Ferris thankful for learning to share

Quarterback job-sharing isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as Ferris’ 17-14 victory over Lewis and Clark on Friday showed.

When Shawn Stockton broke his clavicle on the first series of the game, Jeff Minnerly carried the load for the remainder and engineered two second-half scoring drives. He completed 10 of 17 passes for 91 yards and carried the ball 14 times, scoring the Saxons go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter.

The fact that Minnerly shared time with Stockton in Ferris’s previous two wins, passing for 184 yards and two touchdowns, left him well-prepared for the pressure cooker of a game with first-place implications. Stockton will miss up to eight weeks. Minnerly becomes the man and is well-seasoned to guide a team.

“Jeff did a lot of things well,” said coach Jim Sharkey.

Jared Karstetter continued his remarkable play at wide receiver He had six more catches for 77 yards, one was an acrobatic 27-yard grab from Minnerly that he held onto while crashing awkwardly to the ground. It set up the winning field goal.

Ferris had only one turnover to LC’s three. And again, its defense up front made running difficult for an opponent.

“Defensively we got knocked back at first,” said Sharkey. “(But) you have to win with defense at every level and the kids rose to it. Two weeks in a row the way they’ve done it, especially losing Shawn in the first series, showed a lot of guts again.”

The best of all genes

The latest precocious freshman female distance runner, Andrea Nelson from Shadle Park, literally burst upon the scene last week with a pair of impressive victories.

On Saturday she ran the sixth-fastest Highlander Invitational time for 2.5 miles, timing 14:52, one minute behind the record set in 2002 by Flathead’s Zoe Nelson.

Not that it surprised Shadle coach Bob Isitt. He said he was told by her dad that she had the talent of her older brother Rich, a four-time state qualifier who finished second as a senior in 2002, the work ethic of sister Cami, a two-time state runner who graduated this spring, and the intensity of older sister Carolyn, a sprinter on Shadle’s 1997 league runner-up track team.

•On Wednesday, the top three boys GSL cross country teams square off at Audubon Park to, in all likelihood, determine the league title. North Central, last year’s 3A state runner-up, hosts defending league champion Mead and defending 4A champion Ferris.

Big grid games on tap

Now there are three unbeaten GSL football teams — Ferris (3-0), Gonzaga Prep and University (2-0) – and three others – LC, East Valley and Mead – with one league loss. So plenty of head-to-head matchups remain, beginning this week when the Titans (2-1 overall) host the Bullpups (3-0 overall) and the Knights (2-1) host the Panthers (1-2 overall). •Football outside the GSL revs up in a big way as well.

West Valley (2-1) hosts defending 2A Great Northern League and state champion Pullman (3-0) in a game to see if its playoff aspirations are legitimate.

The Eagles – who lost 42-14 last week on Lakeland’s three fourth-quarter touchdowns – must stop a team that hadn’t had to throw the football until last weekend against Frenchtown (Mont.).

Through two weeks the Greyhounds were averaging more than 340 yards on the ground, had four rushers over 100 yards and another one was close. Last Friday, JT Levenseller passed for 207 yards, eight times to Mike Meines for 112. Meines added 77 yards on the ground.

•Three Northeast A League incumbents, Freeman, Colfax and Kettle Falls (3-0), have taken the upper hand after the Scotties (2-1) thwacked Chewelah and Colfax (3-0) outlasted Lakeside. Now it’s the Scotties at Colfax in the first of two games that have annually determined the league champion.

•Headlining the Northeast 2B League is Friday’s annual neighborhood rumble when Reardan travels up the road to Davenport. The Indians (2-0), Gorillas (3-0 and averaging nearly 60 points per game) and, yes, Lind-Ritzville (2-0) have yet to be tested in league.

Score of the week: Ferris 17, Lewis and Clark 14.