Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/7134
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Angela Ruggiero launched a wrist shot over Kim Martin's too- late glove and gratefully raised her hands to the roof, finally certain her U.S. women's hockey team wouldn't allow another Swedish surprise at the Olympics. Monique Lamoureux scored three goals, Jessie Vetter made 11 saves and the Americans rolled into the gold-medal match with a 9-1 semifinal victory over Sweden on Monday. Caitlin Cahow, Karen Thatcher and Kelli Stack each had a goal and an assist as the Americans avenged their 2006 semifinal shootout loss to Sweden, the biggest upset in Olympic history and a sore spot for the six returning members of that bronze- medal team. ''It was the same team, same semifinal game, but the similarities end there,'' said Ruggiero, the four-time Olympian. ''Everyone knows. No one was saying, 'Remember, remember.''' The Americans jumped out to another 2-0 lead at Canada Hockey Place, just as they did in Turin. That's when Ruggiero skated in on Martin and beat the stand- out Swedish goalie cleanly, scoring on exactly the type of shot Martin repeatedly stopped with style four years ago. ''Obviously, what hap- pened in 2006 was disap- pointing to everybody with USA Hockey,'' U.S. coach Mark Johnson said. ''We've talked about when you get the opportunity, to be ready. Today was a big hurdle to get across.'' The rematch was a com- prehensive thrashing of the Swedes and Martin, who came nowhere close to her 37-save performance in Turin. She again made 37 saves — the exact number she made four years ago — but the ones that got away were more numerous and more glaring. ''To beat them, you need the lucky bounces and excellent goaltending,'' Sweden coach Peter Elander said. ''Today we didn't get any lucky bounces, and we let in some soft goals.'' After outscoring their first four opponents by a combined 40-2, the Ameri- cans will face the winner of Finland's semifinal later Monday against power- house Canada, likely setting up the long-anticipated meeting of the sport's two best teams. ''Now, it's really excit- ing,'' Vetter said. ''We made it to the point we really wanted to. I think we're ready for the gold-medal game.'' Vetter soundly outplayed Martin, who let in a few stoppable goals and made at least one accidental save off her mask. The Americans' superior offense took care of the rest, jumping to a 4-0 lead early in the second period on consecutive goals by Ruggiero and Cahow before icing it with three goals on their first six shots in the third period, silencing a large Canadian crowd cheering mostly for the Swedes. If the Americans needed any extra motivation, they got it Sunday night in the same rink. Much of the ros- ter attended the U.S. men's team's victory over Canada. ''I feel we've yet to play our best game,'' said Lam- oureux, whose twin sister, Jocelyne, had two assists. ''It's hopefully coming Thursday.'' Sports 1B Tuesday February 23, 2010 Tuesday D-VI BoysBasketballPlayoffs, First Round —Butte Valley at Mercy, 7 p.m. D-V Girls Basketball Playoffs, First Round – Los Molinos at Portola, 7 p.m. D-I Boys Soccer Playoffs, Semifinal —Oroville at Corning, 3 p.m. D-III Boys Soccer Playoffs, Semifinal — Esparto at Los Molinos, 3 p.m. D-III Boys Soccer Playoffs, Semifinal —Hamilton at Mercy, 3 p.m. (RBHS) Boys Basketball — Paradise at Red Bluff, 7:30 p.m. Girls Basketball — Red Bluff at Paradise, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday's boys playoffs at a glance #14 Los Molinos at #3 Liberty Christian Division V Basketball First Round, 7 p.m. #14 Los Molinos Bulldogs: 13- 13; 5-5, third in Mid-Valley League #3 Liberty Christian Patriots: 18-7; 5-1, tied for first in Tri-Cities League Directions: Take I-5 north to Exit 675, toward Bechelli Lane/Churn Creek Road. Turn right onto South Bonnyview Road and then take the first left onto Churn Creek Road. About a mile down the school is at 3787 Churn Creek Road. Previous meeting: They've met three times this season, each time the Patriots have won. At the Block LM tournament on Dec. 5, 60-45, at Arco Arena on Dec. 23, 67-52 and at the Biggs Tournament on Jan. 8, 72-43. Players to watch: Los Molinos — #23 Eric Blanchard, #2 Sean Con- rad, #5 Jc Conrad Liberty Christian — #2 Otar Pkhakadze, #25 Rhett Roberts, #3 Arron Lowe Notes: Liberty Christian has won five straight games...the Patriots average 63.8 points per game and allow 48.24...the Bulldogs average 56.8 points per game and allow 56.3. For Corning's sake I'm going to be a hypocrite. Defiantly not the first time, but today I'm going to admit to it. Something I think we all need to work on in high school sports is when our negativity carries down to the athletes. It only takes so much com- plaining about coaches or offi- cials, before sooner or later the kids themselves start echoing the behavior. When that starts happening we all need to take a step back and realize what's going on and try to make sure our passion is only used to help put the kids in a positive frame of mind. That said, once again I have to rail against the NSCIF playoff point system and it's treatment of the Corning Cardinals. Seems like I've written this column a handful of times this school year, with Corning being bumped up divisions in most sports. Yes, I'm going to go completely negative here, but you Cardinal players reading this and even parents just leave all the angst to me. You should be solely focused on the tough "road" contests you were handed out. I promise to be plenty enough mad for all of us. I could use the shift key to find a few symbols to mask the words I wanted to use when I saw the North- ern Athletic League champion 21-5 Corning boys team and Northern Athletic League champion 16-9 Lady Cardinals were both seeded fifth out of six teams. But instead, let's just say I saw my own brain when my eyes rolled back in my head as I saw the brackets. Yup, the boys will travel to 7-17 Paradise and the girls to 10-13 Foothill, because those schools were seeded higher. At this time of year, we're supposed to be talking about teams earning seeds, well in this case Paradise and Foothill were just handed home court games. OK, the 21-win Corning boys may not have played as tough of a schedule as the seven-win Bobcats have — that's true. But, I'm