Girls Soccer, Volleyball, Football In Next Stage Of State Competition
Further state tournament competition beckons North Side teams this week in football, volleyball and soccer.
Mead’s girls soccer team, unbeaten until last week’s district finals, gets a rematch against the team that beat it, Ferris.
The Panthers and Saxons were both first round state victors against Big Nine and will meet Saturday, 11 a.m. in a quarterfinal game.
Also on Saturday, Riverside’s unbeaten Great Northern League champions open state 2A competition at home.
While those matches are going on, state volleyball tournaments are under way in the Spokane area.
Mead, last year’s third-place state finisher will be in the 4A field in the Spokane Arena after advancing through regionals in Yakima.
Northwest Christian plays in the State B tournament at Eastern Washington University.
A first-round loss forced Mead to come back through the double-elimination regional event and prevented a four-team Greater Spokane League sweep of the tournament.
Rogers was one of three Greater Spokane League teams to win openers. After losing to tourney runnerup LC, the Pirates were ousted by Mead.
The Panthers first game is at 11 a.m. Friday. They continue pool play at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. The eight-team finals resume on Saturday.
Northwest Christian plays at 8 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Grid fortunes vary
Tuesday night’s entry round into the State 4A football playoffs met with mixed results for Greater Spokane League schools.
League champion Gonzaga Prep defeated last year’s state runnerup, but fourth-place Big Nine entry Richland 30-6 and will play Saturday in Joe Albi Stadium against Kamiakin.
The Bullpups parlayed characteristally tough defense and its option attack for the surprisingly easy win.
Mead didn’t fare as well in its road game against Big Nine unbeaten Pasco, despite rushing for 302 yards and piling up 414 yards of total offense.
The Panthers were involved in a high-scoring game with the pass-happy Bulldogs, ending their season with a high-scoring 42-29 loss.
Kris Griffins, Chris McCullough and Zack Cassell each approached 100 yards rushing.
Mead finished 7-3 in coach Bob McCray’s first season. The team finished tied for third, just a win away from first place in the GSL.
Freshman showdown
When Shadle Park and Mead’s freshmen football teams played two weeks ago in the season finale, both were unbeaten in six games.
Three minutes into the game, it was clear which the better team was on that day.
Shadle’s Jon Weiser ran the opening kickoff down to the one yard line to set up a touchdown. Four plays later he returned a punt 65 yards for a score.
The young Highlanders built a 20-0 lead and went on to win 39-20 win. Weiser had another long kick return touchdown.
“He’s the real deal,” said coach Tim Gaebe.
He also pointed to fullback-linebacker Jeremy McVay and quarterback-linebacker Ben McCracken as instrumental performers for the team.
Mead started a line with players who weighed between 180 and 240 pounds.
“They’ve got a good football team,” said Gaebe. “For us to come down to the game both 6-0 was a fluke scheduling thing.”
, DataTimes