Friday, Sep. 05, 2008

Friday night prep updates

By Eric Degerman, sportstricities.com

Starting tonight, SportsTriCities.com will be offering more coverage of Friday night football around the Mid-Columbia.

Game scores will be available to you sooner than before. The same goes for stories, stats and video.

And in between, we'll even be providing running updates/commentary when we can.

Tonight, we can. So here we go...

-- LC blanked LC. Lewis & Clark, the defending 4A Washington state champ, snuffed out Lake City 39-0. And the Tigers called off the dogs. It was 34-nil at the intermission. Van Troxel, the Idaho coach, is the brother of Southridge coach Andy Troxel.

-- LaCrosse/Washtucna rolls over Nixyaawii 68-20. If I get a moment, I might look up the pronunciation of that Oregon school.

-- Southridge played in the Idaho Panhandle and pushed past Coeur d'Alene 33-17. Andrew Mendenhall throws 3 TDs, two of them to Clayton Homme. The other went to Devin Jones. Cameron Sanders added two rushing TDs.

-- Othello wins at home vs. Connell. Marc Garza throws for three first-half TDs as Othello leads 29-0 at halftime. What's with these rivalry games on the first game of the season? Pasco/Richland. UW/Oregon.

-- Grandview (Class 2A) defeats Sunnyside (Class 3A) 21-14. Danny Almeida was credited with 19 carries for 126 yards for the Grizzlies. Does Sunnyside play Davis? Indeed. It's Friday, Oct. 10 at Davis. I'm liking Sunnyside.

-- It's over. Kamiakin defeats Kennewick 24-23 in triple overtime. Details to come...

-- Stats are rolling in from Prosser's upset at Redmond. Jordan Durbin had four TD passes, two of them came in the fourth quarter. The first one covered 21 yards to Cory Christen, a 6-foot, 150-pound senior. The game-winner? A 10-yarder to Kirby Moore, who made the cover of our prep football tab that came out today. The Mustangs scored the last 14 points to pull it out 34-29. Redmond's QB is David Gilbertson. His dad is Keith Gilbertson, assistant coach for the Seattle Seahawks and former head coach at Washington.

-- No update yet on the third OT at Kamiakin/Kennewick at Lampson Stadium. Good thing this game wasn't played on a school night. It's 10:45 p.m.

-- Kevin Anthony just returned to the Herald newsroom. He was impressed by the roll-out ability of Pasco QB Carlin Andrew. Anthony also enjoyed having a second look at any play he wanted because Richland was streaming video of the game. They were working on a 20-second delay, which afforded him the "replay" opportunity. It's on richlandbombers.org, but I'd suggest NOT using Safari. Use Firefox instead.

-- The Lamp keeps on giving. Kamiakin and Kennewick are in OT No. 3. Good thing Senor Ferran is covering that one for us. He might be the fastest writer on deadline I've ever associated with. Bob Finnigan, the erstwhile Mariners beat writer for the Seattle Times, was quite quick, too.

-- Kamiakin and Kennewick are heading to a second OT. We will have highlights, print and video, eventually...

-- Here's the score that Herald sports editor Jeff Morrow seemed most intrigued by... Prosser beats Redmond on the road 34-29. I love it. Prosser, the pride of the CWAC (that's Class 2A), upsets Redmond (that's Class 4A). And Redmond's line reportedly averages 270 pounds per person. This was a classic case of the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Another skillful coaching job by Coach Moore and his staff. I wonder if Redmond took the loss with class or a case of sour grapes.

-- It's a final. Pasco 22, Richland 7. It's a humbling debut as head coach for Richland's Mike Neidhold, who is a close friend of Pasco coach Steve Graff. So the home team is 0-2 at Fran Rish this season, in light of Hanford's loss to Moses Lake on Thursday.

-- Kamiakin and Kennewick are heading to OT. At the end of reg, it was 17-17.

-- Here's an intriguing result. LaSalle of Yakima beats defending state champion DeSales 32-22. The Irish of Walla Walla went 13-0 last season, so Mike Spiess will be able to use this Week 1 loss as a motivational tool all season long.

-- Warden's defense outscored its offense tonight. The Cougars go on the road and blank Mabton 21-0 in an SCAC crossover, scoring twice on interception returns. Warden already has matched its win total of last season. I wonder how long the Warden Cougars will have more wins than the WSU Cougars?

-- Scoring update: Kennewick ties Kamiakin at 17-17 with 6:45 to play.

