Freeman’s Davis points toward big season

Chris Davis found his compass setting at halftime against Colfax.

An explosive running back for two seasons at Freeman, the senior truly hit his stride in Week 3 this year.

“I think it finally clicked in for him in the second half that game,” Freeman coach Jim Wood said. “It’s something we’re telling him every day in practice, but he finally realized that when he runs north and south he has a lot of success.”

“At halftime everyone was telling me to stop dancing with my girlfriend,” Davis said. “My teammates, my coaches – everyone was telling me I was trying to make too many moves. I finally got tired of hearing about it.

“When we went out to start the second half, I ran the first play back for a touchdown and I’ve been running that way ever since.”

Davis’ 58-yard run for a touchdown was the match that set the Freeman offense aflame.

The Scotties roared back to take a 27-20 road victory at Colfax. The next week Davis erupted for five touchdowns against Lakeside in a 42-12 victory at Nine Mile Falls and added four more last week at Newport – giving him 11 touchdowns in a two-week span and 16 heading into this week’s first-place showdown at Kettle Falls, the only team this season to have kept Davis out of the end zone.

In essence, Davis said, he’s running the football with the same attitude with which he plays safety.

“I just decided that, if I’m going to get hit anyway, that I might as well dish out some of the punishment,” he said. “I started attacking the hole, getting there as quickly as I can and try to break into the secondary where I can use my speed.”

That’s the attitude he intends to bring to Kettle Falls for Friday’s rematch.

“We didn’t run the ball very well against Kettle (the first time),” Davis said. “We were missing one of our key linemen, and (the Bulldogs’) game plan has always been to stop the run against us.

“Still, we should have won that game. Our defense held them to 66 yards of offense, but they picked off our option play the only time we ran it and took it back for a touchdown.”

“When he lowers his shoulder and drives ahead, he has a lot of success,” Wood said. “He’s not that big of a kid – he’s 5-foot-9 and, maybe, 160 pounds – but he’s a very determined runner. You’d better be ready to tackle him if he’s running at you.”

With Davis running the football with purpose, the rest of the Freeman offense has opened up.

“We’re throwing the football better this year, too,” Davis said. “We competed with the Greater Spokane League teams in the summer passing league and that gave us a lot of confidence.

“Right now, our offense is playing with the same attitude our defense plays with. We want to keep attacking teams the whole game.”