Too Easy for Two Straight

As everyone in town has heard, the OIT men’s basketball team moved up to number six in the national rankings. Will this remain? The vote came after the win against SOU and before the game against NCC. The “easy” win against SOU came at no

surprise. The men dominated the game, winning 90-53. With a near 20-point lead at the half, the owls didn’t let down. They again outscored the Raiders by 20 to get the 37 point win.

The game, despite the score, was an exciting one to watch. The best part was that every player on the team got at least 10 minutes of playing time. Also, everyone scored and there were four players who boasted double figures.

It is not that SOU played bad. I mean, they shot well from everywhere. But, the Owl’s got off 41 more shots, and on top of that, shot a higher percentage. Tech also out-rebounded the Raiders 49-24, with 21 offensive rebounds. Turnovers were a big factor too. OIT only had 7 for the entire game, but forced 16 upon SOU.

The game against NCC was pretty much the same story. I went to dinner with my family, so I did not get to see the first half, but I arrived in time to see the second half. The men stayed at a comfortable lead the entire time, making it a relatively boring game with little exciting action. They slowly increased their 11-point half-time lead until they reached the final 27-point lead to end the game.

The Owl’s shot exceptionally well, shooting over 53 percent from the field, compared to NCC’s 37 percent. The Owl’s only committed eight turnovers while forcing 17 from the Beacons. The rebounds were pretty even between teams, and for the second time in a row, the Owls’ posted four players in double figures. Christian and Fiegi both had 14 points apiece; Jguwon had 13 and Mike Neiraeth lead all scorers with 15.

Both the men and women’s teams rode back to Klamath that night with a good feeling and a sense of accomplishment after the successful week of basketball. Both teams look forward to “senior” weekend next weekend in the games against Concordia and Corban.

Tech Women Win Four Straight

Tuesday night’s game against the SOU Raiders was a night to remember. We had a 13 point lead heading into half-time and it seemed like all we had to do was keep doing what we did for the first 20 minutes and the victory would be rather easy. Well, just as anyone who watches sports knows, the second half can be a lot different from the first.

SOU is known for their relentless full-court press, so I was surprised to see that they did not run it against us the first half. When we had the lead at half, I knew they would have to change something…the press was most likely to come.

SOU runs their press to rattle their opponents and get them to do things that they would not normally do--like take quick shots, turn the ball over, and start bickering amongst yourselves. It worked for them, helping them catch up and outscoring us by nine in the second half, but it wasn’t enough. They finally took the lead with under five minutes left in the game, but couldn’t hold on to it.

The one thing that did plague us was fouls. Meagan Miyasaka and I both fouled out of the game with a significant amount of time left on the clock. Tabatha Cooke stepped up and gave us some important minutes. She took over the position of point guard when Meagan was no longer able to play. She had a solid game, before she fouled out with 19 seconds left. She had a key steal and rebounded well. Megan Ross also came into the game, playing 27 minutes, and putting up some great numbers. She had 10 rebounds, 5 assists and NO TURNOVERS. Playing 27 and not ever turning the ball over is miraculous! She really took care of the ball, helped others score and solidified the great defensive effort by all the team members by grabbing 10 defensive rebounds.

The second half was the most intense basketball we’ve playing in a long time. I had a little different perspective than usual, sitting on the bench when it came to crunch time. After fouling out the best I could do was cheer on the team and support them in their great effort against SOU. I was so nervous! It is funny because when I’m on the court in a close game, I don’t get nervous or worried; but sitting on the sideline is a completely different story! My legs were aching and shaking—that’s how worried and nervous I was. It was insane, and all I have to say is that I’m so glad we won!

In my opinion free throws is where we won the game. We shot 24-28 from the line; that’s almost 86%! SOU only made 25-39: 64%. They had a lot more chances than us, but we made them when it counted, and they didn’t. It was a well-fought victory that got everyone pumped up. After that win we were ready for anything…and it’s a good thing.

Saturday night’s game against Northwest Christian College was probably the slowest start to game I have ever experienced. It is a darn good thing that we play exceptional defense. It seemed like we could not score for the longest time! But I guess it is okay, because the other team could not score either.

The goal going into the NCC game was to get better. We had played NCC twice before, and each time we really didn’t get any better and posted a score that was too close for comfort. By the scores of their other games, it seemed like we should be beating them by 20. For some reason we never played that well against them. I was glad to say at the end of the game that we did get better and played much better against them the third time than we did in the previous two attempts.

