The Millers last stopped the Pirates in 1987. The 1987 win broke a Pirate 20 year streak. The Millers are due.
Miller Advantages
The game is at Silke on grass. That's two big advantages for the Millers. One - Silke is a great environment for the Millers; covered stands, the giant Miller balloon looming over the opponents all night, a great band and the best cheerleading team in the state. 2 - the Pirates haven't played on grass in several weeks.
There are a lot of teams in the MWL with good team speed this year. Springfield is one of them, but they probably need everyone on hand. A big question for Springfield is "Will the speedy Camarena be ready to play?" An option to not having to chase down Pirates Tedder and Scoville is for every player to 'stay home' on D. I think that's too much to ask of 11 guys on a high school team. Heck, Pac-10 teams can't stay home when they play the U of O. Eventually, a player leaves home to follow a fake and the foot race is on. Another option is to send more players after Tedder and force the Pirates to pass.
Springfield junior QB Levi Green has really come on strong the last four games. He's consistently completing passes in the 60% range, and that includes games against Sherwood and Thurston. Green threw for 267 yards against the Colts and 166 against Churchill last week. Springfield has an unknown and almost all senior receiving corp. These guys are way better than the press they are getting. Jake Becker, Ellis McNulty, Nick Dillingham and Oliver Johnson have all been getting a lot of action in league ball. Becker and McNulty are the likely ones to pop a long score. Thomas Spikes and Devonte Smith picked up the load for Alex Camarena last week when Camarena was sidelined the entire game. Spikes and Smith ran for 157 yards combined.
This is a must win game for the Millers. A Springfield loss knocks the Millers out of the playoffs.
Pirate advantages
The Pirates have become an almost exclusively option team. Senior QB Kyle Tedder leads the league in rushing. Junior RB Ryan Scoville is the 'Quizz' on the team. He doesn't get the large number of carries like the OSU back, but when he does, he is gone. The guys pounding it up the middle are senior Talo Silver and junior Jorgen Mulkey. Don't expect either of these two to break the long one, but they are a load to bring down in short yardage situations. I'm sure the Pirates would like their passing game to blossom. Don't expect it to break out this week. The Pirates will be down one key receiver Friday. Do look for Chris Krajcir. He's a route guy with great hands who fights for and wins lots of jump balls.
Prediction
I've seen both teams twice. Neither team has been consistent enough for me to get overconfident about predicting this game. I'm going with the Pirates. They all but abandoned the passing game last week and still couldn't be stopped. If every Miller stays home on D every play, they can shut down the Pirates. But I can still see the few missed assignments by Willamette last week against Marshfield and I know how easy it is to get lulled into chasing the ball.
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