APRIL 19, 2013

Senior serves up stats

BY ROCKY MCNEFF SPORTS EDITOR A 13-game winning streak, a conference record of 10-0 and an overall record of 13-1 is what Izzy Borris (13) leaves Lewis & Clark with this year. The only senior on the womens tennis team, Borris has had her best season yet with more to come in the Northwest Conference Tournament. She will be competing with the rest of the team this weekend, and their first game is against Whitworth. Borris is a Hispanic studies and psychology major, and plans to stick around in Portland for the summer to teach tennis at a kids camp. I also intend on meeting one of my friends to travel around Southeast Asia in November, said Borris. The Texas born senior was drawn to Portland after realizing that out of all the schools she applied to, LC was the fit for her. She studied abroad in Chile the spring semester of her junior year, making a conscious decision to miss a year of tennis. This year, the womens tennis team finished with a record of 15-4 and 11-1 in conference. They have finished the conference season with a 9-game winning streak and finished second behind Whitman. Borris ends her tennis career with the best season the team has seen since her freshman year at LC. This will also be Borris first appearance in the NWC Tournament, where she plans to keep her undefeated record just cause it sounds cool. She also has high hopes for the team, as it will be facing Whitman in the tournament. I think Ill miss being in the school environment. Its a pretty unique environment where you are constantly surrounded by people and youre always learning and being challenged. Mostly, I will miss the people, said Borris. Head Womens Tennis Coach Patrick Dreves said Borris has improved a tremendous amount over the time he has been coaching her. Her practices stand out as the most important factor contributing to her teams outcome and her own. Being one of the few girls in the NWC to hold an undefeated season, Borris keeps practices light and fun, bringing that element to the team, but when she steps foot on the court, her mindset is all about the victory. She leads by example and is the definition of a student-athlete, said Dreves. The senior has put forth an immense amount of effort in her sport and her studies at LC, keeping a great GPA for a double major athlete.

THE PIONEER LOG

SPORTS

15

Izzy Borris: Fun Facts

Movie genre she would star in:
ROMANTIC COMEDY

Favorite procrastination pastime:

BOTHERING FRIENDS, PLAYING GUITAR, OR WATCHING DEXTER

Best place on campus:

REFLECTING POOL

The place she would live if given the choice:

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND

Portland posession
THE CITYS NEUTRALITY FOR THE MLB
BY PETER MELLING STAFF WRITER Because there is no baseball team in Portland, there is contention as to what Major League Baseball team best represents the Portland market. Is Portland owned by the Mariners to the north, the nationwide presence of the Yankees and Red Sox, or the vaguely close Giants and As? According to the MLB, Portland is within the terri-

tory of the Seattle Mariners. This would make sense, seeing as Seattle is three hours away from Portland and MLB.tv blacks out Mariners games. However, in the six months that I have been in Portland, I have yet to see any significant presence of Ms fans. I can think of only about five times that I have seen Mariners apparel in Portland. Even going into thrift shops and bookstores, I could not find any Mariners hats, shirts or books. Also, I have never seen any Mariners merchandise on homes or public spaces. Why are the Mariners so absent from what is technically their territory? Then it became obvious. Seattle went 14 years before their first winning season. Then, in 2001, they had a 116-win season that ended in the American League Championship Series and the departures of future Hall of Fame stars Ken Griffey, Jr., Randy

Johnson and Alex Rodriguez. With such a problematic history, it is not surprising that there is not much of an existing Mariners fanbase or a demand for an increased Mariner presence in Portland (despite the 7-year, $135 million extension of allstar pitcher Flix Hernndez). But what about the former affiliates of the Triple-A Portland Beavers? I also considered the San Diego Padres and the Minnesota Twins, which were affiliates of Portlands old minor league team. I have yet to see any merchandise for these two teams in Portland, even in sporting goods stores. The Beavers themselves also have little representation, but with the considerable resistance to new stadium measures (which eventually forced them to move to Tucson, Ariz.), that should be expected. If the

closest major league team and the affiliates of the minor league team are not represented in Portland, what teams can call Portland their own? In answering this question, I went to the next closest teams: the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics. These teams have illustrious histories, moved to the West Coast in 1958 and 1968, respectivelylong before the founding of the Mariners and have had recent success (the Giants have won two of the last three World Series and the As are coming off a division title). Giants and As merchandise is all over Portland, on the streets and in stores. When I went to the Lids at Lloyd Center, one of the employees told me that the Giants and As caps sell more units than Mariners headgear. That employee also told me that Yankees and Dodgers hats

are the best-selling caps at that location. Considering that I had seen a lot of caps and jackets for both teams around Portland, this information was no surprise. A trip to Powells confirmed this trend, as I saw over a shelf of Yankee books and almost an entire shelf of Dodger and Red Sox books. There were plenty of Giants books, but no As books or Mariners books (not including biographies). The evidence from Lids, Powells and my time on the streets led me to an interesting conclusion. Portland is a neutral city for the MLB, but it has leanings towards the Giants and the Athletics. While these two teams might not claim Portland as official territory, it is obvious that these two teams, and several other storied clubs, have a greater stake in the Portland market than the Mariners.