Grant Union’s Mallory Lusco beams after winning her 190 pound state championship final at the OSAA/OnPoint State Wrestling Championships at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland on Feb. 26, 2023. The 190-pound state title is the sophomore’s second in two years.

Lady Pro softball secures elusive state title

The Grant Union/Prairie City softball team finally reached the pinnacle in 2023 after a disappointing loss in the state final to conclude the 2022 campaign.

The circumstances were eerily similar to 2022: The Lady Prospectors were playing a Weston-McEwen squad they’d defeated twice previously, much like the Lakeview team the Lady Pros ultimately fell to in their third meeting for the 2022 state title.

This time, however, the Lady Pros would rise to the occasion, blanking the Lady Tigerscots 10-0 to claim the class 2A state softball championship at Jane Saunders Field in Eugene on June 10. Lady Pros head softball coach Zach Williams was reflective in comments to the Eagle, highlighting the difference in feelings between the results of the 2022 and 2023 finals. He recalled a comment he made to his daughter, Drew Williams, the team’s ace pitcher, after this year’s title game.

“I turned around in the car and told Drew, ‘This is a lot better than last year,’ he said. “Last year we were devastated, still felt like we underperformed in the title game last year, and this time we showed up and played the way we know we can play.”

The Lady Pros finished the 2023 campaign with a stellar 26-3 overall record while going 18-0 in league games.

Anderson earns softball scholarship to CSI in Twin Falls

Former Lady Pro first baseman Raney Anderson made enough of an impact during the run-up to the 2023 class 2A state softball title that she earned a “mostly full-ride” scholarship to the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls for the 2023-24 softball season.

The scholarship will cover everything save housing and food.

Anderson will be majoring in agriculture education while attending CSI. She said it was that program, along with the softball team, that influenced her decision to look into Twin Falls as a possible college destination and emai the school’s softball coach directly.

“Turns out they’d been tracking Raney throughout the season,” Anderson’s father, MT Anderson, said.

“(The coach) knew the games they played. He discussed how the games went. They’d been following her more than we realized, we just didn’t know it. … Then he said, ‘We’d like to offer you a full ride to come play softball for us.’”

Anderson’s mom, Cori, was emotional on hearing the news, describing herself as “in tears.”

After college, Anderson said, she’d like to bring her degree in agriculture education back to John Day and put it to use as a teacher.

“That’s kind of the plan — eventually,” she said.

Financial disagreement puts sports co-op in jeopardy

A disagreement over costs put the Grant Union/Prairie City sports co-op in limbo mere weeks after the Grant Union/Prairie City co-op softball team won the state championship.

Prairie City paid $11,250 to participate in the co-op — covering the sports of boys and girls wrestling, baseball and softball — during the 2022-23 sports season. The district offered to increase its payment to $13,500 to continue to participate in the co-op moving forward.

Grant Union requested that Prairie City pay $34,710 to continue the co-op, a sum Prairie City said it could not reasonably pay. Grant Union officials said the price point represented 30% of the cost to run the boys and girls wrestling, baseball and softball programs, which totals $115,570 per year.

Coaches of the co-op teams expressed their desire to see the kids play together, and Prairie City Superintendent Casey Hallgarth said the district already pays some of the highest co-op fees in the state, stressing that it would not be financially responsible for a small school to pay the fees Grant Union was requesting. Grant Union/Prairie City players Sivanna Hodge and Halle Parsons described the disagreement as an “adult problem,” since all of the athletes desired to play together.

School board member Jake Taylor was very vocal in favor of maintaining the co-op, saying, “If we try to squeeze more money out of our neighbors 13 miles up the river, we’ll lose a hell of a lot more than $34,000,” he said. Ultimately, the schools reached an agreement for a four-year co-op at the rate of $1,000 per participating student per sport.

Grant Union crowns two state wrestling champions

For the second year in a row, the Grant Union boys and girls wrestling teams crowned a pair of class 2A state champions. Also occurring for the second straight year, Grant Union again saw a freshman win a state wrestling crown.

Sophomore Mallory Lusco won her second straight state championship at 190 pounds. Lusco won all of her matches at the state tournament by fall, defeating Rogue River’s Lilliyan Jaramillo via third-round fall to capture her second consecutive state championship.

Winning his first state championship at 126 pounds was freshman Taylor Parsons. Parsons won his quarterfinal and semifinal matches by fall before defeating Zakai Chatelain of Nestucca 5-1 in the final.

