Loss to Colville a wake-up call for Freeman

Sebastian Hyta is locked in on the goal he and his teammates have set for themselves.

The Freeman junior is a two-way starter on the Scotties’ football team, starting at guard on offense and defensive end on offense. He did the same last year as the team marched through an undefeated season to earn the school’s first state Class 1A championship.

“Our goal isn’t to be undefeated. It isn’t to win a league championship,” he insists. “It’s to win a second straight state championship.”

But Hyta is also pragmatic. Last year is in the past and this year presents a different challenge.

“Last year we had a different team,” he said. “We didn’t have a lot of two-way starters, and we had a scout team that was 100 percent committed to get us ready to play every game.”

Freeman is one of the smallest schools in Class 1A, so last year’s team depth was the exception rather than the rule. Without that bench depth, the Scotties have had to learn how to keep battling through a whole game.

“That’s been a challenge,” Hyta said. “We’re still working at it. We have to learn that we can’t afford to take a play off.”

It helps to have strong senior leadership – players like Hyta, senior lineman Tiegan Glidewell and senior running back Markus Goldbach and junior quarterback Preston Hoppman.   

“The guys we have in our backfield are all great leaders,” he said. “Especially someone like Markus. He never takes a play off and he goes as hard as he can on every play.

“The way they play makes me want to open bigger holes for them, get down field and block more guys for them.”

That’s the epitome of leading by example, Hyta said. You can’t look across the huddle and look a player like Goldbach in the eye if you’re not playing as hard, not as committed to success on every play as he is.

The Scotties rolled through their first five games looking like the steamroller of a team they were last year. They blasted St. Maries, 49-7, in the season opener, then travelled to Pullman to blank the Greyhounds, 21-0. They scored more than 50 points while shutting out Newport and Chewelah and topped Riverside, 56-7.

“It looked like it, but under the surface those games were nothing like last year,” Hyta said. “We were making mistakes we would never have made last year.

“Our offense is great. No problem. But we’re struggling a little on defense.”

And then something happened that did not happen at all a year ago. Freeman lost a football game, falling to Colville, 28-7.

“We simply took an opponent too lightly,” he said. “We weren’t used to having someone go down and score before we scored. We rallied and scored on our first possession to open the second half, but when they came right back and scored on us, we were just deflated.”

It’s a game the Scotties should have won, Hyta insists. The talent is there to have won the game, but the team wasn’t mentally prepared.

The good news, he insists, is that the loss has served as a wake-up call to the entire team.

The Scotties posted a 71-29 win over Medical Lake and heads to Nine Mile Falls for their annual rivalry game with Lakeside. The Scotties wrap up the regular season on Halloween night at home against Deer Park.

“It’s always a big deal when we play Lakeside,” Hyta said. “Right now, our challenge is to play EVERY game like it’s against Lakeside.”

Hyta is pleased with what he sees from his teammates and the way they’re finding new ways to compete.

“I look at a guy like Peyton Smetana and I feel so proud,” Hyta said. “Peyton was a one-way starter for us last year – he just started on offense. This year, he’s a two-way starter. Never having done that before, he’s had to learn how to be a two-way guy and he’s doing it. He’d never let up and he’s doing a great job both ways.”

It’s not surprising that the core of players Hyta singles out are all part of the successful Freeman wrestling team. While he initially dismisses a connection between the two sports, it’s important to note that, among the players he singles out as team leaders, Hoppman (seventh place), Goldbach (second place) and Glidewell (fifth place) all came home with medals from the state Class 1A wrestling tournament in February, and Hyta himself placed sixth in the 195-pound class. Smetana was a state qualifier, but did not place.

“I think we all just try to play one sport at a time,” Hyta said. “Football shape and wrestling shape are very different. Last year, in order to be ready for wrestling, we did extra workouts during the end of football season.”