Some sense of normalcy’ returned for sports: 2021 year in review

Hood River Athletic Director Trent Kroll echoed the sentiments of most when he said at the start of the 2021-22 academic year: “We are excited to be able to offer co-curricular sports and activities in a ‘normal’ fashion again for our students … We know that we will need to be flexible with expectations and rules in regard to safety with the pandemic. Even with those challenges, our students, coaches, and community members can’t wait for the 2021-2022 sports and activities season.”

Kroll and other Gorge athletic directors and school officials juggled state health mandates, schedule changes and referee shortages — in addition to their usual duties — to get young student athletes back on the playing fields and courts.

Following are some of the highlights of the 2021 local sports scene, which began with the fall 2020 season (held spring, 2021). It featured shortened schedules allowing athletes in Oregon and Washington a chance to at least participate in their usual sports seasons. They were shortened versions and postseason opportunities were not sponsored by the Oregon School Activities Association, nor the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. Some of the sports seasons ended with league playoffs or culminating events; others ended with state championships, just not sanctioned by the OSAA nor WIAA.

Put one foot in front of the other

One benefit of the jumbled sports schedule was that cross country segued into track and field which meant many distance runners benefitted from an increased level of fitness — without the interruption of a winter season when consistent outdoor training can be difficult in the Gorge (check outside and you’ll understand).

Hood River Valley benefited immensely, as the Eagle girls and boys swept the varsity team races for the third time in five years at the Intermountain Conference district meet. The championships were held at Sorosis Park in The Dalles, where the host school was runner-up in both races. Hood River Valley’s Chloe Bullock and Crook County’s Alec Carne won the individual titles. Neither senior runner lost a race during the shortened season, which included mostly weekly dual or three-way meets among league opponents.

Six months later, runners were back at it again during the 2021 (fall) cross country season. The Hood River girls repeated as IMC champion, led by individual champion Phoebe Wood, who easily won the 5,000-meter race in Pendleton. The Dalles boys gave first-year Coach Jill Pearson a conference team title, led by district medalist Juan Diego Contreras. He capped an outstanding junior season by placing third at the Class 5A state meet in Eugene. His all-state finish at the meet at Lane Community College was the best for a runner from The Dalles since 2011, when Dufur’s Alex Dillard competed on the team and was second in the 5A race. Wood and the HRV girls entered the state championship meet ranked sixth, but the Eagles peaked for Coach Steve Noteboom and won the fourth-place trophy.

‘Get out there and hit somebody’

Two seasons of traditional fall sports were packed into 2021 — a shortened spring version, when most teams played five or six football games, for example, and a nine-game regular (football) season in the fall. The spring football season was distinct in that it marked the final high school games for a handful of Gorge athletes who are now playing in college. Among that group were Hood River linemen Henry Buckles and Emilio Castaneda, and 1A players Trey Darden from Dufur and Garrett Olson from South Wasco County. The regular football season — and school year — kicked off with guarded optimism about health concerns. There were a smattering of cancellations in most sports as COVID continued to rear its ugly head. Once the 2021 football season was complete, Hood River had put together its best record in some 20 years at 9-2; Coach Caleb Sperry’s team won a state playoff game in the process, 19-7, over visiting South Albany at Henderson Stadium.

In Washington, Columbia High’s football fortunes continued to ebb and flow with the school’s enrollment. Football is a number games, with its multiple positions and penchant for injuries; the Bruins often have fewer players than their Trico League opponents. Columbia did have one of the Gorge’s top players during the 2021 spring season in senior Austin Charters. The workhorse running back rushed for more than 400 yards in the first two Bruin games en route to an all-league season.

In the regular fall football season, top performances included those by Lyle’s Aaron Smith and HRV’s Trenton Hughes. Smith, a senior 5-foot-6 running back, rushed 24 times for 391 yards and eight touchdowns in Lyle’s 52-28 win over Pilot Rock on Oct. 1. Hughes was the 5A District 1 offensive player of the year and had multiple 100-yard rushing and passing games, and two 200-yard rushing games for the Eagles.

In the small school ranks, Dufur High kept its streak of winning at least one state playoff game alive when it advanced to the second round in the eight-man classification. The Rangers last missed the football state playoffs in 2009 and Coach Jack Henderson has won more state championships — 10 — at any level than any other Oregon high school football coach. Henderson coached his first state playoff team in 1992 and since then the Rangers have qualified for state 27 of 29 seasons. Henderson ranks No. 1 in the nation for all-time wins in eight-man football — 286. That said, as 2021 wound to a close, an OSAA committee was studying the idea of eliminating eight-player football. The committee is suggesting Oregon combine Class 2A and 1A schools into three groups for football only: A nine-player football Division 1 classification mostly made of 2A teams; a nine-player football Division 2 classification made of smaller 2A teams and bigger 1A teams; and a six-player football classification for the smaller 1A programs

Behind the scenes

In addition to the potential revamping of Oregon high school football, two other things impacted local sports in 2021. The first was the ongoing lack of game officials. COVID had something to do with the shortage, but the number of umpires and referees has been declining for years. The onset of the pandemic hastened the decisions of some who were pondering retirement. Athletic directors wrestled with the official shortage by having to shuffle games at the last minute, disrupt traditional sports schedules (moving basketball games from Tuesdays and Fridays, for example), and cancel games altogether.

