Football game against McLoughlin canceled

SANDPOINT — While technically two forfeit wins, the Sandpoint football team received the disappointing news on Wednesday that a second football team has canceled its game against the Bulldogs this season.

McLoughlin High School, located five hours south in Milton Freewater, Ore., informed Sandpoint athletic director Cheryl Klein that its head coach resigned late Tuesday night, and the disarray led the team to cancel its game against Sandpoint.

The game against McLoughlin was scheduled on the fly last week after Bonners Ferry announced plans to cancel its football game against Sandpoint, scheduled for tomorrow, due to lack of players and a competitive imbalance for the young Badgers.

Head coach Mike Mitchell said his team was looking forward to playing the Oregon school and was a little discouraged by the news.

"We'll try to turn a negative into a positive," said Mitchell while looking for a silver lining to the lost game. "We've got a few dings and will use the week to get healed."

Mitchell had hoped to pick up a win and get his team on a roll after a tough loss to Lake City dropped Sandpoint's record on the season to 2-3 (after tomorrow's forfeit. After watching film from the Lake City game, Mitchell was encouraged that his team went toe to toe with the 5A champs in stretches, but were done in by costly mistakes. He said Mat Lawrence looked great out of the shotgun in his short quarterbacking appearance, and will team with Ryan Armbruster to give the Bulldogs two diverse, yet potent, offensive plans of attack.

Mitchell and his coaches plan to make lemonade out of lemons by scouting North Central, Lakeland and Moscow on Friday. Those three teams, along with Lewiston, make up the remainder of the Bulldogs' schedule.

Sandpoint heads to Spokane to take on North Central next Thursday.