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Tuesday Boys BBall — Willows at Corning, 7 p.m. Girls BBall — Corning at Willows, 7 p.m. Boys Soccer — Corning at Orland, 3:15 p.m. Girls Soccer — Corning at Orland, 3:15 p.m. NBA — Pacers at Kings, 7 p.m., CSNC NBA— Spurs at Warriors, 7:30 p.m., CSNB Sports 1B Tuesday November 30, 2010 Christmas list Westbrook, 49ers roll Dear Santa: I’ve tried to be a good little sports editor this year. I’ve done my best to spell every kid’s name right, introduced new features and got to every game I could. Because of all that hard work I’m hoping you can make some of my Christmas wishes come true. Yes, I still need you to come through and assist me with my December bills, the address to an honest mechanic who won’t scrooge me on my smog check and some new video games would be nice — but for the most part the following are wishes the whole community can enjoy this winter sports season... Rich Greene • Santa you can start early with my Christmas list at 5 p.m. Thursday. That’s when I need a duplication machine. You see Mercy plays the Bulldogs at the Block LM varsity boys basketball tournament and what Iwant is a repeat of last year’s game. It might have been one of the first games of the year, but it was also one of the best. The Bulldogs were trailing by five points with 17 sec- onds left when J.C. Conrad nailed a 3-pointer. Following a Mercy free throw, J.C.’s brother Sean made a three as the buzzer was sounding to send the game to overtime. Los Molinos went on to win 66-61. Things turned out just fine for Mercy too. The War- riors wound up the section champs after all. • The next thing Iwant is just a tiny piece of fabric. I want Red Bluff wrestler Dillon Reid to get his fourth state patch in four years. Few wrestlers in California ever accomplish this feat and Reid has the opportunity and ability to do it. While you’re handing out state patches how about throw another one Corning’s way too. I hear that Calvin Meister kid has been a good boy. •Next Iwant some magical basketballs or at least ones that bounce straight. Last year the balls the Spartans boys basketball team used just didn’t seem to bounce their way when they needed them to. They lost six games by fewer than five points. Storm and Ian sure would appreciate it. •I would like some indestructible bones and liga- ments to share with the Lady Spartans. All they want is an injury free season so they can see what Lily Brose & Co. can do over the course of a full year. In her first year, Brose averaged 18.1 points per game before getting hurt. That was the 26th best scoring per- formance by a freshman in the entire U.S. of A. • Now, I know you’re a big Corning fan, what with sporting all that red all of the time so it should go with- out saying the Cards need some holiday gifts too. How about a pair of replacement parts. Both the boys and girls basketball teams will be gun- ning for their third consecutive league championship, but both need to replace what they lost through graduation. The boys need the height and the girls the leadership they lost through their departed seniors. If you help them with that then Tyler, Cameron, Brit- tney and Shelby can take it from there. • While we’re talking about Corning, when it comes to the boys soccer team, could you can just leave them alone. That’s right don’t give them anything. They’re fine how they are. The defending section champs are 33-2-1 over the past two seasons, so things are going great. What you save on Corning’s soccer team’s present, you can spend elsewhere. Like maybe, you could help out with this whole ice rink in Red Bluff idea. That should be right up your alley. Thanks Santa, your friend, Rich ******************** Since there were no prep games this past holiday week, the Daily News has decided to take Wednesday’s Athletes of the Week feature and re-dedicate it to the Coaches of the Fall Season. A coach of a boys team and girls team were chosen for their work throughout the fall season. Although I hate to give away surprises, I need to take this space to explain one of the award winners. On Wednesday, the Daily News will name Mercy 8- man football coach Paul Vietti as one of the Coaches of the Fall Season. As some may be aware, Vietti is also one of the reg- ular sponsors of the Athletes of the Week program. No sponsor, including Vietti, has or will have a say in who is selected for the weekly awards. That was also the case when the coaches were picked by the Daily News staff for Wednesday’s edition. This Wednesday, the Daily News will run an in-house advertisement to go along with the feature. With that housekeeping out of the way, let me be the first to congratulate Coach Vietti, Coach (To Be Announced Wednesday), the fall Athletes of the Week and the soon to be discovered winter batch. Daily News Sports Editor Rich Greene can be reached at 527-2151, ext. 109 or by e-mail at sports@redbluffdailynews.com. But you already knew that, didn’t you, Santa? Courtesy photo Willie Miller (right) won his third Wilcox Oaks Golf Club Champions title in four years.The 21- year-old is the son of David and Debbie Miller and is an engineering student at California State, Chico. Malcolm Macdonald (left) has finished second to Miller in those three title matches. Macdonald won his second consecutive senior