Idaho Quick hits

Football

The quest for berths in the 2007 Milk Bowl finals begins in earnest this weekend.

Defending 5A state champ Lake City (7-2) not only wants a chance at a repeat, but the Timberwolves will seek a measure of redemption when they visit Lewiston (5-4) on Friday night. Kickoff is at 7.

Also on Friday, Lakeland (6-3) makes its first appearance in the State 4A playoffs when it plays host to Kuna (7-2) at 7.

In Saturday games, Weiser (8-1) travels to Timberlake (7-2) in State 3A playoff action, Troy (8-1) goes to Wallace (5-2) in a 1A Division I 8-man opener and Clark Fork (7-1) is at Kootenai (7-1) in a 1A Division II 8-man game. All three games kick off at 1.

Lake City at Lewiston: The Bengals grabbed a share of the Inland Empire League championship last Friday when they upset the visiting Timberwolves 26-14. That set up a rematch this week and eliminated Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene.

LC coach Van Troxel acknowledged that his team played poorly, perhaps its worst game of the season last Friday. But at the same time he gave credit to the Bengals.

“They’re a good football team,” Troxel said of Lewiston. “(Tom) Kerr (Lewiston’s quarterback) took advantage of our mistakes. They outplayed us.”

Lewiston coach Emmett Dougherty believes despite the victory his team didn’t get much respect for the win. He believes people look at it as LC lost the game instead of Lewiston winning the game. That will be motivation for his team on Friday.

“What we did had a lot to do with (them not playing well),” Dougherty said. “Give some other people credit. If somebody beats them, then it’s looked at as they played (poorly). We played a great game. We have a good team. It took us a while to get going this year. We finally started getting it all together.”

The key the past two weeks for Lewiston is it has cut down on its turnovers and penalties – things that haunted the Bengals in four previous losses.

So now the Bengals find themselves in the same position LC and CdA have in recent years – having to play a first-round rematch with a league rival.

“There are plusses and minuses,” Dougherty said. “Our kids are pretty confident right now, which is good. They’re not in awe of LC. They know they can play with them now and that’s a good thing. The bad thing is they’ll be mad. They’ll be better prepared.”

Troxel said his team doesn’t have a choice but to play with an edge on Friday.

“You either go out and play a different game or you’re done,” Troxel said. “If our guys want to continue to play, they’ve got to step up and play better.”

In a way, Dougherty said he’s trying to get his team to forget what happened last week.

“We need to realize the team that’s going to be down here Friday isn’t going to be the team that was here last Friday,” Dougherty said.

Kuna at Lakeland: The Hawks are preparing for a team that will likely wing the ball all over the field.

The Kavemen passed for 374 yards and four touchdowns in a playoff-securing 46-27 win over Mountain Home last week. Jordan Galloway, Kuna’s 6-foot-4 quarterback, engineered the attack.

Lakeland will try to keep Kuna’s offense off the field by using its ball-control, ground-oriented attack.

“We could have our hands full,” Kiefer said. “It’s like I said before we played Sandpoint, if we’re going to win we’re going to have to play our best game of the year. That should be expected when you get into the playoffs.”

Weiser at Timberlake: The Tigers will face a team that will try to run the ball down their throats.

Timberlake wants to run the ball, but they want to make it a track meet and use their speed.

Timberlake coach Roy Albertson likes his team’s frame of mind going into the game.

“I thought we played our best football of the season against Bonners Ferry,” Albertson said of his team’s 56-7 play-in win last week where the Tigers did all their scoring in the first half.

Is Weiser the best team Timberlake has played to this point?

“I’d compare them to Lakeland,” Albertson said. “They’re in that caliber.”

Clark Fork at Kootenai: There’s no secret what each team will try to do in this game. The Wampus Cats will throw and throw often. Quarterback Mike Martin threw 64 times in a 24-14 loss at Kootenai two weeks ago. Kootenai will run and run often, and that will allow the Warriors to shorten the game.