Lancers Revving Up For Freeman Game
The Liberty Lancers are anxious to play another football game.
Anxious because they gave up 55 points in an embarrassing loss to Kettle Falls last week and want to redeem themselves.
Anxious because they have the chance to do it against Freeman.
Ah, the rivalry renewed.
Liberty and Freeman, both 1-3 overall and 0-1 in the Northeast A League, are playing with league implications on the line for the first time in six years since Freeman went up to Class A. Liberty, a B-11 semifinalist last season, became 1A this season.
They play at 7 p.m. Friday at Liberty in the first of two meetings this fall. Teams play twice in the four-team league. The second game is at Freeman on Oct. 29. Freeman has won the past two years in nonleague games, but Liberty had won 15 of the 16 previous meetings.
“Neither one of us wants to get off to an 0-2 start in league, so that makes it real big,” said Lancer coach Rod Fletcher, noting his team hasn’t made a big deal of the rivalry.
Fletcher said that without Freeman around, the Lancers had become accustomed to rivalries with teams like Ritzville.
“We have to channel that rivalry towards Freeman, which is fairly new for the guys who are here,” he said. “When you start playing people twice and they have playoff implications, down the road that’s where that rivalry is established, and it could be more than it has been in the past.”
The game features an interesting scenario: brothers Jake and Ben Holling of Liberty and Jake and Bill DePell for Freeman.
It’s defense the Lancers need to worry about, Fletcher said. The play of the inside linebackers, especially senior Dan DeGon and sophomore Matt Mullennix, will be key.
Tigers drop soccer game to Mead
Lewis and Clark senior sweeper Janine McNally isn’t counting the Tiger girls soccer team out of it.
“We’ve just got to win a lot of games,” she said after a 2-1 loss to Mead last week that gave the Tigers their first Greater Spokane League setback.
“We just missed our opportunities. We had them. We just need to finish.”
Meets become measuring stick
The Lewis and Clark and Ferris cross country teams are paired together in all four Greater Spokane League races, although only one, their season opener, counts in the standings.
Coaches are using the other three as a measure of their improvement during the season. The Tigers got a leg up last week.
“We were so much better than we were a week ago,” LC coach Chris Morlan said after last week’s meet at East Valley. “One of our top guys, Paul Swenson, said he didn’t have a good race; he wasn’t happy with how he ran the hill.
“But I think, overall, we did fantastic.”
The Tigers, tied for second in league with a meet next Wednesday against unbeaten Mead at Manito Park, had five of the top nine finishers in the race.
They won easily over EV and Gonzaga Prep.
If you scored their noncounter with Ferris, the 23-36 margin was an improvement over the 27-30 score the previous week.
Saxon Andrew Ice, one of the league’s top four runners, set a course record at East Valley in 16:03.
He finished over a minute ahead of LC second- and third-placers Colin Quinn-Hurst, who ran 17:05, and Joel Constable, who ran 17:11.
All five LC scorers finished in front of the Saxons’ third runner. A total of 43 seconds separated the Tiger quintet.
“We train together, alternating leads during surges,” Morlan said.
“They have to run together, so it’s really paying off. This was a step in the right direction.”