title. Not pictured is Steve Judson who won the handicap division championship. Raiders reeling after 2nd straight loss Oakland Raiders ALAMEDA (AP) — The once-vaunted running game has stalled, the defense is struggling to stop both the run and the pass, and the Oakland Raiders have had little success offensively no matter who has been playing quarter- back. The three-game winning streak that had the Raiders (5-6) in first place in the AFC West just two weeks ago is a distant memory fol- lowing a second straight lopsided loss. ‘‘It seems like everything is going wrong right now,’’ safety Tyvon Branch said Monday as the Raiders tried to recover from a 33-17 loss to Miami. ‘‘We haven’t been clicking, and when we were winning those games back- to-back we were clicking on all cylinders. And we just haven’t been lately.’’ Oakland now sits in third place, two games behind Kansas City (7-4) with essentially a must-win game on tap this week against streaking San Diego (6-5). 49ers 27 Arizona 6 GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Brian Westbrook’s big games weren’t all in his rearview mirror after all. The 31-year-old running back rushed for 136 yards and a touchdown in place of the injured Frank Gore and the San Francisco 49ers sent punchless Arizona to its sixth straight loss, 27-6 Monday night in a shower of boos from the Cardinals home crowd. Westbrook, who had 9 yards on five carries all season, ran 23 times in his 21st career 100-yard game, but first since Dec. 7, 2008, for Philadelphia against the New York Giants. San Francisco (4-7), beaten at home by Tampa Bay 21-0 last week, improved to 3-1 since Troy Smith became starting quarterback and pulled within a game of co-leaders St. Louis and Seattle in the anemic NFC West. Arizona (3-8), two-time defending division champion, has not lost this many in a row since dropping eight straight in 2006, Dennis Green’s final season as coach. The 49ers rushed for 261 yards, by far their season high and the most allowed by the Cardinals this season. Westbrook, who led the league in rushing in 2007, was released a year ago after eight, often-spectacular sea- sons with Philadelphia, a move caused by a combination of his age and injury history as well as the $7.5 million he would have been due this season. He signed with San Francisco on Aug. 16, but had hardly played at all until Gore went down on Monday. The Arizona defense did not pro- vide much resistance as San Francisco pushed around the home team at the line of scrimmage from the start. Gore injured a hip in the first quar- ter and briefly tried to come back before going out for good in the second period. He had 25 and 15 yards in his first two carries, a sign of things to come against an Arizona defense that entered the game last in the league in points allowed. Smith didn’t need to pass much, completing 11 of 23 for 129 yards with one touchdown and an interception. San Francisco, a team that has not scored more than 24 points in a game all season, led 21-6 at the half. The 49ers hadn’t scored that many by half- time in two years. The Cardinals committed their 27th turnover of the season on their first play from scrimmage when Derek Ander- son and Beanie Wells botched a hand- off and Aubrayo Franklin recovered for San Francisco. On the next play, Smith threw 38 yards to Michael Crab- tree for the touchdown, the receiver making a diving catch in the end zone. Wells gained a measure of redemp- tion on the next possession. Playing as a wideout to the right, he caught a 43- yard pass from Anderson but a season- long red zone problem continued and Jay Feely’s 31-yard field goal made it 7-3. Ted Ginn Jr. had a kickoff return of 41 yards and a punt return for 42, both leading to San Francisco touchdowns. The 49ers went 55 yards in 10 plays after the kickoff, Anthony Dixon leap- ing over from the 1-yard line to make it 14-3 with 29 seconds to go in the first. Shane Andrus, kicking in place of injured Joe Nedney, missed a 47-yard field goal on San Francisco’s first pos- session. He also had a 37-yarder blocked by Dominque Rodgers-Cro- martie in the third quarter. Arizona blew an opportunity late in the first half after Smith’s pass bounced off the hands of Vernon Davis and was intercepted by Michael Adams at the San Francisco 42. Anderson threw three incompletions and the Cardinals punted. Willie Miller wins third title MCT photo Raiders wide receiver Louis Murphy stretches for yardage, Sunday. The Raiders are looking at another quarterback change this week. After leading Oakland to its first three-game winning streak in eight years, Jason Camp- bell was pulled in the sec- ond half of a 35-3 loss at Pittsburgh on Nov. 21. Coach Tom Cable origi- nally said that Campbell would remain the starter but switched up last week and went with Bruce Gradkows- ki, who lost the job when he separated his right shoulder Oct. 10. Gradkowski struggled in his return, throwing two interceptions and leading the Raiders to only one offensive touchdown before re-injuring his shoulder on Oakland’s final offensive play. ‘‘It’s frustrating because you don’t get that much time in with the quarterback because we changed,’’ receiver Louis Murphy said. ‘‘But at the end of the day we still have to go out and perform with whoever is back there and they’re both See LOSS, page 2B

