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Weekend Sat — Softball — Red Bluff at Anderson Tournament Sat — Track — Los Mo, Mercy at Burt Williams Classic Sat — NCAA— Regional Finals, 1:30 p.m., CBS Sat — NBA— Mavericks at Warriors, 7:30 p.m., CSNBA Sun — NCAA— Regional Finals, 11 a.m., CBS Sun — NBA— Kings at Cavaliers, Noon, CSNCA Sports 1B Weekend March 27, 2010 Spartans rip Pleasant Valley By RICHGREENE DN Sports Editor The Spartans could have been shaken by all the hype surrounding an undefeated Pleasant Val- ley team that had outscored opponents 87-3 to coming into Friday’s game in Red Bluff, but they weren’t. Instead they jumped all over the Vikings in a three-run first inning and rode the momentum to a 5-1 win behind a solid pitching performance from Scott Avery. After turning a nice double play to retire the Vikings in the top of the first, Red Bluff opened their half of the inning with five straight hits — mostly jumping all over first pitch fast balls from Pleasant Valley’s Luke Barker. With the bases loaded, Red Bluff’s designated hitter Gerald Baker ripped a ball over Riley Cox’s head in right field. Although Baker was thrown out trying to stretch the hit into a triple, the Spar- tans had sent a message. “We needed to jump on them early to set the tone for the game,” Baker said of the first inning rally. After Red Bluff’s next hitter Maison Etzler ripped a double, Barker finally settled down and held the Spartans in check for the next few innings. However, the three-run lead was more than enough for his counterpart on the mound. Avery gave up just four hits over the game and outside of a sixth inning home run blast from Zeke Colby, only allowed one runner to reach third base. The Red Bluff pitcher said afterward he felt butterflies in his stomach heading out to the mound to start the game, but they had went away by the time he took the hill to start the second with a 3-0 lead. “I was on Cloud 9 coming out here after that,” he said. The Spartans tacked on an insurance run in the fifth inning when leadoff hitter Derek Jones had one of his two singles in the game. EJ Stanton then put a perfect bunt down between the third baseman and pitcher and reached first. The next batter, Cody Gappa, singled in Jones for a 4-0 lead. Pleasant Valley picked up their only run of the game on Colby’s homer, which he drove deep over the fence in left-center field. The Spartans responded with some small ball to score another run in their end of the sixth to keep their lead at four runs. Avery reached base on a drop third strike and No. 3 Baylor 72, No. 10 Saint Mary’s 49 HOUSTON (AP) — LaceDarius Dunn, Tweety Carter and Baylor had all the fun Friday night, ending what had been an entertain- ing NCAA tournament ride for Omar Samhan and sur- prising Saint Mary’s. Dunn and Carter both made 3-pointers on their first shots and later com- bined for a highlight ally- oop dunk as Baylor rushed to a big lead and romped 72- 49 in the South Regional semifinals. The third-seeded Bears (28-7) will play Sunday for a chance at their first Final Four since 1950, when there were only eight teams in the field. More impressive for Baylor, it is another inspir- ing step in redemption near- ly seven years after coach Scott Drew took over a pro- gram reeling and recovering from a murder and scandal that shook the world’s largest Baptist university like nothing in its history. Drew had to rebuild with reduced scholarships, a ros- ter decimated when the top three scorers were allowed to transfer and an unprece- dented half-season after the NCAA considered shutting the program down a whole year. Dunn and Carter, two top Louisiana high school play- ers who were recruiting by other established programs, still came to Baylor. And now they have helped get the Bears, who were picked 10th in the preseason Big 12 poll by the league’s coaches, be one of only eight teams still with a chance to win the national title. Dunn scored 23 points with four 3-pointers and Carter added 14 points for Baylor. Dunn turned away after the teammates com- bined on their big dunk. Samhan, who had was then bunted over to second by Jordan Fox. He stole third and then two batters later scored on a Trevor Miller RBI groundout. Red Bluff coach Joe Gallaty said the Spartans were able to eliminate any defensive miscues or baserunning errors to make their clutch hitting stand up. The Spartans had committed three errors in a 3-0 loss to Pleasant Valley at the Oroville Tourna- ment on March 13. This game was different however thanks to the offensive outbreak in the first inning. “It would have been a lot different ball game if Tehama Tracker Spartans softball Red Bluff opened up their first day of play, Friday, at the Anderson Lady Cubs tournament in Redding with a 2-1 record. The Spartans beat Orland 8-1 and East Nicolaus 12-6, but fell to River Valley 8-1. Against Orland, Krista Rodriguez struck out 10 bat- ters and Emily McEnaney hit a 2-run homer in a tour- nament-rule mercy short- ened six-inning game. McEnaney finished her day 2-for3 with a couple of runs scored. Brittany Fletcher had a pair of RBIs and a single. Danisha Slay went 2-for3 with a double and a run scored and Stevie Boone went 2-for-3 with a triple and two RBIs. Fletcher went 3-for-4 with a double and four RBIs against East Nicolaus. Haley Harris also went 3- Daily News photo by Rich Greene