This game was especially exciting for me because I had quite a bit of family and friends, including old coaches, come to the game (since my home town is near Eugene). It was great to get to see everyone and play in front of people that haven’t seen me play in years. Also, the two seniors on the NCC team, Amy Croll and Kristen Nelson, are former teammates of mine. I started playing with Amy in 5^th grade on an AAU team and have known her ever since, and I played with Kristen at Lane Community College. It was special to get to be there for their senior night, although I did feel a little bad that I couldn’t let them win their last home game.

The only thing I was concerned about was the complaints that came to the athletic department about the OIT fans. Supposedly some fans were being rude and overly obnoxious. I don’t know specifics (except that it was mainly during the women’s game), or who the complainants were referring to, but it was troublesome to hear; especially when we have such a great fan base. I hope whoever was complaining is mistaken, but if not, I hope it doesn’t happen again.

Men and Women Sweep in Portland

It was a big weekend for both the men and women’s basketball teams this weekend. Both teams traveled to Portland to play Warner Pacific and Cascade College. The women needed the wins to contest for the fourth-place finish in the conference and get a home playoff game. The men needed the win to keep the first-place tie with Eastern Oregon. The trip was as successful as they come.

The women boasted an 82-48 win over Warner Pac while the men came back from a late run to win 79-69. Saturday night against Cascade resulted in two, almost-twenty-point wins. The women won 57-38 and the men 82-64.

Friday night’s women’s game was one of the most fun games all year! The half-time score of 47-21 tells it all. We played great defense, scored a lot, and had a grand old time! We came away with the game at the very beginning, and from there on, things just sort of fell into place. We shot extremely well, making 44.4% of our field goal attempts and 50% of our 3-point attempts. We also shot over 86% from the free-throw line.

The men’s game Friday night was a little different. They came away with a 48-33 half-time lead. That’s a comfortable lead, you’d think; right? Well shooting got the Warner Pac Knights back into the game. They were down by about 20, and within a matter of a couple minutes, were only down by four! But, our men kept their composure and withheld the run to come away with the 10-point victory. The owl’s did miss a few free-throws early in the fouling process, which got me a little nervous, but they started to get it together and made the shots when it counted. It was a fun and exciting game, and just like last year the gym was packed full! I could hardly see the court there were so many people crowded around.

Saturday night had a little different setting. Besides the dull lighting and a floor full of dead-spots, there were no crowds chanting on the sidelines and the stands were not full. The only chanting I heard came from the left of me, where some OIT fans would yell, “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oiu, oiu, oiu.” Of course, this was said on behalf of Josh Wetzler, every time he made a play. It was great to hear and made me laugh. It was much appreciated since I began to get rather bored and antsy during the men’s game. The great thing about the game was that, besides Ryan Fiegi’s 22 points, everyone else was relatively even in points. Nobody else tallied over 10 points, and everyone had at least one rebound. That’s a team effort right there!

The women’s game was one of those that felt like it lasted forever. It seemed like we just couldn’t quite get it together in the first half, barely going into half-time with a three-point lead. The second half was another story. We played phenomenal defense and held Cascade to just 9.5% from the field. That has to be some kind of record. It was crazy. And what was even more exciting is that we finally got our high-low game to consistently work. They put a guard on me, and their post on our post, so I went down low and posted up. I got stellar passes from our high post and was able to convert them to lay-ups, multiple times. It was really exciting!

After the great play from both teams this weekend, I can only hope that it will carry over to the upcoming games against Southern Oregon on Tuesday and Northwest Christian on Saturday. As always, they are both critical games, and can definitely be won, but if either team is not prepared to play, the results could be devastating.

The Lone Senior: Spotlight on #15 Ryan Fiegi

Ryan Fiegi, the current star of the Men’s Basketball team, started playing basketball when he could first walk. His brother and him started playing YMCA ball when they were in fourth and fifth grade; “It helped that he [his brother] liked basketball too…we competed against each other from then on.”

Ryan and his brother grew up playing sports: “My dad played basketball in high school, my mom wasn’t that athletic, but yeah, we played ever since we could throw a ball or pick up a basketball.” He played “anything you can think of…basketball, soccer, flag football, baseball, t-ball…”

But, believe it or not, basketball was not Ryan’s favorite sport growing up. “Soccer was my favorite when I was younger, I think just because all my friends played soccer. It probably wasn’t until AAU, 6^th or 7^th grade, that I quit baseball and just played football, basketball and soccer. I think that’s when I really started liking basketball.”

In high school, Ryan played football and basketball. He also did track one year, participating in jumping events, but he said it didn’t amount to much of anything.

Ryan also said “football was more of a way to stay in shape in the fall, and a lot of my friends played football in high school. I was the quarterback so I didn’t really like the hitting part of it, which is probably why I was the quarterback. I just had to stand back and throw it.”

