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CHIPTHOMPSON-DAILYNEWS Mercy High Schools Richie Borges, bottom right, signs a letter of intent Monday at the school to play baseball for Ferrum College in Virginia. Pictured with Borges, from top le , are Athletic Director Candi Keller, his mother Terri Medeiros and Coach Brian Medeiros. ByChipThompson editor@redbluffdailynews.com @editorchip on Twitter RED BLUFF MercyHighSchool's Richie Borges signed a letter of intent Monday to play baseball for the Ferrum College Panthers in Virginia. Family members, former coaches, teammates and fellow students gathered at the school after classes Monday for a sign- ing ceremony. "I'm pretty excited, but it's nerve-racking too because it's so far away," Borges said. A three-sport athlete, Borges was a right-handed pitcher for the Warriors and played first and third. He was the Warriors' kicker and played linebacker and offen- sive line on the football team and played varsity basketball his ju- nior and senior years. Borges said baseball is his fa- vorite sport and the highlight of his years at Mercy is a one-hitter he pitched against the Redding Christian Lions as a junior. An- other memorable game was this season against the Big Valley Car- dinals when he struck out 16 bat- ters and hit a game winning 3-run home run. In college, Borges said he ex- pects to play first base and focus MERCY WARRIORS BorgestoplayballinVirginia Signs letter of intent Monday for Ferrum College "I'm pretty excited, but it's nerve- racking too because it's so far away." – Richie Borges Online: Be the first to get results from local athletes and teams at REDBLUFF.COM/SPORTS. By Joseph Shufelberger jshufelberger@chicoer.com @JShufelberger on Twitter BUTTE VALLEY Chico High se- nior Lukas Bolen is no stranger to big games or big moments. He made several more for the Chico High baseball team and even saved one for the postgame celebration after leading the Pan- thers to a 3-2 victory over Red Bluff in the Northern Section Di- vision II Championship on Satur- day at Butte College. Backed by RBI singles from Cole Fiori in his first two at-bats for a 3-0 lead after two innings, Bolen pitched a complete game but only after stranding the ty- ing run at third base and the go- ahead run at second base to end the matchup of the last two sec- tion champs. "If you get an early lead with Lukas on the mound, he'll carry you all the way," Fiori said. "You can jump on his back, and there's no doubt." There might have been a lit- tle doubt at least for some of the Chico faithful after the Spartans pieced together a two-out rally in the seventh with three straight hits to draw within a run. "I can relax and catch my breath now," Chico coach Chip PREP BASEBALL REDBLUFFTAKES SECOND IN TITLE GAME The Chico High baseball team rushes the field to celebrate with their pitcher Lukas Bolen (23) a er the team won the Northern Section Division II Championship on Saturday at Butte College. PHOTOS BY EMILY BERTOLINO — ENTEPRISE-RECORD Chico High's Lukas Bolen, front le , leads the Panthers as they shake hands with the Red Bluff Spartans a er the section final. BASEBALL Prep CHICO 3, RED BLUFF 2 Red Bluff 000 100 1 — 2 8 3 Chico 120 000 x — 3 5 2 ButtonandTweedt;BolenandFritter,D.Smith (4), Fritter (6). Top hitters — Red Bluff: Pritchard 2x4, 2B; Youngblood 2x4; Edwards 2x4, 2-2B; Chico: Fiori 2x2, 2 RBI. THESCORE Online: Be the first to get results from local athletes and teams at REDBLUFF.COM/SPORTS. By Curtis Pashelka Bay Area News Group ST. LOUIS Joe Pavelski said it was going to take everybody if the Sharks were going to get the result they wanted in Game 5 of the Western Conference fi- nal against the St. Louis Blues. But when the game reached its most critical juncture Mon- day, everybody turned to him. Pavelski scored the tying goal on the power play late in the second period and tipped in the eventual winner early in the third as the Sharks moved to within one game of their first ap- pearance in the Stanley Cup