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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