Football’s Formula Book Only Leads To Confusion If Team A Beats Team B And B Beats Team C, Then What?

One way to analyze this week’s high school football games is to consider the algebraic theory regarding substitutionary property of equals.

The formula goes something like this: If Team A beats Team B and Team B beats Team C then Team A should beat Team C.

Or something like that.

We’ve selected four games to test the theory - two Inland Empire League games, Post Falls (2-0 in league, 6-1 overall) at Coeur d’Alene (0-2, 1-6) and Lewiston (2-1, 6-1) at Sandpoint (2-0, 6-1), one Intermountain League game, St. Maries (3-0, 7-0) at Moscow (3-0, 6-1) in a contest that should decide the league championship, and a non-league game, Lake City (0-7) at Lakeland (4-3).

Applying the formula to the Post Falls-CdA game would strongly suggest a blowout or a substantially decisive victory by the Trojans. Post Falls pulled away from Lewiston earlier in the season for a 41-20 win. Last week, Lewiston stymied CdA 35-8.

Home-field advantage, it would seem, will have to be worth a couple of touchdowns for Sandpoint to defeat Lewiston. The Bengals had no problems with West Valley (28-0) and Lake City (47-7) while the Bulldogs fell to West Valley (24-10) and pulled away in the second half for a win over Lake City (29-12).

St. Maries and Moscow will be heavily favored to win final league games next week, so the winner Friday at Moscow can try the league crown on for size.

In comparative games, Moscow downed Kellogg 14-0 and Priest River 34-0 while St. Maries defeated Kellogg 44-30 and Priest River 39-6. It’ll be interesting to see if Moscow’s defense can stop St. Maries’ powerful offense.

Kickoff in most games Friday is 7:30 p.m.

In other games, Priest River (0-4, 4-4) goes to Bonners Ferry (0-3, 2-5) in an IML contest and Wallace (3-3-1) is at Kellogg (3-4-1).

In North Star League games, Falls Christian (3-3, 4-3) visits Lakeside (6-1, 7-1) while Mullan (5-1 in league and overall) is at Kootenai (0-6, 0-7) at 3:30.

Quotebook

Post Falls isn’t looking past Coeur d’Alene to its regular-season finale at home next week against Sandpoint. “(Friday) is the game that can put us in the playoffs for sure,” Trojans coach Jerry Lee said. “If we don’t win this game we’re in trouble. Every team we’re playing now is playing the best possible football they can play.”

CdA coach Bill Anderson said Lewiston is the best team the Viks have played so far. “I don’t know how (Post Falls) beat Lewiston. Lewiston has great skill, great speed.”

On the Viks, who have lost four straight since a 46-7 victory over Class A Deer Park, Anderson said: “They still want to win. They haven’t given up the ship.”

Lewiston has never lost a game to Sandpoint under coach Nick Menegas. But the Bengals did play to a 10-10 tie in Menegas’ first year, 1986. “They’re very impressive,” Menegas said of Sandpoint. “They’ve got a fine tailback (Jeremy Thielbahr) and they’re scoring points. Defensively they’re not self-destructing. You can’t give (Thielbahr) three steps because by his fourth and fifth steps he’s gone.”

To hear Moscow coach Eric Bjorkman explain it, you’d think his Bears are 1-6 not 6-1. “We’ve struggled so much we haven’t had time to breathe let alone look ahead. We are very inexperienced and very undisciplined. A lot of it is just mental things. We block the wrong people, line up in the wrong places or clip some guy in the middle of the field that’s not anywhere near the ball.

“One thing I will say is we seem to have a lot of character. Regardless of how bad we screw up when we have to make the plays to win the game we do. I don’t think we’ve played poorly any week, we’ve just made things hard for ourselves at times.”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: FRIDAY’S GAMES Post Falls at CdA Lewiston at Sandpoint St. Maries at Moscow Lake City at Lakeland Priest River at Bonners Ferry Wallace at Kellogg Falls Christian at Lakeside Mullan at Kootenai