Swamp Cup Preview: Memories Stoke Competitive Fires for Swamp Cup

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Come Friday night fans from Centralia and Chehalis will bring soft blankets and sharp elbows to the Tiger Stadium grandstand in futile attempts to procure prime vantage points for the Swamp Cup happenings on the gridiron below.

What all children know and most adults forget, though, is that the best seats in the house are not seats at all. Rather, it’s on those slivers of turf at field level, all muddy and swarming with future Bearcats and Tigers playing two-hand-touch recreations of the varsity show, where the longest lasting memories are made.

Now a senior, Centralia running back Colby Sobolesky-Reynolds remembers just how bright those Friday night lights seemed back when he was but a wee Tiger cub.

“I was always playing catch, going to the games,” recalled Sobolesky-Reynolds. “I watched the Tigers and I always thought they were an NFL team because of the helmets.”

The Bearcats have a senior running back who also harbors vivid memories from Swamp Cups more than a decade in the past. One of those rivalry games stood out from the rest in the forefront of his memory — the 2008 Swamp Cup when his brother, Drew Johnson, was carrying the pigskin for the Bearcats.

“That was a big deal because (W.F. West) started the streak in 2009, so they lost their senior year and I remember him crying,” recalled Johnson, who would have been in about second grade at the time. “It was heartbreaking, and I was like ‘Man, I can’t wait to be in that position when I’m a senior.’ And now it’s here, and it’s crazy because it came so fast.”

Although he’s one of the main movers and shakers for the Bearcats himself now, he hasn’t forgotten what the game looked like as a little tyke loitering along the sideline. It’s those memories that guide his interactions with the Bearcats’ youngest fans today.

“I try to encourage them because they’re going to be in my shoes and I loved when I was little and the team came up to me and talked to me. That was just so encouraging and it felt so good. I just want to have that effect on the kids,” explained Johnson.

The W.F. West winning streak referenced by Johnson simmers beneath the surface of the Swamp Cup rivalry. In search of the first crosstown victory of their high school careers, not to mention the last 10 years, Sobolesky says that there is extra motivation to play well for the Tigers’ upperclassmen.

“Playing in front of everybody and trying to prove to ourselves, for one, that we can win games and turning around the program,” said Sobolesky. “Especially for our seniors because we went out our sophomore year and we lost 31-32 in the JV game so this year is especially, like, heads down and play football to win it. “



According to Johnson the streak is something that the Bearcats try to ignore altogether.

“We don’t really think about it. I don’t really like to think about it like a streak because it’s just something hanging over your head,” he said. “Every year you just go out and play and see what happens, and luckily we’ve come out on top most of the time.”

Johnson added that team camaraderie is one phase of the game where he expects his Bearcats to hold an advantage come Friday night.

“We’ve all been playing since Junior Cats. We’ve all been playing together and had the same teammates. Most of these other teams I feel like they don’t have the same connection as we’ve had all through the years playing by each other side by side,” said Johnson. “It’s great because we have a great bond. We know what each other’s doing. We know what we’re thinking because we’ve been doing it so long. We can rely on each other because it’s a brotherhood thing.”

While Centralia does not boast nearly as much continuity on its roster, Sobolesky-Reynolds says that the Tigers are steadily developing a chemistry all their own.

“We get along pretty well. There’s times where we bicker back and forth but we have a motto that ‘it’s good,’ so if something bad happens you just get back up and do it again,” Sobolesky-Reynolds said, adding that any momentary disagreements are usually born out of a mutual desire to be better. “We’re just competitive to get into each other’s heads.”

The senior says that the Centralia coaching staff, led by Jeremy Thibault in his second year, approaches each practice and game with a mix of fire, brimstone and good old fashioned back-slapping-attaboys.

“It’s a little bit of both because they all played here when we’d win every year and go off to the playoffs so they just want to get it back to that and I think we’re all starting to buy into that. I think they just want to flip it and I agree with them. They’re great coaches,” said Sobolesky-Reynolds. “We just need to block and tackle and don’t give up any big plays. Play the football that we can play and we’ll be good.”

Eight days before the big game Johnson admitted that the Bearcats hadn’t gotten deep into dissecting the Tigers tendencies, but says they’ll be ready for whatever their foes from the other side of the fairgrounds decide to throw at them.

“We know that, talking about the streak and Centralia, they want to break it. Think about how much passion they have because it’s been nine years and they still haven’t broke it,” Johnson said. “So they come into the game and you never know what’s going to happen. They could throw trick plays at us. You just never know. We always just come into it thinking it’s pretty even.”