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Wednesday Baseball — Corning at Gridley, 4 p.m. Softball — West Valley at Red Bluff, 3:30 p.m. Golf — Los Molinos at Durham at Bidwell, Noon NBA — Kings at Bucks, 5p.m., CSNC NBA — Warriors at Rockets, 5:30 p.m., CSNB NBA — Spurs at Nuggets, 7:30 p.m., ESPN Sports 1B Oroville 0 Red Bluff 8 By RICH GREENE DN Sports Editor The Lady Spartans made the Oroville Tigers pay for their mis- takes, Tuesday, during an 8-0 win in Red Bluff’s home opener. Megan McColpin tossed seven shutout innings, Brittney Fletch- er hit an inside the park home run and Emily McEnaney reached safely in all four of her plate appearances as the Spartans improved to 5-1 on the season. McColpin struck out nine bat- ters and never allowed a runner past first base. She got plenty of offensive support from her teammates as well as from the Tigers, who bat- tled trouble with wild pitches and passed balls throughout the game. In the third inning, Red Bluff took advantage of those Oroville mistakes to put three runs on the board. With one down, McColpin doubled to center field. She then moved to third and scored the game’s first run on a pair of wild pitches. McEnaney kept things going for the Spartans with a triple. She then scored on a passed ball and it was 2-0 Red Bluff. Fletcher and Morgan Weaver drew back-to-back walks, which brought up Bryce Etzler with a pair of runners in scoring posi- tion. Etzler grounded to the Oroville defense, but with Fletcher threatening to run home from third base the Tigers’ deci- sion about what to do with their throw came about too slow. They eventually threw to first, which Etzler beat out. Fletcher hustled home, beating out the second throw from first to home as well. Red Bluff had a 3-0 lead. “We put ourselves in position in a lot of innings to scratch out some runs,” Red Bluff coach J Howell said. In the sixth inning the Spar- tans’ did most of the work them- selves with their bats. Aubrey Lair led off with a sin- gle. Then Katie Hall sacrificed her over and reached safely as the throw to first was dropped. Haley Harris hit a bullet that was snagged by Oroville pitcher Alex Andoe for an out. But Andoe’s throw to double off Lair at third base got away from the Oroville third baseman and Lair came home for another Red Bluff run. McColpin then walked and McEnaney drove her and Hall home with an RBI single. McEnaney finished the day 2- for-2 with a single, a triple and two walks. Fletcher capped the scoring by sending a ball over the right fielder’s head to the wall and coming all the way home for a two-run inside the park homer. “It doesn’t happen that often,” Fletcher said of hitting a home run in that fashion. While McColpin dominated on the mound the the usually sharp Spartans’ defense at times played a bit sloppy behind her. Howell said he attributed to that to Red Bluff’s 10-day layoff TRACK & FIELD North State Relays Wednesday March 23, 2011 Red Bluff beats Oroville Tehama Tracker SOFTBALL The Spartans got their season off to a strong start, Friday, at the North State Relays in Chico. Colin Dahlberg won the long jump with a leap of 20’9.5” and the Lady Spartans won a pair of relay races. Roxanne Luppino, Riley Kittle, Adrienne Hinkston and Erin Eicholtz won the 4x400 relay in a time of 4:30.5. Alana Hinkston and Jessie Slade won the sprint medley along with Luppino and Eicholtz. Both Hinkstons, Joanna Smith Conrad and Eicholtz took third place in the 4x200 with a time of 1:57.2. Conrad, Luppino, Slade and Alana Hinkston were fifth in the 4x100. Dahlberg led the boys with his win in the long jump. Ty Smith also had an impressive 18’4.5” jump for the Spartans. In the sprint medley, Dahlberg, Brandon Ragone, Jeff Foster and Zach Iverson placed second. Red Bluff boys teams also grabbed a pair of third place finishes. Foster, Jonah McInnis, Iverson and Dahlberg ran the 4x200 in 1:36.5 and Brandon Ragone, Smith, Garrett Span- gler and Andrew Reedy ran the 4x400 in 3:51.5. NFL changes kickoff rules NFL NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The NFL will move kickoffs up 5 yards to the 35-yard line, keep touchbacks coming out to the 20 and allow the number of players in a blocking wedge to remain at two. Kick coverage players now will be limited to lining up 5 yards or fewer from the spot of the kickoff. Team owners also voted Tuesday to make all scoring plays reviewable by the replay official and referee. But they tabled a proposal