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Friday Baseball — Los Molinos at Esparto, 4:30 p.m. Baseball — Red Bluff at Shasta, 4 p.m. Softball — Los Molinos at Esparto, 4:30 p.m. Softball — West Valley at Corning, 3 p.m., doubleheader Track — Gary Burton Invitational at Corning, Noon Tennis — EAL Champ at Foothill, NALChamp at Anderson Sports 1B Friday May 7, 2010 One last defensive stand Red Bluff wins league golf championship, Frantz 1st The Red Bluff Spartans captured the Eastern Athletic League golf championship, Thursday, edging out rival Chico by two points in the overall standings. Freshman Daniel Frantz shot an 81 and won the indi- vidual EAL title. Brad Patchen shot an 88, Pete Mitzel an 89, Drew Wag- ner a 91, Bryan Benton a 96 and Shane Graham shot a 98 to round out the Spartans day at Gold Hills. The rest of the Spartans golf team is made up of Owen Dahl, Devin Gall, Blake Gardner, Justin Martinson, Cody Robertson and Halee Waelty. They are coached by Elena Tomasetti. Red Bluff Little League Junior-Senior Sign-ups Sign-ups for the junior-senior divisions of baseball and softball will take place at 10:30 a.m., Sunday at Berrendos School. The cost is $75 per child and the divisions are for 13 to 15 year-olds. For more information call Scott at 736-5822. Sun Oaks Aquatics Sign-ups Daily News photo by Rich Greene Emilee Bickert slides past a Shasta defender during the second half of Thursday’s game. By RICH GREENE season. DN Sports Editor For the second time this season the Spartans couldn’t register a goal against Shasta. But for the second time this season, the Lady Wolves couldn’t break the Red Bluff defense either. Red Bluff and Shasta battled to their second 0-0 tie of the season, Thursday, in what was a fitting scoreline to end the Lady Spartans While Red Bluff struggled offen- sively in 2010, their defensive play sparkled. Red Bluff allowed just 14 goals in 14 Eastern Athletic League games to finish with a mark of 2-9-3 in the EAL and 2-11-3 overall. During their last home game senior defenders Miranda Clawson and Jessica Rabalais held a firm back line once again. Senior goaltender Jaklyn Wheel- er once again made a number of remarkable saves in net to pitch yet another Spartans shutout. Emilee Bickert, Taylor Wailes and Emily Umberger pushed hard for a goal, but couldn’t crack the Shasta defense. “They pretty much epitomize the student-athlete,” coach Geoff Bar- row said of his senior class. “Gra- cious kids, easy to be around, sup- port each other — just good people on and off the field.” McColpin, Red Bluff blank Shasta By RICHGREENE DN Sports Editor It took the Lady Spartans awhile to heat up offensive- ly, Thursday, but Megan McColpin made sure they had all the time they needed. McColpin and Shasta’s Sarah Femmel both took no- hitters into the fifth inning in what appeared to be a game headed toward a pitchers dual. It wasn’t to be. The Lady Spartans erupt- ed for a six-run two-out rally in the fifth inning to earn a 6- 0 win and improve to 10-1 in the Eastern Athletic League. McColpin was firing on all cylinders for Red Bluff, setting down the first 13 bat- ters before Shasta’s Andrea Davis blooped a ball into shallow right field. However Red Bluff right fielder Ste- vie Boone hustled to it and threw out Davis at first base keeping the perfect game in tact. It didn’t matter however, as the very next batter, Rachel Yelverton ripped a no-doubt double to left field. McColpin responded with one of her six strikeouts on the day. She allowed just one more hit in the game. Red Bluff was also able to break up Femmel’s no-hit stuff in the fifth inning. After Boone reached on a Femmel error to start the inning, Emily McEnaney ripped a single up the mid- dle. Two Spartan outs later, Boone and McEnaney were sitting on third and second base with Brittany Fletcher facing a full count. Fletcher stepped out of the batter’s box, stepped back in and smashed a dou- ble to give Red Bluff a 2-0 lead. Spartans coach J Howell tried to fire up his team from the third base coaches box with a yell of, “we’re not done!” Etzler The Spartans weren’t. Still with two outs, Bryce doubled home Fletcher and then came home to score on an RBI single by Krista Rodriguez. If you’re interested in joining a competitive and fun swim team this summer, the Sun Oaks Aquatics Racing Swim Team will be holding sin-ups Saturday at Star- bucks Coffee on Adobe Road. Cost to swim for the summer is $150, which includes USASwimming registration. Scott Teeters, former Division I swim coach, will be the coach in Red Bluff for the summer. All swimmers ages six to 18 are welcome to swim. For more information contact Kathy Brandt at 528- 8754 or kandjbrandt@msn.com. Raiders release JaMarcus Russell ALAMEDA (AP) — Three years, more than $39 million and only seven wins as the starting quarter- back for the Oakland Raiders. The verdict is in on JaMarcus Russell’s career