R-C Sports Notebook: Pollack making a name for himself

I'm thinking about keeping an extra statistic this season specifically for Douglas High running back Johnny Pollack.

I've seen some really good yardage-after-contact backs in my time, but Pollack takes it to an entirely different level.

It's not so much that he keeps his legs churning after initial contact (which he does). It's more his uncanny ability to squeeze extra yardage out of a play that is already as good as dead.

Anyone who has seen him play this season knows what I am talking about.

He hits the hole well and can push a pile of defenders like few I have seen at the high school level. But he also has a keen sense of where he is on the field, and where he could possibly be with a little extra effort.

For example, against Galena Friday night he carried the ball off the right tackle on a first-and-10 at the Grizzlies' 26. He plunged about three yards into the Galena defense and was quickly surrounded. Two players got their hands on him and began to bring him down, but he made an unorthodox pivot to stay on his feet, pushed hard to the left and bolted through an opening for a 16-yard gain.

On another play, later in the game, he was tripped up in the open field and as he began to fall he threw his legs up over his head and attempted to fling his upper body past the first down marker. He was marked down where his elbow landed, but the effort deserved some note.

So much has been said about the Tiger passing game this season, but Pollack established himself as one of the top running backs in the region Friday night.

Tim Rudnick vaulted into the No. 3 spot on the Douglas High career passing list at 1,911 yards with his performance Friday night. He only trails Luke Rippee (4,064) and Chris Griffith (2,471).

He also moved into fourth in career completions (121) and into a tie for second with Griffith for touchdowns passes (21).

Just for good measure, he moved into third for touchdown passes in a season (behind Rippee's 17 in 2003 and 14 in 2002) and is knocking on the door of the top five for yards in a season at 1,224 (Rippee's 1,251-yard effort in 2002 is fifth in Paul Meadows' 1,291-yard effort in 1988 is fourth.)

Zach McFadden is also quickly climbing the career charts. He stands in a tie for third in career touchdown catches (he and Cary Hart each have nine), he is third in receiving yards at 835 behind Andy McIntosh and Gabe Hatchett and is tied for fifth in career receptions with Robert LeGrand at 50.

Fallon was charged with an own goal during its game against the Douglas girls' soccer team last week. Not such a big deal, but it does create some statistical oddities in my records. Now, when you add up the goals scored by Douglas players in the season statistics, it's not going to match up with the team total of goals for.

Not such a big deal, unless of course you are prone to raging bouts of compulsion.

The funny thing is, in those rare instances in basketball where a team accidentally knocks the ball into the wrong hoop (I did see one game last year where a girl got confused and purposefully shot into the wrong hoop), the points get credited to the last player from the opposing team who touched the ball.

I guess the general thinking is that if that player hadn't put the ball in play as he or she did, the ball never would've ended up in the hoop anyway. It's a bit of stretch, but it does make some sense.

It appears the Douglas girls' tennis team will get two singles and two doubles spots for the individual regional championships while the boys' team will send one singles and one doubles squad.

The girls' will most likely send Amelia Ritger and Cesarina Ceglia for the singles bracket and Niki Hamzik and Marissa Delgadillo for the first doubles spot.

Ritger has a strong argument to be the No. 1-seeded player in the tournament and Ceglia and Hamzik-Delgadillo should each carry seeds as well.

James TenBroeck will also take a high seed, most likely a No. 2 or 3 in the boys' bracket depending on whether or not Reno's Jeff Mullins is able to successfully appeal to play in the individual tournament.

After that, things get pretty cloudy.

Jamie Lundergreen and Sarah Weaver have played the most matches together and would likely take Douglas' second doubles spot, but Kat Merrill and Sophie Lyles or Sarah Tigh and Katie Sawicki could pop up. Or it could be another combination entirely.

The boys' doubles team will be a complete toss-up. Douglas has used 22 different combinations this year and the teams of Spike Neri-Garon Athanacio and Kevin Sacherman-Andrew Solomon have been the most successful duos.