The second thing behind the scenes to impact local high school sports was the OSAA’s reshuffling and realigning the state’s athletic districts. The leagues are adjusted every four years as enrollment levels fluctuate and new schools open. The Dalles and Hood River high schools were both impacted by those changes – albeit starting in fall of 2022. The Dalles is dropping from Class 5A to 4A because of declining enrollment. Hood River will continue to compete in Class 5A but will be doing so in a Portland-based league - the Northwest Oregon Conference. Officials from both schools – 20 minutes apart - have said they plan to continue to schedule each other in nonleague contests, keeping the long-time Gorge rivalry alive in some manner.

Spring before winter

Arguably, the most COVID-affected high school sports season was the traditional spring season. Normally, spring softball and baseball seasons segue into summer ones. In 2021, the OSAA and WIAA scheduled indoor winter sports at the end of the school year in hopes the pandemic would calm down a bit and basketball, wrestling and swimming could take place undeterred. The altered OSAA/WIAA timelines disrupted the transition from spring to summer for the girls and boys on the diamond. Conversely, winter sports were contested into June — in some cases, end-of-season events were after students had already graduated for a couple of weeks. The winter/spring switch led to lower numbers of some of the Gorge’s traditionally strong programs.

The beautiful game: HRV vs. TD soccer

That rivalry was on center stage again this year in soccer. Gorge soccer has strong roots in its youth programs, which are the training (and proving) grounds for many of the eventual high school players. The Hood River boys won both IMC boys soccer championships (spring and fall). But the parity between the two schools is evident in the scores of the latest three matches between the rivals: 2-2, 3-3, and 1-1. In four girls soccer matches during 2021 (spring and fall seasons), HRV and The Dalles played to two ties and each team won a match against the other.

The (late) Olympic year for Gorge track and field

Track and field didn’t escape the lower turnout woes of Gorge high schools, but both the 1A and 5A classifications did hold culminating state events. What’s more, what local teams lacked in quantity, they made up with quality. That was perhaps most evident at Columbia High, where a talented group of girls athletes were among the Gorge leaders in their events all season. Columbia High capped off a successful season by winning the final relay races at the District IV-1A championships in Vancouver. “That’s just such a great way to end the season, finishing on top of the podium,” Coach James Anderson said of the Bruin girls and boys 4x400 relays. Junior Chanele Reyes won both hurdle races and was the top point scorer for the Bruin girls. She also combined with Ella Zimmerman, Hannah Polkinghorn and Makayla Fies on the winning relay. The Columbia boys, not to be outdone, equaled the girls’ effort when Angel Sanchez, Ryan Howard, Calvin Andrews and Dylan Muehlbauer won the boys long relay race, as well.

Highlights of the 5A (non-OSAA sanctioned) track and field season included: HRV senior Chloe Bullock, the state 800 champion, who scored 25 Intermountain Conference district-meet team points with an ultra-grueling 1500-400-800 trifecta, capping off her day with a 400-meter leg in the final event, the 4x400 relay; The Dalles junior Jaxon Pullen, who won the district 100 and 200 meters — in personal best times of 11.32 seconds and 23.08 — and was third in the long jump and ran a leg on the Riverhawks’ third place, 4x100 relay; Contreras, who won the district 1500 and 3000 and ran a leg on the Riverhawk 4x400 relay; The Dalles’ Taylor Morehouse, who peaked at the right time in the pole vault, winning the 5A Invitational track and field meet at Wilsonville High School; Hood River’s Poppy Miller, who won the girls pole vault (for the second year in a row); and Trout Lake senior Justin Peck, who powered his way from third to first over the final 150 meters to win the Class 1A track and field state championship in the 800 meters at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande.

There were many more outstanding individual and team performances throughout 2021. Perhaps the most dominating was that of the Hood River Valley swimming program, which won the IMC boys title and was runner-up in the girls meet. Coach Shelly Rawding’s Eagles scored 288 points and had two individual boys champions in Luke Southall, who won the 200 free — by 17 seconds — and Gavin Hackett, who took gold in the 100 fly. The HRV girls were second by one point to Pendleton and had two double winners in Sarah Arpag and Michelle Graves. Arpag won the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke. Graves won the 200 individual medley and the 100 breaststroke. What’s more, Abby McCormack won the 50 free, and Emma Titus won the 200 free for HRV. The Eagle girls also won all three of the meet’s relay races.

“Being a part of a team, working together toward a common goal, setting individual goals, working hard to achieve those goals, and being mentored by our fantastic coaches is a huge part of the education of our student-athletes,” Trent Kroll, the HRV athletic director, summed up. “Not to forget that our fantastic community loves to come together and support the effort of our kids and teams.”