to ban players launching themselves to make a tackle, and will reconsider it in May. The league’s competition committee proposed placing the ball at the 25 after touchbacks on kickoffs and banning the wedge altogether. Several coaches expressed concern about making too many changes to kickoffs, also saying bringing touchbacks out 5 more yards would affect field position too much. Coaches worried about an increase in touchbacks from the 16 percent of kickoffs last season. ‘‘Any time there’s a touchback and now it’s not coming to the 20,’’ Saints coach Sean Payton said, ‘‘I think that that probably was the most drastic of the four or five items that constituted one rule.’’ Making kickoffs safer was the objective, and Payton believes the owners met it, voting 26-6 for the new rule. ‘‘The bottom line is it’s ... the highest risk of injury play,’’ he said. Browns standout returner Joshua Cribbs wasn’t thrilled by the changes, tweeting: ‘‘Essentially taking returners out of the game...injuries will still take place, then what move it up again, or eliminate it all together.’’ Daily News photo by Rich Greene Red Bluff pitcher Megan McColpin throws a pitch,Tuesday. between games. “Between battling the rain clouds, I think it’s a bit of rust,” he said. One of the games cancelled during the stretch was against the only team to beat the Spar- tans so far this year — West Val- ley. Weather permitting, that game is re-scheduled to take place at 3:30 p.m. today in Red Bluff. On touchbacks, competition committee chairman Rich McKay said coaches were concerned about an increase in high kicks from the 35 intended to trap returning teams deep and severely decreasing the number of returns. He also said the two-man wedge was not a driving force in the uptick in injuries on kickoffs. Indeed, more injuries occur in coverage than on the return squads. As for the six no votes, McKay said: ‘‘The objections were, ’Hey, you’re affecting my team.’ Clearly, some teams have good kick returners and they said, ’What if there’s 10 percent less returns?’ ‘‘We have no answer,’’ McKay added, ‘‘but player safety will always trump any other consideration.’’ Yet the two player safety amendments were tabled until the May league meetings. A proposal to outlaw players launching to make hits was deferred, as was expanding the definition of a defenseless receiver. McKay said joining those two additions to a previous rule caused the tabling. Each of the proposals will be made into separate amendments before being presented again. ‘‘We didn’t feel like there was enough support to get it passed,’’ said Giants owner John Mara, a competition com- mittee member. ‘‘A number of people seemed to be, in my opinion, more concerned about flags being thrown for ques- tionable hits. My feeling is, I’m more concerned about need- less concussions, so I’m willing to make that trade. But I think we need to go back and just clarify some of the lan- guage, maybe to make it a little bit more clear for every- body.’’ McKay praised players for avoiding launching them- selves during the second part of last season after the league threatened suspensions for illegal and flagrant hits. No sus- pensions were handed out, but Ray Anderson, the NFL’s chief disciplinarian, said they will be in play from the outset of next season. The replay change passed 30-2, with one modification: The third coach’s challenge that the competition committee suggested dropping will be kept. The replay official now can call for the referee to review any scoring play. Previously, replay officials only could order reviews (on any play) in the final two minutes of each half and in overtime. Coaches pushed for the change in great part because they Daily News photo by Rich Greene Haley Harris flips a fielder’s choice out to Emily McEnaney covering second base,Tuesday. felt they didn’t get a fair shake in road games. ‘‘It’s a real big competitive disadvantage,’’ Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. ‘‘You don’t get that look at it on the road that you get at home; they just don’t show it.’’ One proposal was adopted unanimously, giving the com- missioner the power to approve or deny requests to change the color of the playing field from green. Falcons owner Arthur Blank said the concern was that sponsors could approach teams and suggest a deal that involved altering a field’s color. As McKay previously noted with a smile, ‘‘We don’t want any red fields like at Eastern Washington.’’