in Oakland and he just might be the NFL’s biggest draft bust. The Raiders released Russell on Thurs- day, just three years after making him the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft. The decision came less than two weeks after Oakland acquired Jason Campbell from Washing- ton to take over at quarterback. It signifies that owner Al Davis finally lost patience with the immensely talented but unproductive player he drafted in 2007 against the wishes of former coach Lane Kiffin. ‘‘We wish him well,’’ senior executive John Herrera told The Associated Press. Russell will now be considered one of the biggest busts in NFL draft history, joining the likes of Ryan Leaf, Ki-Jana Carter, Akili Smith, Tony Mandarich, Charles Rogers, Heath Shuler and Blair Thomas on that list. Russell showed up at last week’s minicamp, saying he JaMarcus Russell would keep coming to work until told otherwise. He looked decent in the first of five practices last weekend, but got less work as the weekend went on, and the decision to cut ties finally was made. The Raiders paid Russell about $36.4 mil- lion through last season. They still owe him $3 million more, putting the final tally on his earnings at about $39.4 million. But the team saved $6.45 million by not having him on the roster in 2010. Daily News photo by Rich Greene Megan McColpin fires a pitch home,Thursday, against Shasta. Jerilynn Purcell then drew a walk and Haley Matheson brought them both home with an RBI sin- gle that was misplayed by the Shasta outfield. The game had went from 0-0 to a 6-0 Red Bluff lead in short order. McColpin didn’t walk any batters in her seven innings of work and struck out the last three Shasta bat- ters she faced. “It’s more intense when we don’t have any runs, but it just gets me more fired up,” McColpin said. Her battery mate also had a big day, both behind the plate and at it. Fletcher went 2-for-3 with a walk, double and drove in two runs on a day where most of the bats on both teams were silenced. As for the full count, two-out situation in the fifth inning, Fletcher said her approach was simple. “Just look for my pitch and if it wasn’t there, take my base,” she said. It also didn’t take her long to realize what kind of day McColpin was going to have. “When we warmed up,” Fletcher said of when she noticed her pitcher had brought her A-game. It was the third Spartans game in three days as Red Bluff was attempting to make up for the many rain outs accumulated so far. Howell said it added to the slow start. “It’s always hard to play that third game, whether it’s that third game in a day or third game in a week,” he said. With the way McColpin was pitching, the Lady Spar- tans had as many innings as they needed to work their way through it. Red Bluff can capture the EAL title outright with a Chico loss to Oroville on Friday night. If Chico doesn’t lose, the Spartans can do the job themselves on Tuesday. Red Bluff then travels to Pleasant Valley on Wednes- day and hosts Oroville on Friday to close out the year. Since the start of the common draft in 1967, only one other No. 1 pick was released this quickly in his NFL career. Indianapolis cut 1992 top pick Steve Emtman after three sea- sons, but that was more because of injuries than production. Emtman played three more seasons for Miami and Washing- ton. It remains to be seen whether any team will give the 24- year-old Russell another shot. Davis believed Russell could turn the fortunes of his struggling franchise when he drafted him. He stood by him during his struggles, revealing when he fired Kiffin in 2008 that the coach did not want him. ‘‘He is a great player. Get over it and coach this team on the field,’’ Davis read from a letter he sent Kiffin before the firing. ‘‘That is what you were hired to do. We can win with this team.’’ But the Raiders were unable to win with Russell at the helm and Davis allowed coach Tom Cable, Kiffin’s succes- sor, to bench Russell midway through last season. The move was popular in the locker room and gave the team a spark on the field as Bruce Gradkowski led comeback wins over Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Davis was not satisfied with Grad- kowski as his standard bearer and the Raiders were linked to possible offseason deals for Donovan McNabb and Ben Roethlisberger. While the Raiders downplayed how serious those talks ever got, they did make the move for another quar- terback when they acquired Campbell from Washington for a 2012 fourth-round draft pick. The team showed confidence in Campbell by extending his contract through 2011, giving him a $4.5 million deal for that season on top of the $3.14 million he is owed this season. Russell won only seven of his 25 starts as the Raiders extended an NFL-worst streak to seven straight seasons with at least 11 losses. He completed just 52.1 percent of his passes in his career with 18 touch- See RUSSELL, page 2B