Scott Avery is greeted by EJ Stanton after scoring a run in the sixth inning. we did that later in the game,” catcher Austin Brownfield said. “That’s what we’ve been look- ing forward to all season — an inning like that.” In handing the Vikings their first loss of the season, Red Bluff improved to 11-3 overall and 2- 1 in the Eastern Athletic League. MaxPreps had the Vikings ranked as one of the Top 100 teams in the nation coming into the game. The Spartans’ home stand continues with games against Enterprise, Chico and Shasta, Tuesday through Thursday. Red Bluff is sched- uled to visit Pleasant Valley on April 27. Saint Mary’s rocked; Tennessee upends Ohio State for-4 and batted in a run and scored twice. Megan McColpin scored four runs, she also came in to pitch during a tense situation in the fifth inning and slammed the door shut. Bryce Etzler had started the game and struck out seven in four-plus innings. Rodriguez had a pair of RBIs and Courtney Boes drove in a run. Spartans golf Red Bluff is in second place in the Eastern Athletic League, following Thurs- day’s league opening meet at Table Mountain. Red Bluff won the Front 9 with a low score of 204. The Spartans took third for the Back 9 with a score of 210 — 11 strokes back of Chico. Daniel Frantz was fourth overall with a 79 and Justin Martinson was 10th with an 81. Drew Wagner and Brad Patchen shot 84s, Peter Mitzel an 86 and Cody Robertson a 95. Bulldogs baseball Los Molinos used five Liberty Christian errors and eight hits to earn an 8-3 win, Thursday. The Bulldogs evened their record at 4-4. Bulldogs softball The Lady Bulldogs beat Liberty Christian 13-3 on Thursday. Warriors softball Five-run innings in the third and fourth lifted the Lady Warriors to a 13-10 win over Williams. Warriors tennis Gabe Guerrero, Christian Mondragon and Isac Williams picked up singles wins, but Mercy fell 6-3 to Live Oak, Thursday. Guerrero beat Eduardo Gonzalez 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 with a 9-7 tiebreaker in the No. 2 singles match. At No. 3, Mondragon MCT photo become a breakout star in the tournament with his dominating play in the first two rounds and the one-lin- ers when talking or tweet- ing, finished with 15 points and nine rebounds. He had only made only 1-of-8 shots and had only three points at halftime for the Gaels (28- 6). No. 6 Tennessee 76, No. 2 Ohio State 73 ST. LOUIS (AP) — One Evan Turner is pretty good. Five Tennessee Volunteers are even better. Brian Williams scored the go-ahead basket on a tip- in with 32 seconds left, Bobby Maze converted a pair of late free throws and J.P. Prince blocked a desper- ation 3-pointer at the buzzer Friday night, leading Ten- nessee past Ohio State 76- Saint Mary’s Ben Allen runs into Baylor defender Tweety Carter, Friday during the NCAA Tournament. night. 73 and into the NCAA tour- nament’s round of eight for the first time. Wayne Chism finished with 22 points — all but four in the second half — and 11 rebounds for the sixth-seeded Volunteers (28- 8), who pulled out a back- and-forth tussle in the Mid- west Regional semifinals. No. 1 Duke 70, No. 4 Purdue 57 HOUSTON (AP) — Kyle Singler scored 24 points and Jon Scheyer added 18, snapping out of a shooting slump just in time to help top-seeded Duke advance to the round of eight for the first time since 2004 with a 70-57 win over Purdue on Friday night. Scheyer, Duke’s leading scorer, was 5-for-18 from the field in Duke’s first two NCAA tournament games. He went 5-for-9 in the sec- ond half after missing his first six shots and also went 7-for-8 from the free-throw line. Nolan Smith scored 15 points and Brian Zoubek grabbed 14 rebounds for the Blue Devils (32-5). JaJuan Johnson scored 23 points for Purdue. No. 5 Michigan State 59, No. 9 Northern Iowa 52 ST. LOUIS (AP) — Dur- rell Summers scored 19 points and Korie Lucious hit a whirling turnaround jumper with 95 seconds left, helping fifth-seeded Michi- gan State survive a mid- major scare with a 59-52 win over pesky Northern Iowa in the Midwest Regional semifinals Friday Michigan State (27-8) needed a half to get used to Northern Iowa’s grinding style and held the Panthers to 10 free throws over the final 10:22 to send the heroes of the Heartland home empty-handed. Northern Iowa (30-5) knocked off one March monster but couldn’t make it two straight, unable to contain the athletic Spartans for an entire game after stunning top-seeded Kansas in the second round. Lucious hit his acrobatic shot, then Michigan State held and Chris Allen scored on a putback with 31 sec- onds left to put the Spartans up 57-51 and into Sunday’s regional final against Ten- nessee. won 6-3, 5-7, 6-3. MVL track and field The Lady Bulldogs fin- ished fourth and the Lady Warriors ninth at a Mid-Val- ley League track and field meet held by University Prep at Shasta. Carolyna Salazar won the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 19.03 and the discus with a throw of 77’04” for Los Molinos. She also placed second in the triple jump. Francis Ocampo was sec- ond in the long jump and Linzy Irle was second in the 800 meters and third in the 1600 meters for Los Moli- nos. On the boys side, Mercy placed sixth and Los Moli- nos was eighth. Mercy’s Royce Crane won the 400 meters with a time of 25.01 and placed second in the 100 meters. Lance Quintana gave Los Molinos a third place finish in the 400 meters.