The Brookings-Harbor High School girls soccer team opened the first half of Saturday’s 1-6 loss against St. Mary’s High School of Medford strong, scoring a goal in the opening minutes of the first half.

The defense stifled the Crusaders’ front line, only allowing two first-half goals against a team that is known for their high-scoring play.

Brookings-Harbor’s lone goal came when Hannah Baron fielded a pass from Jessica Fernandez, drove to the goal and scored.

Whitney Floyd gets one of two stuff blocks against the Warriors of Del Norte in Tuesday night’s matchup. The Pilot/Jef Hatch

The Bruins jumped to a commanding 10-1 lead on a series of strong serves and Warrior miscues in the first game before a series of mental mistakes by the Bruins brought their opponents back into contention at 12-11.

Bruin running back Levi Williams dodges a tackle by a Bandon Tiger defender during the Bruins 36-0 drubbing of the Tigers. Williams would put his hand down to maintain balance but managed to get another 15 yards out of the run. The Pilot/Jef Hatch

The Brookings-Harbor High School JV football team took to the field Friday night with one thing on their mind: domination.

Dominate they did, as they shut out the Bandon Tigers 36-0.

The Bruins kicked off to start the game and the defense quickly forced the Tigers to go four and out.

Dave Wiggins of Brookings got his limit of black rockfish via his canoe on Sunday, launched at one of the beaches near Brookings. The Pilot/Larry Ellis

Fishing report for 

September 2-9

Halibut season still open – rockfish, lingcod plentiful

The halibut season south of Humbug Mountain to the Oregon/California border will remain open at least through this weekend.

I thought this would be the perfect way to start out the fishing column, since there have been a lot of rumors stating that the season was going to end on Labor Day. Obviously that closure didn’t occur.

The 2011 Slam’n Salmon Ocean Derby weighed its last Chinook on Sunday afternoon, and claimed a number of firsts.

This year marked the first time the winning fish, caught by Shawn Hoback on Saturday, weighed less than 30 pounds. It weighed 27.2 pounds.

It also marked the first year that the fisherman who caught the largest fish also caught the smallest fish of the derby. Hoback caught a 5.7-pound legal Chinook to claim top and bottom prizes.

“The little 24-inch fish fought just as much as the big one,” Hoback said. “We caught both fish off the sidelines on divers with an anchovy and a hoochie.”

 In their first game of the preseason, the Bruins started slowly, giving up the first six points of the game on a run play by the Cascade Christian Challengers. The Bruins’ Tyler Lueckfeld blocked the point after attempt to limit the Challengers to six instead of seven. 

The Bruins came back with a touchdown run by Lueckfeld and an extra point completion by Chandler Gotfried.

Following the touchdown, the Bruins turned the ball over twice and gave up 25 straight points, to head into the locker room down 7-31.

Fishing report for 

August 26-September 1

Salmon season ends – in-river coho season approved

Fishermen who were sweating bullets last week worrying about high winds ruining the Slam’n Salmon Derby can now breathe a sigh of relief. A change in the forecast of the National Weather Service is now predicting abating winds and progressively calmer seas for this weekend.

Saturday is predicted to have NNE winds between 6 and 11 knots, becoming 5 knots or less in the afternoon, while Sunday’s weather is looking even more promising, with variable winds of 5 knots or less, a great day for ending up the final day of the derby. Labor Day’s weather should be about the same as Sunday, possibly even calmer.

As a result, almost everyone should be able to troll the big pond outside the jetty jaws of the Chetco.

 In March of 2011 four fishing buddies, Ian Heward, Bryn Dye, Paul Coventry and Chris Silvester, made a decision to fish the Slam’n Salmon Ocean Derby in Brookings.

The ringleader of the group, Heward, had been to Brookings a number of times with his sister and her husband, Tim and Sally Newby, and knew of the derby and how wonderful a weekend of fishing with the guys would be.

The group planned and saved and, in the case of Coventry, bribed their wives to be able to attend.