Marist-Sherwood. Oh, so close!

The words Coach Geske spoke to me last August came back to me when Taylor Walcott left the game in the second quarter.  I had just finished watching a practice and weight room workout on a hot August day.  When I left the weight room, I knew that no team in the MWL was going to touch Marist.  Then I watched them practice on the field, and I knew they were in late season form already.

Coach Geske knew he had a special group.  His words were "We have the talent and work ethic to make it to the finals, but we're not very deep." 

Walcott joins Park on injury list.

So when Walcott joined running back Greg Park on the sideline I figured it was lights out for Marist.  Marist had been playing without Park for several playoff games.  And while Logan Silver has been spectacular on the ground during the playoffs, it was getting more and more evident, playoff quarter by playoff quarter, that Marist was going to ride Silver's legs and arm all the way. 

Walcott's departure cut Silvers's passing options from three great receivers (Walcott, Baird and Paiement) to two.  And Walcott was the one with the most speed.    That added even more pressure on Silver's running game.  I was also expecting a Steven Long explosion in the second half, as Walcott was the only Spartan able to catch  Long on those 40 and 50 yard breakaways.

Spartans Rise to the Challenge.

Marist had obviously been in a personnel jam before.  Starting with the first game of 2009 and recovering nicely.  Then the first game of 2010.  Then the Park injury in the playoffs.  But none of the opponents were Sherwood.  Nevertheless, when Sherwood should have been exploding by Marist, the opposite happened.  Marist dug itself out of a 16-3 fourth quarter hole, to tie it up 16-16 with 7:00 minutes to go.  The game had finally turned into the match everyone expected.  The hitting on the field was incredibly hard. 

Sherwood responded with an 86 yard drive, led by Michael Balfour and Steven Long to go  up 23-16 with just 3:15 left on the clock.  Marist wasn't going to let it get away that easy and marched 81 yards to tie the game.  Sherwood penalties and three passes to Baird and one to Josh Harper were the keys to Marists drive to tie the game at 0:27.  Believe it or not, both teams had a shot at the end zone in the final 27 seconds.

Final Thoughts

I have to acknowledge the efforts of each and every Spartan after Walcott left the game.  The mountain looked huge at the beginning of the fourth quarter, and Marist was playing without the fastest man on the field for either team.  I don't know that many teams could have manned up like Marist did.

We'll never know if Marist would have been state champs with Park and Walcott in the final.  You can't judge by the way this game was played.  Sherwood would have planned differently for Park, whose presence would have taken a ton of pressure off of Silver.  But we do know that the Marist players can live the rest of their lives knowing, not just believing, that each individual is very important and will come through as needed when the going gets tough if you've worked hard and prepared as a team.