With the league standings already set for the playoffs, no one would have faulted Ritger for taking the inconsequential non-league match against Reno off Thursday afternoon.

After all, Ritger's regular-season unbeaten streak was on the line with Reno's No. 1 singles player Shelly Tone ready for a first-round showdown.

Rather than skirt the match, however, Ritger showed up ready to face Tone " a player she'd never beaten previously in USTA satellite tournaments " and took a convincing 6-2 win.

She wrapped up the 2008 regular season with a 27-0 record and extended her career record to 59-1. She also has 59 consecutive wins on Northern Nevada soil.

- The Manogue volleyball team has the strongest blocking line I have seen in five seasons of covering Northern Nevada high school volleyball. The only team that approaches them is the 2004 Galena squad that won the regional and state titles.

- That being said, Douglas had to use every single facet of its varied attack to pick up the five-game win against the Miners Tuesday. Setter Megan Mitchell sprayed the ball all over the place for the Tiger front line, which won a large number of points sending multiple players toward the set ball. Just for good measure, Mitchell also registered six kills on plays where she opted for the tip instead of the set. It was kind of like an option offense for volleyball and caused plenty of difficulties for the other team.

- While the match went to five games and was definitely one of the closest and best-played contests of the season, the final point differential in the Douglas-Manogue match was plus-10 in favor of Douglas. The two games Douglas lost were close. The two they won to set up the fifth were actually fairly dominating affairs. When this team gets on a roll, they are lethal. It's just their ability to stay on the roll that will determine how far they go this season.

- I don't know that it would ever be possible to track down a school record for number of touchbacks in a single game, but the south wind blowing through Keith "Duke" Roman Field Friday night sure put an accent on Douglas kicker Nikolai Vasquez's leg. He had four touchbacks all together and blasted two kickoffs straight past the end zone.

- Speaking of special teams, Douglas didn't punt once against Galena.

- North Tahoe brought just six people with them for Monday night's boys' soccer game against Douglas.

Sophomore Kyra Barth had a nice exchange late in the Fallon win for the Douglas girls' soccer team on Tuesday. Barth stole the ball about 20 yards out from the net, touched it once to set herself up and made a nice chip shot over the Greenwave goalkeeper to score.

- Galena girls' soccer 2, Douglas 1. Douglas has looked nothing short of unbeatable at times this year, particularly on natural grass. This was a talented Galena team that Douglas got the best of in Minden, but the Grizzlies have been very strong as of late. As good as Douglas has been, and the Tigers have been very, very good, the single loss has knocked them off the top of the league standings in favor of South Tahoe.

Galena, meanwhile, moved into a sound third place with Carson's surprise loss to Manogue on Saturday.

For Douglas, its much better to take a loss now than heading into the playoffs.

- Manogue girls' soccer 3, Carson 0. I mentioned it above, but this one was one of the bigger surprises of the soccer season thus far. Manogue is talented, no question, but shutting out Carson's potent offense is really something else.

- Damonte Ranch volleyball defeats Manogue in five. I'm guessing this was simply fallout from the Douglas-Manogue match (see below), because on any other day I see Manogue winning this one. What this does, though, is really shake up the Sierra League race. Until this match, Douglas was looking at having to defeat Manogue in Reno to clinch the league title. Now the ball, so to speak, is in the Tigers' court. Obviously, there is still a lot of volleyball left to be played (what with the eight league matches left as I write). But this match between the Mustangs and Miners seriously changed the landscape of what the Tigers must do to win the league.

Douglas has an extremely favorable schedule from here on out with their toughest remaining road match being at Manogue on Oct. 23.

Galena, Damonte Ranch, Carson and South Tahoe all must come to Minden during the second round of league play. Each one of those pose their own threats, but having them at home gives Douglas an extra advantage heading into the final stretch.