Ryan’s senior year of high school he broke his color bone playing football, so he was out for the rest of the season. He says “it just happened that I got hurt and it made me just really focus on basketball after that.”

Right out of high school Ryan attended Western Oregon University where he played on the Men’s Basketball team—and really liked it. He was planning on staying for four years, but then his coach got offered a better job and left after his freshman year. He said he was really close to his head coach; “he was the one that recruited me, and we were really close and it hurt me to think that he was leaving. I didn’t feel like I had any ties to Western after he left.”

Coach Miles recruited Ryan out of high school, so as soon as he heard the Western coach was leaving, he “called up coach miles and was like, ‘hey, you have any money down there and would you like to have me?’ He [Coach Miles] said ‘yeah, I’ll try to find some money for you. He says “I knew coach miles and OIT had a great chance to go to the national tournament each year and do good,” so he wasn’t worried about coming to the program.

It has been a great two-and-a-half seasons for Ryan, but this year he’s finding himself in a little different shoes than what he is used to. “The major thing is the different position for me. Having Levell, he was one of the best point guards I’ve ever played with, so that helped having him run the show the past two years. I was kind of the second, third man, however you want to look at it—behind Andre my sophomore year and then Josh Garrett last year. We’ve always had kind of a three-man game going with guards so that’s the biggest thing, having to play point guard. But also being the only senior on the team. It’s got its advantages and disadvantages I think. The major advantage is towards the end of the game people know who is going to get the ball, and that’s been fun. That Concordia game I’ve never felt anything like that before. I was just in the zone, or whatever you want to call it. That was fun…but it’s been a lot of fun to know that I’m the go-to guy. I haven’t been that before. And I think everyone knows that and hopefully it will help us down the road.”

As far as the rest of the season goes, Ryan said that “the second half of season is going to be so tough in conference, I mean, just look at last night [loss to Evergreen State]. Every game we have to come and play. Every team, every night can beat us and they can beat Eastern and they can beat Warner…I think, hopefully our inexperience doesn’t com into play at the end. There are only four or five of us that have gone to the National tournament and played and had significant minutes. So hopefully that doesn’t come into play down toward the end of the season and we can keep what we’ve done and not forget that we are still 17-4 and remember that we are still a good team. The main goal is just to get to Branson. Because once you’re in Branson any team can win. Just look at what happened to Northwest last year; they went to the final four. Once you’re there, you play defense and you make some shots anyone can win that. And that’s one thing I’ve learned going back there twice is no matter how good a team is…you go in there and anyone can be anyone. It’s such a tough, tough, tough thing to win back there. That’s the main goal, and once we’re there I think we have a good chance to do some good things there.”

Looking beyond basketball, Ryan will graduate this year with an accounting degree and has already accepted a job with Moss Adam’s, the largest accounting firm in Medford. This is just along the lines of what he had planned: “I always knew that college was just a stepping stone toward your career. And I knew I wasn’t going to play basketball the rest of my life. So I just wanted to go to college and get my schooling paid for with basketball; use basketball as a means of getting an education. It was never about trying to be the best I could ever be in college, playing basketball.”

He did just that. Now he’s looking beyond a Bachelor’s degree, with his long-term goal of eventually making partner. To start out, Ryan plans to work while going to graduate school, eventually working toward his CPA license, but not before he gets married to his high school sweetheart.

The two got engaged last August, and have set the big day for July 19, 2008. As far as the planning goes, Ryan says he didn’t help too much: “she has what she wants in her head, and she’ll ask me and I’ll say ‘yeah go do it’. But I don’t really have ideas; I mean, of course I care what it looks like, but the details are not really my thing.”

They both want to stay in Medford because both of their families are there and that’s where they want to raise a family. They will both live in Medford, moving in with her parents for however long it takes to find a place of their own. And although he’ll be in Medford, Ryan hopes to stay in touch with some of the basketball guys. “I definitely love the guys that I’ve met over here and hopefully I’ll be friends with them forever.”

Men Take Care of Business

Despite the email sent out by Valeree Lane of OIT, plenty of people attended Friday night’s game against then-number-one Eastern Oregon University. The critical game came on a spectacular night for the Owl’s. Despite the 2-point half-time deficit, the men came out fired up and pulled away the win to get the Cascade Collegiate Conference tie for first place. I’m sure Coach Miles did a little “encouraging” and “motivating” at half time, which got the guys focused and more mentally prepared for the second half.

