MWP's Kaleb Rashoff (2) lowers his shoulder and drives over a Cardinal defender Friday night in Winlock.
MWP's Jesse Urban (22) runs with the football Friday night in Winlock.
MWP's Jesse Urban (22) drags a defender behind him and leaps in for a touchdown Friday night in Winlock.
Winlock's Noah Patching (5) puts a big hit on MWP's Jesse Urban (22) Friday night in Winlock.
Winlock's Kaelan Hinton (53) forces a fumble Friday night in Winlock.
Winlock's Nathan Suhrbier (50) drags down MWP's Gavyn Higdon (32) Friday night in Winlock.
WINLOCK – Varsity high school football coaches are a paranoid bunch and they are habitually reticent to reveal the secrets of their successes on the record.
That was not the case for Morton-White Pass head coach Lee Metcalf here Friday night following his team’s 42-0 drubbing of the Cardinals. Standing outside of the visitors locker room Metcalf pulled out an oversized foil pan and peeled back the lid to reveal the super secret stuff behind his team’s surging 4-0 start to the season.
“These are our secret right here,” said Metcalf. “These are our pregame and halftime zucchini muffins. The kids love them!”
With Mountain Division play set to begin next week there’s a good chance that the T-Wolves rivals will be raiding East Lewis County gardens soon and trying to eradicate the ubiquitous summer squash before they too fall victim to MWP’s zucchini powered zenith.
All hopped up on performance enhancing muffins the T-Wolves got right to business in dispatching Winlock and wound up with a 30-0 lead at halftime.
“I thought our energy was good we came out and got after them fast,” said Metcalf. “Our plan was to come out and start fast and I thought we did that. We scored, what, like two touchdowns in the first six minutes.”
In fact, MWP was even more efficient than that out of the gate, posting 15 points in the first 4:02. Jesse Urban punched in those first two scores with touchdown runs of two and 39-yards.
The second quarter churned out the same results for MWp as Gavyn Higdon joined the scoring party with a 10-yard touchdown run before Kaleb Rashoff found Josh Morris for a six yard scoring toss before the half.
The third quarter was a scoreless session as the T-Wolves seemed to suffer a brief moment of post-halftime muffin lethargy, but they awoke in the fourth quarter to pound in another pair of scores. First Higdon ran in an eight yard touchdown and then Jace Dean added a four-yard scoring carry.
Alex Sniezak connected on two extra point tries on the night for MWP while Rashoff threw for one two-point conversion and ran for another.
As per usual the rushing statistics were spread out equitably for the T-Wolves. Dylan Hamre led the way with 128 yards on 11 carries while Higdon added 90 yards on 12 carries. Jesse Urban totaled 69 yards on ten carries and Rashoff finished with nearly 50 yards himself.
“We don’t have one guy that teams cna key on. We try to spread it out a little bit and that’s our plan is to have a three or four headed running attack,” said Metcalf. “They do have different running styles. Dylan's more of our downhill bounce it out into space guy. Jesse’s our home run hitter who’s got that track speed and run’s the 100 (meter). Gavyn’s our power down guy, and then you’ve got Rashoff who has good breakaway speed in the second level.”
Hamre was complimentary of his offensive line and the secondary level blocking by his teammates and said the T-Wolves have a steely eyed focus on their goals this season.
“We always work every year on getting our blocks right, getting our cuts rights us as running backs reading the blocks. I think we played everything fundamentally and we had a lot of good cutback lanes, good blocks, and all the backs ran hard,” Hamre said. “The goal every year is to make the playoffs. We’ve got to come in and execute. Our league is tough. Our whole league is undefeated so we’ve got a tough schedule. We’re going to have to work.
The MWP defense limited Winlock to just seven first downs on the night and 178 total yards. The Cardinals offense may have been its own worst enemy though with a total of nine fumbles, four of which were lost.
Logan Hall led the Winlock rushing game with 60 yards on nine carries while quarterback Bryce Cline added 34 yards on 13 carries. Receivers Everardo Garcia and Noah Patching caught passes of 15 and 16 yards, respectively.
Despite their unblemished record Metcalf knows that the hard work has just begun for his team as they stare down division play that’s set to begin next week.
“You look at our schedule and you look at our division and we’re what, 23-1 now in our division through four weeks,” note Metcalf the mutual success of his team’s interdivisional opponents. “It’s a tough place to play football and I just challenge these kids every week to play better so we can compete.”
Morton-White Pass (4-0) will host Onalaska next Friday.