willing to bet if Corning won every game this season, by 40 points, their strength of schedule still wouldn't have been good enough. Basically they started the season with 0 percent chance they could get better than a No. 5 seed, because at least 33 percent of the formula used would never apply to them because they had no D-III schools on the schedule when the only 100 percent thing that matters is winning games. That's not fair. It's not right and when they play Fri- day you might as well give the Bobcats a 10-0 lead when the game starts if that's the way it's going to be. Corning found out in the days leading up to the school year they were being moved up when it takes months, sometimes years to build a proper schedule. The Lady Cardinals had a pretty tough schedule, including games against Colfax, Clayton Valley and a Top 100 team in the state, Dublin. They took their lumps and ate some losses on their way to a strong 16-9 season. But when using strictly a mathematical formula, it turned out to be nothing to the 10 wins Foothill man- aged to pick up feeding off the bottom of the EAL. I understand, both Cardinal teams will get the opportunity to prove the seedings wrong on the court. That's the nice thing about playoffs. It just irks me that Corning — as a community — loses out on having a pair of home playoff games. Especially when all it would have taken to fix this was for those gathered at Saturday's basketball seeding meeting to use their own brains and not microchips and realize this was a special case this season where a for- mula did not work. Go ahead and use the formulas to separate who the 11th and 12th seeds are in the 16-team Division V tour- naments, but use a touch of personal judgement in some cases as well. You are allowed to use both. Technology works best when paired with some logic. The Cardinals had a better respective season than Paradise or Foothill. Fact. I don't care what the matrix says. My computer can't even keep Daylight Savings time correct and I'm not an hour late to work every day. The kids played and beat who was on a schedule, which they didn't create themselves and was obvious- ly too late to change. They're basically being punished because their school board and athletic director couldn't properly predict the North State's population patterns. But time to be a hypocrite, as I said Cardinals, don't let this bother you. You don't need to play angry or like you have some- thing to prove this week — just go play your game, the reason I know I'm right about your seed. Be prepared, these teams will have their own Cameron Nyes, Brittney Garretts, Luis Pisenos and Regan Albees. I'll give them that. What they won't have is a Kyle Skousen, a Michelle Silva, an Amy Cruise or a Ryan Holland. Those are the players that are going to prove why the Corning programs are champions no matter what division they play in. And in the end, the only math that will matter, are the numbers on the scoreboard. Possibly the reason Daily News Sports Editor Rich Greene's computer can't differentiate Daylight Savings time is he doesn't know how to set it. Possibly. Or possibly it just changes every time he has to reboot. Whatever the case you can reach him with questions or comments at 527-2151, ext. 109 or by wrongly time-stamped e-mail at sports@redbluffdailynews.com. Rich Greene MCT photo USA's Monique Lamoureux, right, shoots and scores the team's ninth goal against Sweden during the third period in the women's hockey semifinal at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Monday. Schierholtz, Bowker compete for RF job SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — The right-field job with the San Francisco Giants is open, and both Nate Schierholtz and John Bowker would like to have it. While Hall of Famer Willie Mays set up shop in the Giants clubhouse Monday and told stories, Schierholtz and Bowker could not afford to stop and marvel. They were preparing for Tuesday's first workout for the full squad. Schierholtz played 116 games last season, starting 61 and hitting .267 with five home runs and 29 RBIs. He is not, however, taking anything for granted. Nor is Bowker. He had a similar year in 2008 (.255, 10 homers, 43 RBIs) and even hit home runs in his first two major league games, the only player in New York-San Fran- cisco history to do so. ''I feel the best I've ever felt coming into spring training,'' said Schierholtz, who hit .324 in the Puerto Rican Winter League. ''It helped me build confidence in hitting, defense, everything,'' he said. ''It gave me the opportunity to just go out and play baseball. I think I'm now a better player all the way around.'' When the games begin next week, Schierholtz will continue to test his claim that he is more patient. Schierholtz and Bowker are both 26 and hit left handed. They played together in the minor leagues and are friends. ''But once we go out there, I can't worry about that. I have to focus on what I need to do,'' Schier- holtz said. If Schierholtz gets the nod from Giants manager Bruce Bochy, it likely will be because of his defense as much as his bat. Playing right field at San Fran- cisco's AT&T Park means having to deal with some quirky bounces, and duplicating that at Scottsdale Stadi- um is next to impossible. ''So the thing you have to do is try to is try to get as good of a jump on the ball as possible, no matter where you are,'' Schierholtz said. ''I guess you have to worry about that (AT&T) when you get there.'' Bowker admits that the Giants' outfield is crowded, ''but that's a good thing. I have confidence that I can be a factor.'' ''I want to go out there and be consistent, swing the bat well and play good defense, stay within myself and relax at the plate.'' NOTES: Mark DeRosa, set to start in left field after signing as a free agent, swung the bat against live pitching to test his surgically repaired left wrist. Bochy said DeRosa might be limited a bit early, ''and we'll keep a watchful eye on him . ... Bochy and his coaches also are watching the progress of 2B Freddy Sanchez, who had arthro- scopic surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder on Dec. 23. Sanchez might not be ready to start the season opener at Houston on April 5, and if not, veteran Juan Uribe likely would step in. Nate Schierholtz John Bowker US women rout Sweden