Interesting Game Tidbits

• Some OregonLive.com forum members said the game was the best high school football game they've ever seen.  I loved the fourth quarter, but the first three were torture.  All those penalties on both teams.  Yikes.  Neither team could get into the flow of their offense.  
• The Sherwood crowd was booing the officiating crew relentlessly.  But it was clear the Sherwood players couldn't handle the Marist D line and linebackers.  An old midwest college philosophy from the 70's is to keep on holding if you are an explosive running team.  So what if you lose ten yards for holding after you've gained five or ten?  You get the down over.  And eventually the officials get tired of calling the penalties and they aren't going to see all of them anyway.  
• Hats off to Sherwood's pass D.  That was the difference in the game.  Great job by the Sherwood D line.  Silver's passing efficiency was 56 for the game.  His prior low was 96 and that was early in the season when he was starting the switch from running back to quarterback.  
• The hitting in the game was hard and constant from whistle to whistle.  It was hard to get into the game as a fan because of the 28 penalties, but when I looked at my photos when I got home, I was happy to see that players on both sides were just hammering each other every play.  Two great teams with players who went hard every play and didn't stop til the whistle.
• The flags on the flag poles at both ends of the field were being blown hard in opposite directions. Early in the  first quarter Sherwood's long snapper hiked the ball way over the punters head. The punter chased it down, kept his cool, and pooch kicked it just to get a few yards back. But instead of a short punt, the ball rode the 30 knot updraft towards Old Glory at the west end of the field, then the ball was blown all the way to the Marist 4. A 50 yard punt, but actually much longer because the punter had to run back a long way to get the ball.  Later, with 32 seconds left in the second quarter Sherwood kicked a 39 yard field goal towards the State of Oregon flag in the east end zone.  It would have been good from 60 as the wind was howling towards the west at that end of the stadium. 
• After not scoring a touchdown the first three quarters, Marist scored on three straight drives in the fourth quarter. (I had these plays in the wrong order in my original post)
• Sherwood's fans sure were fun.  (Okay, I wouldn't give them a passing grade for sportsmanship because of their treatment of the officials)  They seemed to have a family there for each of the 1278 students in their school and they knew how to make some noise.  I loved their cheers and overall loud and noisy support of their team, including the 'Booooooo' when the leading tackler for both teams, Trent Duppenthaler had his name called.  Actually, it was a 'Dooooo'. (Update to blog.  Someone texted me and said it was pronounced 'Duuuuppe'.  Good enough for me)

On to baseball.

That's about it for this year.  I'll take a few months off and get ready for baseball.  I will post all state players when they are printed and I'll probably make some wild MWL prediction for next fall before I start the conversion to baseball.

Good Luck to all of the seniors.  Marist guys, take off the next nine months.  The rest of you, get back in the weight room.  Close the gap on those Spartans!
Gary

State Finals - Marist or Sherwood

Finally, we get to the game everyone has been waiting for since before the season started.  Yes, both teams are that much better than everyone else. 

• Both teams strong recent history
• Marist won state '03, '05, '07, '09
• Sherwood 2 finals, 1 semi, 2 quarters since '04
• Both teams loaded with seniors
• Sherwood has 23
• Marist has 19
• Many seniors on both teams had significant playing time in playoffs last year
• "Bigger, Faster, Stronger" isn't just a cliche to these teams.  If you've team has played them, you know.
• Fast paced, wear you down offenses.
• Sherwood's hard to read, hard to stay on your assignment 'Wing'
• All world Sherwood backs.  Cannonball 6'0", 220 lb Michael Balfour is good for 10.8 yards per carry.  Perhaps even more dangerous is 5'7"
• Steven Long, who is good for 11.4 YPC. 
• There are several other backs with huge yardage, but keep your eye on rising star sophomore Cristian Morris.  He had around 100 yards against Ashland and Jefferson in the playoffs. 
• Marist's 'Where is Logan now?  Oh, no! He passed it." offense
• The ball handlers get the glory, but they would be nowhere without their killer O lines.
• Watch Sherwoods pulling linemen and notice when their linemen go in the opposite direction as the carrier.  That's USC stuff.  (Hopefully, this year's USC) Hard to read that kind of blocking.
• Marist's entire line was all league:  Seniors Matthew Devereux (league MVP), Logan Mayes (league D MVP) and center Chris Bender.  Juniors Mitch Olive and Paxton Miller.  All league receivers Taylor Walcott, Austin Baird and Josh Paiement can thank these linemen for giving Logan Silver time to pass.  They can thank Logan, too, for his scrambling.
• Both teams have stellar Defenses.
• Sherwood has held Ashland to 14, Jefferson to 13 and Mt. View to 22 in the playoffs.
• Marist traveled an easier road in the playoffs.  Still they only gave up 6, 7 and 22 points. 
• Devereux, Miller and another all leaguer, senior Kevin Haskin anchor the Spartan D line.  Mayes, officially a linebacker, moves position often, playing the edges a lot and messing up the qb.  A ton will ride on LB Will Swindling.  Teams have tested his side to side skills a lot - to no avail. Swindling was an all leaguer along with the third linebacker, senior Carson Keiswetter.  You should hear the DB's names called a lot when Sherwood goes to the air.  Seniors Ryan Inouye, Matt Beattie, Brady Chionbian and Riley Kulm were all all-league.  All season long I thought those DB names were pretty cool to pronounce.   
• Both teams have incredible coaching.  I don't think either team will win because the coaches were outcoached or because the coaches didn't motivate their team.  Geske and Sherwood coach Greg Lawrence have been in the playoffs far too often to not have their teams ready.
• Motivation
• Sherwood's 23 seniors have been marching steadily to a state title.  As sophomores they lost in the quarterfinals.  As juniors, they lost in the semifinals to Jefferson, 23-26. Now they are in the finals.
• Marist's 19 seniors have something to prove.  After last year's undefeated state title, the thinking was that Marist had an incredible senior class and a very strong junior class.  The combination was unstoppable.  The 2010 Marist version was going to have a few superstars, but the team probably wasn't deep enough to take it all.  We'll find out this Saturday and maybe next year we''ll be saying, "That 2010 team had a bunch of senior studs and the junior class was really strong, but they can't repeat it again."

