For the third straight playoff game, Marist led by over 45 points at the end of the first half which triggered the running clock in the second half. I was pumped as I had just watched Marist's most impressive outing of the year, and the running clock would get me home in time to listen to the last quarter of the Ashland game. Unfortunately, the running clock was stopped several times in the second half for long periods of time and I missed listening to the Grizzlies last chance fourth quarter effort against Sherwood.
Ashland must have been defensive demons. Sherwood had been averaging 345 yards a game on the ground, and yet the Griz held them to 229 yards passing and rushing combined. Sherwood scored twice in the first quarter and looked like they would roll, but Ashland responded with a field goal midway through the second quarter. The two teams slugged it out the rest of the way, with neither team getting anything going on offense. Here's a great article from the Medford Mail Tribune.
Ashland was probably the most fun team to watch in the league, unless you preferred watching the speed scoring machine of Marist. I think what made Ashland so much fun to watch was when they took the field, they didn't look like an imposing team. But they were quicker and stronger than everyone except Marist, which made them pesky. Add in their slyness and shiftiness and they seemed to have a magic that no one else had. Then toss them into the thrillers against Churchill, Eagle Point, Crescent Valley, Silverton and Sherwood and Ashland fans had to have had a memorable season.
Marist over Wilsonville
Earlier I said that Marist's win over Wilsonville was the Spartans most impressive win of the season. You might ask "Why would another running clock game by the Spartans be any more impressive than the other running clock games?" Well, because Wilsonville was a much better team than the first two playoff opponents and were better than most of our MWL teams. Wilsonville's two star runners were fast, fair sized (Shipley is 6' 2"), and had great moves and knew how to break tackles. Clearly, and Wildcat stats prove it, their RB's ran wild in their league as they would have through most of our league. Wilsonville's line was also quite big, or at least quite tall.
That's what made the Spartan win so impressive. Marist's defensive team speed was incredible. Wilsonville tested the edges probably more than they should have, but rarely got around the corner. When they didn't test the edges, they found rough going up the middle. A few times the Wilsonville backs ran off tackle and found big holes, made it seven yards downfield with the opportunity to juke or run through a Spartan. Didn't happen. I was shooting photos on the Wilsonville sideline during the first half and collected dozens of photos of Spartans sticking the Wildcat runners and lifting them off of the ground. Several bystanders were commenting "I can't believe how well these guys tackle." I turned to one young Wildcat fan who seemed to appreciate what was happening and I asked "What do you think about that tackling technique. Sounds like you guys haven't seen tackling like this." He said, "Oh, I'm not surprised. I played for Geske at Tigard."
Another key component to Marist's D is their intimidating gang tackling. If I have dozens of pictures of players lifting the Wildcat ball carriers, I have even more of Marist gang tackling ballcarriers with four guys hauling the carrier down with another one to three Spartans on their way. The crowd was going wild with the sound effects created by all of those pads poppin'.
Marist's offense was the same as it has been since the second half of the Eagle Point game when the Spartan's scored 40 points in a blink of an eye after a seven point first half. The seven point first half brought about my favorite quote of the year. From the Register-Guard, Coach Geske “It was one of those things where we might as well do what’s working and just try to knock off the dumb stuff...” And they've knocked off the dumb stuff ever since. Marist has scored between 40 and 63 points in the first half of each game since.
Kamerun Smith gets more and more impressive with each game. Wilsonville put more pressure on Smith than most MWL teams. They tackled him three times. (Springfield also got Smith three times, the only MWL team to get him more than once) Even with the pressure, he threw some beautiful long balls and his quick release darts to the sideline to Walcott were always on the money. Which leads me to the best highlight of the night. With enough time to get in one play at the end of the first half, Smith hit Walcott in the flat at the Marist 32. Then Walcott made it look like a sci fi movie when the space ship jumps to warp speed and the special effects guy gives you a six second blur to simulate the speed of light. It looked like about five Wildcats had the angle on Walcott, but when they went to tackle him it was just phhtttt-phhhttttt-phhhtttt, nothing there. And at the end of the 68 yard blur was a solid Walcott in the endzone.
Before the game I was thinking Wilsonville was going to have a lot of trouble on O because they were overly reliant on their running game and they had thrown 11 interceptions this year. My thinking was Marist could afford to load up a little more against the run and challenge the Wildcats to throw into Marist's speedy db's. I was a little surprised to see Wilsonville attempt a cross field halfback pass early in the game, but I wasn't surprised when Austin Baird hauled in the floater.
I was thinking the Wildcats could stay within five touchdowns and make the Marist starters play four full quarters, but that would be about as good as they could do without help.. I think the best defensive game plan was to work on a constant downpour from the very beginning of warm ups through the last whistle. Around 9AM as I was looking out my window, I thought that might happen, but it turned out to be a great night, with a couple of early light mists. But mostly it was a night for fireworks put on by the Marist O, with thunder only coming from the Marist D.
CFL and the Grey Cup
My stepson, Alex Brink, tossed a touchdown pass in Winnipeg's 19-3 semifinal win over Hamilton. Alex and the Blue Bombers play for the Grey Cup in Vancouver, BC next weekend. Alex was the backup today. When he is the backup, he is usually put in for quarterback sneaks (to make sure the starting qb doesn't get hurt on the plunge). We were surprised when he was put in on a first and goal from the three. That's too far to sneak. So they had him toss a shortie to a guy who is a regular defensive tackle, but who came in for a trick play.
Winnipeg was 4-14 last year and didn't make the playoffs. It's been a long road from Sheldon to Washington State to Houston to Winnipeg. But he's pretty psyched to be playing for Canada's national championship.
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