Small schools continue quest

Prior to the football season, Lind-Ritzville coach Mike Lynch observed that Republic likely had the talent to be a good team.

He based his reasoning on the Tigers’ state title basketball and state regional finalist baseball efforts and presumption that those players would come out for football.

Most did and Chuck Wilson’s Tigers, with a deceiving 6-4 record, join Lynch’s unbeaten Northeast District league champion Broncos and once-beaten defending state titlist Reardan in the State B-11 quarterfinals.

The trio joins several other area small school classification teams still alive in the fields of eight.

And Willie Nelson has nothing on many of these teams who are on the road in their quest to make that ultimate trip to the state finals, Dec. 4, in Tacoma.

Beginning tonight and continuing Saturday, area teams have road games in Kennewick and Yakima, Mount Vernon, Vancouver and Tumwater to determine semifinalists in the 1A, B-11 and B-8 classifications.

“Explain how that works,” said Wilson, of the itineraries.

Only unbeaten 1A team Freeman and B-8 Columbia (Hunters) remain close to home. The Lions play last year’s finalist Jubilee Christian tonight at Medical Lake. Freeman is host to Zillah at Central Valley on Saturday.

B-11

Lind-Ritzville is in Mount Vernon against Orcas Island and Reardan travels all the way to Vancouver on Saturday against unbeaten Wahkiakum for rugged quarterfinal matchups.

The Broncos face Orcas Island, which plays in the 1A Northwest League. Among its victories was a 35-14 win over fellow quarterfinalist Tacoma Baptist, which hosts DeSales this week.

Two of its three losses are to 2A and 1A unbeatens, Archbishop Murphy and Friday Harbor, respectively. The latter score was 14-12.

Usually the route to a title game over here has been through Wahkiakum and the Northeast B-11 has been the Mules’ nemesis. They have been semifinalists four of the last five years, losing three times to NE B-11 teams and once to DeSales. The fifth year was a first-round loss to Lind-Ritzville. And they lost in the finals one year to Liberty.

Republic has a decided basketball look to it. The Tigers are quarterbacked by Gabe Giddings. Others from the 28-1 Tigers B basketball champions include Derek Gianukakis, Tyler and Todd Orestad, John Lewison, Kyle and Kavan Lehn, Drake Graham and Adam Hancock, recovering from a injured spleen.

Unlike its league compadres, who have a combined 27 state appearances and reached the finals or semifinals 15 of those, Republic has only one other state appearance (not counting play-in games), losing to DeSales in the semis back in 1996.

The Tigers upset unbeaten Waterville 19-14 in the playoffs first round, prolonging this football season.

“When we beat Waterville,” said Wilson in jest, “(Basketball coach) John (Gianukakis) shook my hand, then had some choice words for me. I think he wants to go unbeaten this year.”

Injuries last year cost the Tigers six football players. One, Tyler Orestad, said Wilson, “shaved half his leg off with a draw knife skinning logs.”

It meant that several players now manning key skilled spots had to play in the line or out of position, creating an air of uncertainty about this year.

A few more injuries and illness plus some bad bounces cost the team a couple of games Wilson said they could have won.

“Sometimes records are a little deceiving and I’m sure everybody and his mother thought Waterville would beat us,” Wilson said. “I don’t think it was a fluke.”

Next up on Saturday is La Salle, second to Waterville in the Central Washington B-11 League.

“It’s nice to see three Northeast B teams in there and I think we have a shot,” said Wilson. “To be honest, we face the team that’s most beatable.”

1A

The unbeaten Scotties know something about last year’s 1A state finalists Zillah, who they host on Saturday.

“When we played them in 2001, the great majority of those kids were juniors and sophomores,” said Freeman coach Jeff Smith. “I would say most think they’re not as strong as last year, but they’re a pretty darn good football team.”

Zillah is led by two-way all-conference running back/linebacker Duran Torrez and linemen Matt Ozuna and Kevin Walker. The team plays an I-formation offense with option and spread looks, said Smith, and executes well.

In order to win, Freeman must rely on its team concept and play mistake-free ball, said their coach.

“I think we match up pretty well,” said Smith. “Basically we have two goals this game. To be more focused in our execution from last week. The other is to take another step.”

B-8

Columbia coach Chuck Wyborney is looking forward to what this weekend’s first State B-8 playoff games bring.

“This first round is huge for us to give us an idea how good Pe Ell is,” he said, “and how close the game between Sprague-Harrington and LaCrosse-Washtucna is.”

Wyborney’s Lions have already played unbeaten Clallam Bay, another of the teams chasing LaCrosse-Washtucna’s current 32-game winning streak, and barely lost.

Unbeaten Pe Ell hosts Colton-Pullman Christian Saturday in Tumwater. Colton, with a storied postseason football history including 16 state appearances, four B-11 titles and two seconds in B-8, was last in the playoffs in 1999.

LaCrosse-Washtucna is the two-time defending B-8 champion and odds-on favorite.

Columbia’s league win over Sprague-Harrington put it opposite those two schools and Clallam Bay.

The Lions were ousted by LaCrosse-Washtucna in the last two playoffs. They have a balanced team, led by quarterback Nick Kegel, who completed 45 of 65 passes this season.

He’s thrown for 1,166 yards and 20 touchdowns and joins Miles St. John and Mitchell Hammond as a running threat. The trio have combined for 1,562 rushing yards and Hammond has more than 400 yards receiving.