The game

Sherwood has been ranked number one all year.  The thinking goes like this:

1) Sherwood runs the wing offense with such power, precision and misdirection that it is impossible to stop. Lining up in the wing formation basically gives a team 9 blockers, with one of the running/blocking backs in motion building up steam.  Sherwood's backs are fantastic blockers.

2) Running backs Balfour and Long are super-duper-fantastic. And they are.  Balfour pounds and Long jukes and puts on the jets.  Sherwoods' other backs would be star running backs on most teams.

3) Defensive ends will eventually crash down on the qb too much, and Sherwood will rip off a 40 yard cutback run; or the linebackers and db's will creep up over time and Sherwood's qb Jordan Ramp will pass the ball to Long or another all alone receiver for a long gainer.

4) Sherwood's defense is excellent.

Sherwood fans have to be thinking this is the year.  Looking at Marist's stats, it is easy to conclude that all a team has to do to beat Marist is to stop Silver.

Here's what I'm thinking.

Sherwood's offense is truly fantastic.  Mt. View had a good handle on Sherwood and still gave up 42 points.  Marist's front three (or four) will be able to stuff the run often.  But I don't think that high school players can go an entire game being disciplined enough to play their assignment or avoid chasing the quarterback from the backside and opening up their gap for the 10 yard gains.  I can still envision good college players chasing Dennis Dixon too far, only to have Dixon cut some other way or hand the ball off to a back heading right to where the lineman/LB had just left and opened up a hole.

But so is Marist's offense truly fantastic.  If you watched the Mountain View - Sherwood game, you might have noticed that Mountain View had a lot of opportunities to convert mid to long passes, but just didn't connect.  You expect a qb-receiver combo to go an entire game with a few drops, but Mountain View had far too many missed chances.   Mountain View's unconverted opportunities through the air give me hope that Marist can pass the ball.  Passing the ball successfully opens the running game for Marist.

My biggest concern for Marist is if the three defensive down linemen can last the entire game against Sherwood's line.  All three players go both ways most of the time.  I'm hoping they realize it's their last game this year and they don't have to save anything.

 My thinking brain says Sherwood should win this in a close one with both teams breaking down the other team's defense.  I don't think either team should climb into the 40 point range because both teams should have several scoring drives, thus keeping the score balanced.  39-35 wouldn't surprise me.

But I'm going with Marist.  I've seen coach Geske make a lot of adjustments this year.  From losing Paiement at qb, to getting Paiement back as a receiver, to losing Greg Park for the playoffs. I don't recall seeing much trickery on offense or fancy stuff on special teams.  Maybe we'll see something if it's tight.  Who knows?  I just know for sure that these are the two best 5A teams in Oregon who are going to go at each other in different fashions.  It's going to be fun!!!

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