Sandpoint travels to West Seattle, awaits postseason fate
(Photo courtesy of JASON DUCHOW PHOTOGRAPHY) Senior running back Sam Puckett plows through the heart of the Hawks defense during the fourth quarter of last Friday’s 48-20 win at Memorial Field.
Sandpoint football will travel all the way to West Seattle to play Evergreen High School in its final regular season Friday.
But the Bulldogs’ (5-3, 1-1 IEL) minds will certainly be paying attention to a game in Rathdrum happening at the same time. That game would be Moscow against Lakeland.
The outcome of this matchup will determine Sandpoint’s postseason fate. If Moscow wins, the Bulldogs will secure the second spot to state from the 4A Inland Empire League. If Lakeland pulls off the upset, then there will be a three-way tie for the league title and a round robin like tournament will be played between the three schools Monday afternoon to determine who receives a bid to state.
The Bulldogs put themselves in this situation after falling to the Bears 32-17 in Moscow on Oct. 11. Sandpoint head coach Ryan Knowles said the team will be keeping tabs on the outcome of the matchup between their league foes but the Bulldogs are focused on beating Evergreen.
“I’m looking for us to go over there and take care of business,” he said. “We need to honor the game.”
The Wolverines are 2-5 this year and claimed their first victory on the football field in two seasons against Lindbergh (Renton, WA) on Oct. 3. Evergreen’s other win this season came by forfeit.
Since their first win, the Wolverines have lost two straight games by a combined score of 99-7.
Knowles said Evergreen is a bit of an unknown to him and his team. He said he watched some film to get a feel for what the Wolverines like to do but the Bulldogs won’t know what to expect until they step on the field Friday night.
“It’s just a bunch of names of guys on film that you don’t really know,” Knowles said.
It’s a long bus ride from Sandpoint to West Seattle and the team will depart Friday morning.
Knowles said he wants the bus ride to mirror a normal day at school for his players. Class periods are 90 minutes long so roughly every hour and a half the Bulldogs will stop the bus and let the players get out and stretch their legs.
Once the bus reaches Ellensburg, the team will run some plays and do some walkthroughs at Central Washington University before making the final jaunt to their hotel where they will follow the same pregame routine they’ve had all season prior to this matchup.
Knowles said when they were filling out their schedule for this year during the offseason, they weren’t many teams looking for an opponent during the final week of the season so they took what was available and it happened to be Evergreen.
“We didn’t have a lot of options,” he said. “That’s most teams rivalry game so it came up do we want to be making this trip this late in the season and I said, ‘well we’re better off playing football at this point in our programs development then not playing so lets make the trip, lets make the journey we’ll take advantage of it.
Kickoff for tonight’s game is set for 7 p.m. You can listen to the game on AM 1400 KSPT or ROCK 103 (102.9/103.3 FM). The Yokes pregame show with Chris Chatburn will start at 6:40 p.m.