Quick Recovery Good For Egger And Team

It was a record recovery.

And is the Shadle Park High School football team thankful for that.

Highlanders’ senior quarterback Chad Egger came back from mononucleosis in a week. He missed the team’s season-opening victory against North Central - a win that snapped a 10-game losing streak - and he wasn’t going to miss another.

Egger was supposed to be in bed for two to six weeks. It ended up being two days. He was back to practice the next week and started in the Highlanders’ Week 2 win over East Valley.

“I’m sure it had a lot to do with wanting to be there,” Egger said of his rapid return. “I just lucked out.”

“He’s playing great now and we’re excited for him,” said Shadle coach Mark Hester, whose 9-1 team travels to Kennewick on Saturday for a 1 p.m. State 4A quarterfinal game against ninth-ranked Richland at Lampson Stadium.

When Egger hands off to Greater Spokane League rushing leader Steve Gabriel, or senior Jon Weiser, it’s tough to tell who has the ball.

Sometimes the only way you know is that Gabriel breaks open for a huge gain.

The 6-foot-1, 175-pound Egger says there’s no secret to his deception. He just follows the coaches’ orders.

“They’ve been telling me it gets harder to tell where the ball is going every week,” Egger said. “I try to stay low and hide my hands so it’s hard for the defense to pick it up.

“I think about it when I’m doing it. If I think about it, I try to get the defense to go with me instead of the running backs.”

So, how does it feel to give the ball to Gabriel, then watch him run to the end zone time after time?

It’s awesome.

Egger and his teammates have made it into a race to see who will be the next one over the goal line. Gabriel scored four touchdowns - two of 79 yards and a 70-yarder - in his team’s 37-27 first-round playoff win over Southridge. He had two more in a 48-26 win over Walla Walla on Saturday in the second round.

“Right when I give it to him, I start sprinting down the opposite sideline until he gets stopped,” Egger said. “A couple times when I got hit, I got up and watched him. It’s fun to watch him run. But then I realized you can watch him and run at the same time.”

Gabriel said he’s glad to be taking the ball from Egger. He was worried when Egger contracted mono and said he couldn’t believe his quarterback came back so soon.

“I was kind of scared,” Gabriel said. “People with mono are usually out a long time.”

Egger, 17, knows it could have been much worse. His symptoms lasted only a few weeks. He lost about seven pounds but has since gained 12.

“I can’t imagine what I would’ve done if I had to sit out,” he said.

The Highlanders knew during their summer camp at Whitworth College that this could be their year, Egger said.

“I know in everybody’s eyes we think we’re going to get there,” he said of the Dec. 3-4 Gridiron Classic in the Tacoma Dome. “It’ll be disappointing if we don’t but it will be good to look back and see what we did.

“We’ve been dreaming of this for so long. We always tried to think of what it would be like. We probably won’t realize what’s really going on until it’s all over.”

Egger and company just hope that won’t be Saturday.