Christian Cavanaugh had a rough time with dismal stats and much disappointment. He collected just 4 points and 3 rebounds. Ryan Fiegi, as usual, was high-scorer of the game with 33. I would like to commend Nate Lewis who had an awesome game. He really showed how much potential he has, and I think played the best game I’ve seen him play. He’s not usually a scoring threat, although I know he’s a great shooter, because he hasn’t been shooting much. But this game he was making people guard him, and taking the ball to the hole. Amazingly, he went 100% from the field, and the free-throw line!

It was a really fun game to watch and the crowd was amazing! The fans were great, except at one point when the gym was as quiet as I have ever heard it during a men’s game. There was nobody cheering or clapping and nobody seemed to be paying attention because all I could hear was a million different conversations at once. It was kind of weird, but it was only for a little bit. Once we scored everyone went wild…that was much better!

The next night’s score was a little closer, beating College of Idaho by just nine points. It was an unusually low scoring game with a final count of 56-47. Jguwon Hogges and Ryan Beesley were the only two Owl’s to score in double figures, Jguwon with 15 and Ryan with 14. Josh Wetzler collected the most boards with 8, and Ryan Fiegi lead in assists with 8. The stats were pretty even across the board, except the Owl’s made and shot a few more baskets. Also, it was amazing that the men only committed 6 fouls throughout the entire game! COI tallied 15 total fouls, so the Owl’s must have stayed much cleaner on defense and offense. Both teams shot just six free-throws! To me, that seems crazy!

The men took care of business this weekend and still hold the tie for first place. They must stay strong and perform their best this weekend. They travel north to play Warner Pacific, who is currently tied for second with Evergreen State. Next weekend, as usual, is crucial for the Hustlin’ Owls if they want that automatic bid to Nationals.

Women Lose Despite Defense, Can’t Get it Together

We played our best defense all year on Friday night against Eastern Oregon University. Although we lost by four, I was really satisfied with the way we played. Unfortunately there are just some things you cannot control.

Going into the game we had our eye on a few girls, marked as shooters. But, we learned that they average only about 11 3-point attempts a game, mainly wanting to go inside and give it to the ‘big’ girls. Knowing that, our defense focused mostly on keeping the ball out of the paint. We did not expect them to shoot as much, and as well as they did, from the 3-piont line. Well I guess it was their night, because it seemed like they could hardly miss from beyond the arc—something they don’t normally do. We on the other hand, did not shoot as well as we usually do. I think that was the major difference in the game.

After the game I felt like we had made a huge improvement from the last couple weeks. I feel like we have been struggling a bit on either offense or defense in every game we play, but this night was different. Although we did not shoot as well from the 3-point line, I didn’t think we played badly. Despite the loss I was happy after the game.

Saturday was a completely different story. We had no trouble breaking College of Idaho’s press in the first round of conference, so none of us expected to have trouble the second time. That was a mistake. For some reason, right off the bat we had a tremendous amount of trouble getting the ball to our half of the court, or even getting it in-bounds! Granted, they did give up a few easy layups, but that’s bound to happen a little bit when you full-court press the entire game.

What frustrated me the most was when I couldn’t in-bound the ball. More often than not it is my job to get the ball in bounds. I have to find someone open enough to pass them the ball without turning it over. Yeah, easier said than done! They were face-guarding everyone, and often times the wings would not realize they needed to cut to the ball until it was almost too late.

I also think that everyone was really tired. Maybe it was from playing such great defense the night before, but I would think that by this point in the season we would be in good enough shape to be able to pull it out the second night. I guess not. We were slow getting the ball up the court. Yes, a press does do that, but we also did not push the ball when we had the opportunity. We slowed the ball down against Eastern, which worked because they are a run-and-gun team just as much as us. It knocked them off their tempo a bit. But Saturday’s slow pace was not planned; it was because nobody wanted to run (including myself).

I must say, after the game I was really upset and frustrated. It was a tough game and everyone that was there definitely knows the refs don’t help in that department. We got foul after foul called on us under the basket on their end. They called A BUNCH of blocking fouls, but they weren’t even a hard enough foul to do anything (if they were even fouls). They made so many “and-1’s” and it’s not because their post is that good. Then, down on our end we would get fouled so hard that the ball wouldn’t even make it to the rim and the referees wouldn’t blow their whistle. Then, the one time I approached the ref to ask him about the calls he wouldn’t even listen to me. As a captain to a ref I just wanted to understand what we needed to differently on both ends. I even asked politely and in a calm voice. I asked, ‘what’s the difference?’ He replied, “The ball’s being inbounded, that’s the difference.” What a jerk! He couldn’t even give me a straight answer…probably because he didn’t have one!

It was a bad night, but we’re all going to get into the gym this week, work hard, put some shots up, and get ready for Warner Pac and Cascade. Hopefully the next weekend will end in two victories, the opposite of last weekend’s turnout.