Hawks soar with spring sports

Holste bettered his season best in the long jump by 10 inches at district. He finished third in the triple jump (40’.5”) and third in the 200 (24.09), scoring 22 of Horizon's 37 team points. Holste also anchored Horizon’s fifth-place 4x100 relay, helping the Hawks to eighth place in the final team standings.

Kempf scored 15 team points, adding a fifth place in the triple jump (30’ 4.5”) and a sixth in the 300 meter low hurdles, in addition to her runner-up finish in the 200 meters.

Horizon's other point scorers at district included: Ryan Aldrich (fifth, long jump, 18-6; seventh, shot put; eighth, 100 meters); Daniel Kempf (fifth 1,500 meters; sixth, 3,000 meters); Miriam Starrett (seventh, long jump). Austin Requa joined Aldrich, Kempf and Holste on the Hawks’ short relay team.

Baseball

Hawks baseball swept a Friday doubleheader at Heppner, earning the boys a tie for second place in the final 2A/1A District 6 standings and a home playoff game.

Horizon tied Stanfield-Echo with a 9-5 league record, earning the league’s second seed into this week’s district playoffs based on the district tiebreaker criteria.

The Hawks play a home playoff game Tuesday afternoon at Collins Field in Hood River against Stanfield-Echo (results were unavailable at presstime). The winner qualifies for the Class 2A/1A state playoffs and the right to play league champion Weston-McEwen in Saturday’s district championship game. Tuesday’s losing team plays earlier Saturday for the district’s No. 3 berth in the state playoffs.

Horizon’s 7-6 and 3-0 wins at Heppner were the Hawks’ sixth and seventh successive league victories.

Horizon never trailed against Heppner, a semifinalist in last year’s state playoffs. In the opener, starter Mitch Engel pitched five strong innings, before giving way to Sam Anthony in the sixth. In the second game, Jake Wells earned the pitching win, with two innings of relief help from Max Totaro.

Offensively, Ian Rasmussen had three hits in the first game, including a two-RBI double in the third inning giving Horizon a 4-1 lead. Heppner used three hits and two errors to tie the game 4-4 in the bottom half of the inning. Horizon took the lead for good in the top of the fifth, when Anthony had a two-RBI double and later scored on Jeff Wilkins’ single.

Wells helped his own cause in the second game with a fourth-inning double that scored two runs. The righty allowed two hits and struck out six in 4 1/3 innings.

Golf

Horizon’s Austin Requa was the lone qualifier for the 1A OSAA state golf championships this week in Banks. The sophomore qualified for the tournament with a 36-hole total of 175 at the district championships last week at Pendleton. The 88, 87 score was enough for fifth place at the tournament.