Archbishop Murphy will pick poison versus potent Pullman

Without fail, the phone has been ringing every week in Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls) football coach Brian Dunn’s classroom.

On the other end will be an upcoming opponent of the Pullman Greyhounds wanting to know one thing.

How did he do it?

What Dunn’s team did was come within a point of the 13-0 and second-ranked Greyhounds, who face Archbishop Murphy, 14-0 and ranked No. 1, at 10 a.m. in the Tacoma Dome.

Dunn’s answer to the question is pretty simple.

“I think we got dang lucky,” he said of the 28-27 game on Oct. 14, which the Eagles led 27-21 late in the fourth quarter.

Most of the questions asked of Dunn are of the “Is he as good as he looks?” category.

“I just kind of tell them good luck,” Dunn said. “There’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do with it, (Pullman) just covers all their bases. They have so much speed, you have to guess. If you guess right, you stay in the game. If not, it’s a long night.”

In the Pullman-Lakeside game, Dunn tried to take away the run and hoped his corners could match up with Pullman’s receivers.

In the semifinals, Connell adopted that strategy, shifting to a five-man front and playing man-to-man coverage on the outside.

Pullman found tough going on the ground, averaging 4.1 yards a carry, but junior quarterback J.T. Levenseller hit Ashton Gant for a 56-yard touchdown two plays into the game and went on to complete 7 of 13 passes for 148 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions.

“We’re real comfortable doing that,” Pullman head coach Bob Wollan said. “Absolutely, when we’ve got a couple of guys like (Aaron) Pflugrad and Gant.”

The Greyhounds haven’t lit up scoreboards with their passing game, as Levenseller averages 122 passing yards a game. That total comes on 12 passes a game, however, and with 27 touchdown throws, one out of every six passes attempted by Pullman this year has gone for six points.

Couple that with a pair of 1,000-yard backs in fullback Mike Thomas and tailback J.C. Sherritt, and all-purpose speedster Justin Erwin, and you have a migraine for opposing coaches.

“The thing is, we can’t load up to stop one thing,” Archbishop Murphy coach Terry Ennis said. “I think as far as percentage-wise, they run the ball a lot more, but they get an awful lot of big plays with the pass. You have to pick your poison.”

This all started three years ago when Wollan came to Pullman from Rochester to take over the Greyhounds football program. In 2003, Pullman was picked to finish fifth in the GNL, but finished second at state.

Now, Wollan’s team is making its second state title game appearance in three years. Only three schools 2A or higher in the area have had similar title runs: Gonzaga Prep (1985-87), Cheney (1988-89) and West Valley (1975-76).

“Our No. 1 message is that there are no shortcuts in the whole deal,” Wollan said. “You get exactly out of it what you put into it, and that encompasses everything from the weight room to film study and being at everything we did. It takes a 100 percent buy-in.”

That devotion was evident this summer, when the Greyhounds would regularly get 90 percent participation every night in the weight room.

“It was awesome,” Wollan said. “We’d have 50-60 kids a night and it was 100 degrees in there and there was a lot of energy. I believe that the more kids have invested, it’s a lot harder to let go of that rope.”

That translated on to the field, as Pullman relies on a physical offensive line and defense, and when two starters were unable to play against Connell, two younger players stepped in and the machine kept rolling.

“You know you’re going to have a great team when you have a weight room team,” Levenseller said. “That’s the key in us getting to the dome and everyone’s bought into it.”

Strength and discipline in the trenches will be one of the important aspects of today’s championship game. Archbishop Murphy’s top three running backs average 12.1 yards a carry, and the team averages 49.6 points a game running the wing-T.

“They’re the best running team we’ve seen all year,” Wollan said. “They’re going to get yards, but our big thing is to make them earn yards. They’re a big play waiting to happen every time they touch the football.”

Although the same could be said of Pullman’s offense, with 15 touchdowns of 50-plus yards this season.

They might need a couple of those plays to be successful against Archbishop Murphy.

“I think we have to be able to run and pass equally,” Levenseller said. “We’ve got weapons and that makes it a lot easier.”