Silverton wide receiver Spencer Clements is heading to George Fox University in Newberg to play football and study toward a hoped-for career as an orthopedic surgeon.
Clements caught 59 passes for 941 yards and 12 touchdowns for the Foxes, who finished 7-4 last fall. The 6-3, 190-pounder is the latest in a series of excellent Foxes wideouts that also includes Preston Kirk and
Logan Munson.
Clements told Our Town that George Fox was the first school to recruit him and that he had “built a relationship with them early.”
Clements also considered walking on at Boise State, Oregon State and Portland State.
“But the more I thought about it,” he said, “I knew I could compete for a sport early at George Fox and I had earned a really good scholarship. It was a lot to pass up, but the relationship piece was really big.”
The Bruins, who are heading into the fourth season of their restored program, run a spread offense that uses as many as five wide receivers. It’s a perfect fit for Clements, who has the height to outleap smaller defensive backs and is good at finding space in the secondary.
Bruins coach Chris Casey said he and his staff had been tracking Clements since first watching him at a summer passing league tournament before his junior year.
“We felt he was the very best receiver at that tournament,” Casey told Our Town. “He is an outstanding person, student, and football athlete and comes from a great family background. We like everything about Spencer Clements and feel he has the attitude, work ethic, athletic ability, ball skills and growth potential to be an all-league caliber wide receiver. We are thrilled he decided to become
a George Fox Bruin.”
George Fox plays in the Northwest Conference in NCAA Division III.
The league also includes Oregon schools Linfield, Willamette, Pacific and
Lewis & Clark.
Clements said that playing close to home was not necessarily a goal, although he viewed it as an “added bonus.” Clements has an aunt and uncle who live in Newberg and said he “might be able to sneak over and do my laundry.”
Clements separated his shoulder in a snowboarding accident at Mt. Hood that limited his basketball participation to two games. But he remained with the team throughout the season, which ended with a fourth-place finish at the Class 5A
state tournament.
Top memories of his high school career include the 31-30 win at Lebanon last fall as well as the 31-14 victory against Thurston in the Class 5A playoffs. The Foxes drove 81 yards to the winning score against Lebanon, led by a not-to-be-believed 4th-and-27 scramble by quarterback Levi Nielsen. And the 24-0 hurt that the Foxes put on Thurston in the second half marked perhaps their best work of the season. Clements, who also played defensive back for the Foxes, forced two fumbles from standout wide receiver Tyson Haas of the Colts in that contest.
A low point? The 42-40 loss at
Mountain View of Bend in this season’s quarterfinals.
“If we would have won that game we could have been in the state championship,” which was eventually won by Churchill. “But we didn’t lose that game… we learned from it.”
Dance and drill: The Silverton dance squad finished fourth in the OSAA Class 5A championships held March 15-17 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland.
The Foxes scored 74.18 points in the finals, trailing champion Pendleton (81.92), runner-up Milwaukie (81.77) and Hermiston (75.43). Silverton finished third in the preliminaries.
Three Foxes seniors made the all-state team, Emily Huyck, Abby Hulett and Natalie Reutov. Senior Breanna Beyer, meanwhile, won a Dance and Drill Coaches Association of Oregon academic scholarship, which requires a grade point average of at least 3.75.
Also on the team are Mikayla Hamilton, Hannah Barrett, Rebekeh Huebsch, Lisa Kurns, Sarah Zitzelberger, Corinne Berning, Lottie Hamilton, Sarah Little, Samantha Zurcher, Sophie Bergstahl, Claire Crager-Stadeli, Orianna Farrell, Alicea Little and Euphrasia Reutov.
The squad is coached by Paula Magee, Emily Sword and Alex Reese.
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