We’ve arrived at the crunch-time portion of prep football’s regular season.
And yet, after seven weeks, we have not yet separated the men from the boys (or the adults from the children, or the cream from the crop, or the wheat from the chaff, depending on your social and regional leanings).
In the local 2A classification, it’s fairly simple. Tumwater and Black Hills are both undefeated and tied for first in the Evergreen 2A Conference; they play Friday for the league championship. W.F. West needs to beat Centralia in Friday’s Swamp Cup and then beat Aberdeen in Week 9 to get the final crossover spot. (That berth is almost certainly going to mean a road trip to undefeated, No. 1-ranked Hockinson, but that’s neither here nor there.)
The SWW 2B League has a few more question marks, but it’s still fairly cut-and-dry.
• Adna (7-0, 3-0 league) can seal a Mountain Division title on Friday night in Onalaska (6-1, 2-1 league). The Loggers, though, could still win a league title by beating Adna and Life Christian the following Saturday — as long as Napavine loses to Rainier in Week 9.
• Napavine plays Life Christian Saturday and then Rainier in Week 9. Rainier, of course, led at halftime against Onalaska only to see the lead slip away in the fourth quarter; Onalaska was on the other side of the coin Friday night in Napavine, where the Tigers came back from a 24-6 halftime deficit to win in the final minutes. If you’re a fan of the transitive property (and recent history) you’d want to say Napavine shouldn’t have any trouble in Week 9. If the Tigers DO happen to lose that game, though, there’s a good chance we’d see a coin toss split up a three-way tie for second place between Napavine, Onalaska and Rainier to determine crossover seeding (and who draws the short straw to play Kalama in a loser-out game).
• Winlock plays at Toledo in a Battle of the Cowlitz that, for the first time in a while, features two playoff-bound teams with identical 2-1 league records. Winlock let winless Toutle Lake hang around a little longer than I’m sure they would have liked to on Friday, but still gutted out a win to seal fourth place in the River Division and the corresponding crossover spot. Toledo, meanwhile, beat Wahkiakum in Cathlamet and is in the driver’s seat for second place (and a crossover date with the third-place Mountain Division team) with Winlock and Mossyrock (2-5) remaining.
• PWV and Ilwaco are tied for first in the seven-team Coastal Division, but won’t play until October 26. PWV takes on Ocosta (4-2, 2-2 league) on Friday, and in order for that Week 9 date to really have a division title implications Ilwaco will have to beat Raymond on Friday.
Fantasy Roundup
It was a big week for Mountain Division quarterbacks.
The three highest scoring total in the fictional Lewis County Fantasy Football League all hailed from squads running on Mountain time, and all recorded at least 36 points.
Two of those, of course, came in the wild Napavine-Onalaska game. Tiger senior Dawson Stanley ran for 71 yards and a touchdown and passed for 295 yards and three scores, with two conversion passes, for an even 40 points, putting him atop the fantasy scoreboard for the first time since Week 1.
Meanwhile, in Adna, Braden Thomas had another impressive night, running for 133 yards and two touchdowns while passing for 126 yards and two more scores in a drubbing of Rainier (38 points).
And back in Napavine, Onalaska quarterback Lucas Kreger ran 181 yards and two touchdowns, with three conversion runs, for 36 points.
30-Point Club: Just outside the Mountain Division, another SWW 2B League quarterback was the only additional member of the 30-point club. Winlock’s Bryce Cline passed for 173 yards and three touchdowns and ran for 96 yards and a score for 33 points in a win over Toutle Lake.
20-Point Club: MWP’s Gavyn Higdon ran for 112 yards and a score and added 53 receiving yards and a score for 28 points. … Winlock’s Anthony Clevenger had 103 receiving yards and two touchdowns for 22 points in the Toutle Lake win. … Adna’s Brady Collins caught two passes for a total of 88 yards and two touchdowns (20 points) against Rainier. … Toledo’s Ethan Buck ran for 96 yards and two touchdowns (21 points) in a win at Wahkiakum. … Centralia’s Adrienne Martinez had his fantasy breakout game against Rochester, running for 107 yards and three touchdowns (28).
Notables: W.F. West quarterback Josiah Johnson passed for 200 yards and a touchdown (12 points) in a loss to Tumwater. … Morton-White Pass quarterback Kaleb Rashoff passed for 71 yards and a touchdown (6 points), and teammate Dylan Hamre added a touchdown and ran for 87 yards (14 points). … Pe Ell-Willapa Valley back Max Smith scored twice and ran for 53 yards for 17 points in a win over North Beach. … PWV quarterback Logan Walker added 82 passing yards, a score through the air and two rushing touchdowns for 19 points. … Adna’s Chance Fay ran for 80 yards and a touchdown (14) against Rainier, with teammate Sawyer Burdick notching 63 yards and a score (12). … Rochester’s Enrique Sanchez-Hope ran for 96 yards and a touchdown, with 12 receiving yards, for 16 points in a loss to Centralia. Grayson Johnson added 66 yards and a touchdown (12). … Centralia’s Blaine Wass had an 18-yard touchdown catch and 94 rushing yards for 16 points against Rochester. … Onalaska’s Ashton Haight ran for 135 yards (13) against Napavine. Teammate Hazen Inman ran for 75 yards and scored twice (19).