-- Carlin Andrew scores for Pasco on a QB keeper. It was a 27-yard scamper. That gives Pasco a 22-7 lead with about 2 minutes to play. The Bulldogs fail on another PAT. That was Carlin's second TD of the game. At 6-foot-3, 200 pounds, Andrew doesn't seem as though he'll be overlooked.

-- Pasco sacks Richland junior QB Hayden Hilty on fourth down. The Bulldogs take over and are using the run to salt away this game with a 16-7 lead and the clock ticking. There are 3 minutes left in the fourth qarter.

-- Richland is moving the ball, but not quickly. The Bombers are on Pasco's side of the 50 with less than 6 minutes to play in the fourth. Pasco still leads 16-7.

-- Here's an early candidate for Player of the Night. Touchet senior RB Taylor Gregg scores 6 TD, four of them on the ground, 1 via the air, and a 55-yard punt return. He finished with 7 carries for 131 yards rushing as Touchet rolls over Condon 68-34.

-- Pasco pins Richland about as deep as you can. The Bombers let the punt roll to their 1. Pasco's 16-7 lead, with the way the defense is playing and a clock-control run game, looks safe. Richland has the ball out to its 25, but there's only about 6 minutes left in regulation.

-- The streak is over. Echo, Ore., scores on an 10-yard TD run by Cody Primmer. That trims Tri-Cities Prep's lead to 50-24 with 8:55 to play in the fourth. That ends a run of 50 straight points given up by Echo. (For those who don't know, Echo is about a 15-minute drive south of Hermiston. Drew Bledsoe owns a vineyard there.)

-- Pasco misses a 23-yard FG with 1:15 to play in the 3Q. Coach Graff must be mighty grumpy. The Bulldogs had the ball down to the Richland 3. If Pasco punched it in, that would have made it 22-7 to start the 4Q. As it is, it's still a two-possession lead for Pasco at 16-7.

-- Whew! It had been a few minutes since I heard from the Tri-Cities Prep track meet. It's now 50-16 for Coach Whitsett's crew to start the 4Q. That's 50, 5-0, unanswered points given up by Echo, Ore.

-- Pasco intercepts Richland. Junior cornerback Austin Wilborn grabs the tipped ball. Pasco begins at the Richland 43 looking to add to its 16-7 lead with less than 5 minutes to play in the 3rd Q.

-- It's been more than 5 minutes since I've received a scoring update from Tri-Cities Prep's rout of Echo, Ore., at Edgar Brown Stadium. Wonder if the lights went out...

-- Pasco's running game is rolling again in the third quarter. Pasco scores to go up 16-7 with 7 minutes to play in the third quarter. Richland blocks the PAT

-- While I have a moment, I will go through the AP wire and fill up our scoreboard.

-- Tri-Cities Prep makes it 44 straight points as TCP's Andrew LeBrun returns an interception for a TD. That makes it 44-16 over Echo, Ore. at the 7:28 mark of the 3Q.

-- A nugget from the Tri-Cities Prep game. In a drive just before halftime, the Jags covered more than 80 yards in less than 2 minutes. They were aided by three personal foul penalties by Echo. No wonder Prep keeps piling it on. It's now 36-16 midway through the 3rd quarter. That's 36 points in a row.

--- Tri-Cities Prep is rolling. It's 28-16 in the 3Q quarter for Prep, which has scored 28 unanswered points. I could focus this blog on Will Hoppes and the Jaguars. They would keep me plenty busy. Following the scoring of Coach Whitsett's teams is akin to chaos on the floor of the N.Y. Stock Exchange.

Echo took the game's opening kickoff and ran the ball down Prep's throat for 49 yards on about a dozen plays. Then Echo successfully picked up the onside kick and scored two plays later on a 41-yard bomb to Ryan Ramos.

However, that's been it.

--- Kamiakin takes the lead from rival Kennewick at 14-7. Prep guru Rene Ferran tells me Kamiakin has both of its scores on QB sneaks. Coach Beverlin enjoys playing power football when he can.

--- Richland scores just before halftime to pull within 10-7. That next score was big because no one wants to trail 17-0.

By the way, the Richland School District did a nice job on the new scoreboard and play clock at the ol' Bomber Bowl.

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Kamiakin has replied to Kennewick in the second quarter, so that game at The Lamp is tied at 7.

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The big game of the night is at Fran Rish in Richland where the Bombers play host to the Pasco Bulldogs. First things first, they are well into the second quarter and Pasco enjoys a 10-0 lead over Richland.

I wondered how much of an effect the success of the Twin City Titans American Legion team would have on the Bombers. After all, Jamison Rowe and Cody Shepherd were key players for the Titans, so they haven't been on the gridiron that much.