Hounds Inch Past Cards
Great Northern League
Mere inches kept alive Pullman’s hopes of a Great Northern League football title and spoiled Medical Lake’s playoff chances at the same time.
Pullman’s Trent Bray and Nate Nolting stopped Medical Lake quarterback Nick Tareski inches short of the goal line Friday night on a 2-point conversion try during overtime and the Greyhounds squeaked out a 27-26 victory at Medical Lake that keeps them undefeated with two weeks left in the season.
In the Kansas tiebreaker, Pullman (4-0) went on offense first from the 25-yard line.
Senior quarterback Brian Zeches put the finishing touches on a stellar second half when he connected with Kyle Clark on a 25-yard scoring pass. Clark caught the ball and beat one defender along the left sideline and ran into the end zone. Lucas Svaren converted the extra point.
On its try, Medical Lake (3-2) reached the 1-yard line when Alexis Alexander ran 24 yards on third down. He then ran the last yard for his fourth touchdown of the night.
Cardinals coach John Giannandrea decided to go for the win. Tareski faked a handoff to Alexander and ran a bootleg to the right side, but didn’t make it far enough.
“We came out and started slow,” said Zeches, who completed 15 of 32 passes for two touchdowns with two interceptions. His 231 yards give him 1,701 for the year. “We started clicking, and then we were doing whatever we wanted to do.”
Except win in regulation. Svaren missed a 30-yard field goal as the clock ran out in the fourth quarter. Jacob Petz had blocked a Cardinals punt to put the Greyhounds on Medical Lake’s 13-yard line to start their last possession with 1:58 left.
Pullman, which plays Deer Park (3-1) next week, overcame eight penalties for 85 yards and spoiled a big night for Alexander. The league’s top rusher carried 25 times for 188 yards.
“We made some mistakes, but we stepped up,” said Pullman coach Bill Christie. “This game was for a playoff spot and it keeps us in position to win the league title.”
The top two GNL teams make the playoffs. Riverside upset previously undefeated Deer Park 21-0 at Riverside on Friday. Medical Lake has its bye the last week of the season. The Cardinals will finish with Lakeside next week.
Probably the hardest thing for Giannandrea was to know that Alexander will not make the playoffs.
“Alexis had a great year, and I would have loved to see him go into the playoffs,” the coach said.
Giannandrea, who believed Tareski made it into the end zone on the final play, said it would have been easy to second-guess his call to go for the win in overtime rather than kick for the tie.
But the bootleg play had been good to the Cardinals all season, he said.
The Greyhounds relied on the running of Svaren in the first half, then turned to their passing game. Svaren rushed 27 times for 130 yards.
Also in the GNL, Brian Crance rushed for 252 yards on 22 carries, including TDs of 8, 20 and 73 yards, to carry Riverside (5-2, 3-2) to a 21-0 win over Deer Park (5-1, 3-1) at Chattaroy. Crance also had an interception and a 48-yard return. Jake Moug went 3 for 3 on extra points and added an interception that led to the second TD… . Jeremy Byrd rushed for 94 yards on nine carries and Chad Evans had two interceptions to carry Newport (2-5, 1-3) to a 34-0 win over visiting Lakeside (0-7, 0-4). Newport held the Eagles to 73 total yards.