Led by Parsons’ state title, the Prospector boys wrestling team took home a sixth-place state finish. Lusco’s state title lifted the Lady Pro wrestling team to an 11th-place state finish.

Grant County Mat Club has Classic winner, three placers

The Grant County Mat Club had their first overall winner while placing two other wrestlers inside the top four at the Oregon Wrestling Classic, one of Oregon’s largest wrestling tournaments.

Eight-year-old Ginny Clarry took home championship honors in the 60 pound weight class in the 10U girls division. Clarry won all of her matches by pinfall, spending less than two minutes on the mat during each outing.

Clarry’s Classic title win is the first ever for the Grant County Mat Club.

The club also had a pair of top four finishers to go along with Clarry’s overall tournament victory. Kale Tremblay placed third in the 63 pound weight class in the 10U division, and Owen Parsons took fourth in the 136 pound weight class in the 14U division.

McCracken notches top 25 nationals finish

John Day barrel racer Bailey McCracken notched a 25th place overall finish out of 195 competitors at the 2023 National High School Finals Rodeo in Gillette, Wyoming.

Don’t let the “nationals” part of the rodeo’s name trick you, though. McCracken competed with barrel racers from not only across the nation, but across the world, with competitors from Canada, Mexico and some even from as far away as Australia.

The rodeo is truly a worldwide event, which makes McCracken, a 17-year-old incoming senior at Grant Union High School, one of the best high school barrel racers on the planet.

“I kind of just think, ‘Oh, I’m 25th in the high school rodeo.’ I don’t really think about it as the world that much,” she said about the finish.

Lady Pro soccer finishes inaugural year

2023 saw Grant Union High School add another sport to its offerings with the creation of a brand new girls soccer team, coached by Heather Bailey. The team won one game during their pilot season but they never blamed one another when they found themselves trailing in games and, more importantly, they never quit.

The team improved dramatically from the start of the season, going from surrendering eight or nine goals a game to giving up a mere four goals over their final two games. One of those two games was their long-awaited first victory, a 1-0 win over Irrigon in the second-to-last game of the season.

Hopefully, this first season is a building block toward a healthy and successful girls soccer program for years to come at Grant Union High School.

Lady Pro volleyball finishes fourth at state

The Grant Union volleyball team recovered nicely following their early playoff exit last season. With head coach Mariah Moulton in her fist full year at the helm, the Lady Pros finished the 2023 campaign with a stellar 22-7 record en route to a Blue Mountain Conference championship and fourth place finish at the 2A state volleyball playoffs.

Falling 3-0 to eventual runners-up Salem Academy, the Lady Pros bounced back to win their next two matches over Santiam and Lowell to leave the state tournament with a fourth place finish.

“After a loss, it is easy to roll over and give up since we couldn’t win the title,” Moulton said. “But the girls fought for fourth place, which is a huge achievement.”

Panther football takes another step

What a year it was for Prairie City football. One year after an early exit from the state 1A football playoffs, Panther coach Nick Thompson got his team into the state semifinals against a very familiar foe in Joseph.

The Panthers would ultimately come up short of their desired appearance in the state championship game, falling 33-19 to the Eagles to finish with a 7-2 record on the season. Despite that loss, the season did provide quite a few memorable moments for the Panthers.

Thompson’s squad finally got over the long dominant Wheeler County Rattlers, dispatching the 2022 state champions 55-8. The Panthers also notched victories over both Joseph and eventual state champions Echo during the 2023 regular season.

The Panthers’ lone loss prior to the state semifinal game against Joseph was a close 46-38 defeat at the hands of South Wasco County.

Prairie City golf has everyone seeing orange

Prairie City had a high school golf team hit the links for the first time in 17 years in 2023. The team also managed to crown an individual district golf champion in Sawyer Quinton and establish a tradition many other schools are eager to emulate.

Quinton would earn a trip to state on the heels of his district title, finishing in 25th place overall. Assisting spectators in identifying Quinton and other Prairie City golfers were the “Prairie City orange” pants the team adopted as their look out on the greens.

The bright orange pants are something that other schools have taken notice of and even vowed to emulate with their own school colors in the future.

“One team — their colors are black and red — said, ‘Our team wants bright red pants next year,’” Prairie City head golf coach Bob Quinton said.

Coach Quinton said he couldn’t be happier with the team’s first season back.

“People know who Prairie City’s golf team is, I’ll tell you that,” he said. “We may not win every tournament, but our kids are out there representing themselves well.”