Don’t worry, Mazen Saade has heard the talk online and seen the posts on social media, the suspicions of conspiracy and the at-times R-rated allegations.
He’s seen them, though he’s not so sure about his players.
“Most of our guys were busy,” he said. “Elk season’s started, late buck season is coming up and most of our guys are busy doing their hunting thing. I don’t know how much they know about the internet or what’s going on there.”
For the unaware or similarly-luddite out there, the prime controversy of the football season in District 4 took place two weekends ago, when the 2B seeding committee gave the Onalaska football the No. 4 seed — and final first-round bye — in the state tournament, one spot ahead of Kalama, which had beaten the Loggers back on Oct. 6.
Kalama fans — and coaches — were not thrilled, to say the least.
The Chinooks went on to dispatch No. 12 Friday Harbor with expected ease, doing their job to set up a rematch with the Loggers on Friday night on the black turf of Tenino.
Throw in the added gripe coming up from Cowlitz County to the normal rivalry between Onalaska and Kalama, and you have the recipe for one of the most highly-anticipated 2B showdowns in recent memory.
But with bye week — and any hunting trips between practices — in the rearview, Saade wants his players to keep things as normal as possible.
“We’ve got to go play the game of football,” Saade said. “All the numbers and stuff, those were cool two weeks ago, but now you’ve got to play the game of football. If that’s what they need to motivate them, then that’s their own M.O. and not ours. Our motivation is that the last time we played, they beat us. They won league. We know how it ended, and we weren’t happy with our efforts there.”
It’s not the first time Onalaska has had to deal with a rematch against a Central 2B League opponent in the postseason. This will be the Loggers’ 10th postseason matchup in the past five state tournaments, and fifth against league competition.
“That’s always interesting,” Saade said. “You have an idea already going into the first time playing them of what they do and their personnel, and then see it live when you face them the first time. And then you see it again. There’s going to be new wrinkles and things they’ve done.”
The last time this happened to Onalaska, it came against the same Chinooks, who beat the Loggers in the regular season, then again in the semifinals on their way to a state championship.
In this season’s first episode, the Chinooks burst out to a 22-6 halftime lead behind a one-way second quarter, before Onalaska’s Kayden Mozingo and Kalama’s Aidan Brown went to work trading explosive plays in the second half. Mozingo’s third touchdown of the half tied things up at 36-36, before the Chinooks came back with a sustained drive and went ahead for good in the final 30 seconds.
After such a close matchup the first time around, Saade and his coaching staff aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel in Tenino come Saturday.
“Offensively, we do what we do,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of trickery in what we do. We run our offense and we see what defenses give us.”