fi- nals with a riveting 6-3 win over the Blues. Chris Tierney scored an empty net goal with 53.9 sec- onds to go as the Sharks earned the biggest win in the franchise's 25-year history. Joel Ward added an unassisted goal, his second of the game, with 33 seconds left. Pavelski also assisted on Marc-Edouard Vlasic's first pe- riod goal as the Sharks took a three-games-to-two lead with Game 6 on Wednesday in San Jose. Joe Thornton added two as- sists and Martin Jones, who was pulled midway through the second period finished with 18 saves to help push the Blues to the brink of elimination. With the Sharks trailing 3-2, the Sharks scored their second power play goal of the game with 1:27 to go in the second period as Pavelski one-timed a pass to the front of the net by Thornton. Then 16 seconds into the third, Pavelski redirected a shot from the point by Brent Burns past Blues goalie Jake Allen for a 4-3 lead. "As a group, we've done it all year that it's not one guy in here that has to get the job done," NHL PLAYOFFS Sharks one win away from first Stanley Cup finals BETHEL ISLAND The Chico State University duo of Sean Huber and Travis Strain, both of Chico, won the Fishing League Worldwide College Fishing Western Confer- ence event on the California Delta Saturday with five bass weighing 16 pounds, 3 ounces. The victory earned the club $2,000 and qualified the team for the 2017 FLW College Fishing Na- tional Championship. "We had already qualified for the National Championship ear- lier this season at Clear Lake, so we came into this event just fish- ing for fun," said Huber. "To win is a really pleasant surprise. Even when Travis and I were standing in the weigh-in line we had no idea that we had enough to win." "This is our first season fishing FLW College Fishing and it has been a blast," said Strain. "We had some trolling motor problems earlier this week and we weren't really able to get in any time to practice so we decided to just go out and fish anything that looked good." Huber and Strain, both juniors majoring in construction man- agement, said that they managed eight keeper bass throughout the day, throwing weedless soft-plas- tics near tules in the Piper Slough area. They caught fish on three baits — an unnamed 7-inch green- pumpkin stick bait, a Missile Baits D Bomb and a green-pumpkin Z- Man ChatterBait paired with a 3-inch Keitech swimbait. "We tried to keep it pretty sim- ple today," Strain said. "A lot of other teams were trying to punch, but we knew that we could catch a solid limit with the soft plas- tics. We were not around many other boats at all, and I think do- ing something a little different was the key." The top 10 teams that advanced to the 2017 College Fishing Na- tional Championship are: 1st: California State University- Chico — Sean Huber and Travis Strain, both of Chico, five bass, 16- 3, $2,000 2nd: California Polytechnic State University — Christopher LeClair, Santa Clarita, and Clay- ton Lauchland, Lodi, five bass, 16- 3, $1,000 3rd: University of California- Merced — Gregory Dooman, Mer- ced, and Adan Arroyo, Napa, five bass, 15-7, $500 4th: California State Univer- sity-East Bay — Junjie Wang, Cas- tro Valley, and Yuan Liu, Hay- ward, five bass, 14-3, $500 5th: Oregon State University — Zach MacDonald, Willits, and Zach Martinez, Calif., five bass, 13-12, $500 6th: Humboldt State University — Tristan Merlaud, Arcata, and Rudy Directo, Alpine, five bass, 13-12 7th: Southwestern Oregon Community College — Christian Somerville, Allegany, Oregon, and Shawn Cook, North Bend, Ore- gon, five bass, 13-6 8th: Sonoma State Univer- sity — Tyler Owens, Orange, and Jake Davidson, Sebastopol, five bass, 13-3 9th: Northern Arizona Univer- sity — Gunnar Stanton, Boulder City, Nevada, and Gunner Camp- FISHING Chico State students win Western Conference BORGES PAGE 2 FISHING PAGE 2 BASEBALL PAGE 2 SHARKS PAGE 2 SPORTS » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, May 24, 2016 MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS B1