- Galena boys soccer. The Grizzlies have kind of snuck up on the rest of the Sierra League, but with Saturday's 2-1 win over the Tigers they were able to move within striking distance of first place.

They haven't been beaten yet this year, and are proving quickly that the move from the High Desert hasn't been as detrimental as many might have thought entering the season.

- Not so much. Douglas volleyball defeats Manogue in five. There was some question from some regional publications as to who the top team in the north was. Douglas escaped with a win that truly could have gone either way, but the thing that stuck out to me was the talk from the Douglas camp about how poorly the Tigers had played. It hadn't shown through in what I'd seen, but the fact that this team believes they can play at an even higher level after scraping past such a formidable opponent spoke volumes to me.

If I had a vote for overall player of the year in the Northern 4A Regional football honors ballots (and I don't), this is what it would look like, based mostly on their respective performances over the last week:

1. Kyle Van Noy, McQueen; 2. Tim Rudnick, Douglas; 3. Anthony Stolo, McQueen; 4. Patrick Riggs, Manogue; 5. Courtney Gardner, Hug

"But pirates aren't vegetables either," from my sister.

The top athletes, regardless of sport, at Douglas High determined by production during competition, overall value to their team, ability to perform with consistency in routine situations, performance compared to others at the same position throughout the state/region, ability to come up big in clutch situations, versatility, attitude, sportsmanship, overall athletic ability, heart, potential at the next level, and a host of other intangibles (emotional leadership, role-playing value, work ethic, etc.) This is all, of course, just my opinion.

Fall Sports

1T. Amelia Ritger, tennis

1T. Bethany Wurster, golf (Wurster's state record performance at Genoa Lakes last week couldn't go without reward, but I couldn't drop Ritger either.)

3. Megan Mitchell, volleyball

4. Tim Rudnick, football

5. Ally Freitas, soccer

6. Ross Gardner, soccer

7. Tanner Thomas, football

8. Johnny Pollack, football

9. Tia Lyons, soccer

10. Taryn Williams, volleyball

If there were more spots on the list: Taylor Biaggi, cross country; Alex Laing, soccer; Jourdan Burke, volleyball; James McLaughlin, football; Shelby Louie, golf; Jessica Waggoner, volleyball; James TenBroeck, tennis; Parker Robertson, football; Cesarina Ceglia, girls' tennis; Zach McFadden, football.

The Price is Right is surprisingly entertaining for a one-year-old. When you think about it, though, it makes sense. Lots of flashing lights, happy music, bright colors and loud applause. The host also looks kind of like Daddy.

Unbelievable, based on my actual picks, I would have gotten 12 right out of 14 right, which would have been by far my best week in this contest so far and would have been the highest score of the week out of all the R-C players.

I would have even made the national leaderboard.

As luck would have it, though, I forgot to hit save when I actually entered my picks into the computer and the picks defaulted to the most popular choices, which ended up bringing me only eight correct games.

To add insult to injury, I would have still been in the running for the season survivor prize, having picked Dallas, but now I am out by default. Oh well. I really am just not cut out for this game.

You can still sign up for the weekely contest at www.recordcourier.profootball.upickem.net. Just be sure, PLEASE, to save your picks!

Contgratulations to the week 4 winner, Bobby Wartgow who was right on 10 out of 14 games this week.

Here are my picks for week 5:

Redskins over Rams

Buccaneers over Panthers

Bengals over Jets

Saints over Raiders

Lions over Vikings

Colts over Ravens

Falcons over Bears

Texans over Dolphins

Broncos over Jaguars

Packers over Seahawks

49ers over Eagles

Cardinals over Cowboys

Giants over Browns

Tiebreaker: Chargers 21, Patriots 14

Season record: 38-36. Record last week: 8-6. Season survivor: Out (Ugh).

- The big artistic reveal of the whole series will be that Jin is actually the only English-speaking character on the show while everyone else has been speaking Korean this whole time.