WP v Colfax: “It Will Be A Heck Of A Game”

WAITSBURG - When WP head coach Jeff Bartlow and his Colfax counterpart

Morgan met halfway Sunday to exchange videos of their teams' games, Mor­gan asked Bartlow a rhetori­cal question. "Aren't we the luckiest sons of a gun in the state?" Morgan said as the two men shook hands like they've done many times over the years, this time in Central Ferry before the snow started piling up. Bartlow knew exactly what he meant: two well-coached and talented teams, both undefeated, facing each other in the semi-final - two of the last remaining four still standing now that the dust has settled in the statewide 2B playoffs.

And standing well, tall and proud, ready to fight for a spot in the Tacoma Dome championship, which, in Waitsburg's case, would be the first in its history. "This is what you want at the end of the year," Morgan said in a telephone interview after having watched several of the Cardinals' games on the footage he got from Bart­low. "This will be a heck of a game." Of course many fans in the Touchet Valley painfully remember the last time these two teams met, in the first playoff round last year. Col­fax beat WP 39-0. "We got pride, and we were embarrassed last year," Bartlow said. "There's no revenge factor here. It's about redemption more than any­thing." Both coaches agree that the teams and circumstances are completely different this year. In 2009, WP played in the mini tie-breaker series much like the Dayton Bulldogs did this year. That physically and emotionally draining com­petition was on a Tuesday night. The first 2009 playoff game against Colfax was on a Saturday, giving the Car­dinals just three days to rest and prepare for a matchup on the "hostile" soil of Colfax's home field. To make things worse, it snowed that Saturday morn­ing, turning the field into a muddy circus ring where quarterback Zach Bartlow, then still a sophomore, strug­gled to get traction. "We were on our heels last year," Bartlow said. "They jumped ahead of us. They were the better team that day." If it hadn't been for those unfavorable factors, the game would have been a lot closer, possibly going either way, Morgan said. This time, the teams both have a week to prepare. Colfax played Lind-Ritzville at the same time when WP played DeSales late Saturday afternoon and beat their op­( ponent 27-0. They will play on neutral ground: Martin Field at WSU - home of the Cougars, a college team the younger players look up to. The field will have the same artificial surface as Edgar Brown Stadium.

"The tables will be set more squarely," Bartlow said. "The 39-0 loss was a fluke. That's not how we played football last year." Sure, Pullman is closer to Colfax than Waitsburg, and it's a very familiar venue to Morgan, who was gradu­ate assistant coach for the Cougars as well as a WSU undergraduate and graduate student.

Many of the Colfax Bull­dogs have participated in one kind of football competition or another at the big stadium.

But if that's any advan­tage, WP has its own. Colfax hasn't faced much meaning­ful opposition during the sea­son. Morgan couldn't recall a single game in which his team was behind at any stage.

The Cardinals, on the other hand, started out their season barely winning its defensive battle against Ka­miah,

and then were behind during the first half of their regular season game against the Chiawana JV team and again in the first DeSales confrontation. Finally, they won by just one point against TOR in a game that tested the limits of their abilities and fortitude.

Winning under those cir­cumstances gives a team hope and vision when they're behind because they have the history and confidence of coming back from a deficit,mentally and physically, the WP coach said. "They (Colfax) have not really been challenged in a game yet," Bartlow said. "That's to our advantage." Other than that, the teams are very similar. The Cardi­nals' and Bulldogs' coaches both strive to develop balance among their ranks with equal parts running and passing plays, strong offensive and defensive lines, not to men­tion a bag of tricks they reach into to take their opponent by surprise. Colfax finds those strength in senior Alex Teade, a smart, talented quarterback whose last name is pronounced like the abbreviation for the word "touchdown" and is a good match for junior Zach Bart­low; senior Tyler McNanny, a 180-pound running back a la Kris Cady, and 150-pound junior running back Alvin Li, a smaller but no less danger­ous turf sprinter. "They're rugged and physical," Bartlow said.

It's the same wrecking crew that dismantled the disadvantaged Cardinals last time, except that they now face a much-improved WP defense and the more lethal Bartlow-Cady combination under much different condi­tions. "Zach Bartlow is one of the finest quarterbacks in the 2B conference," Morgan said. "He runs well, doesn't throw into coverage, and he spreads you out." Cady, Morgan observed, "runs north and south straight to the end zone," with very little dancing in between. Add to that TJ Hofer, who catches just about everything in his zip code, and you have a force to contend with, the Colfax coach said. "It's a tough machine to slow down. Eleven opponents have al­ready found that out."

Both teams are fast-start­ing, often scoring first and very quickly (including the dreaded million-yard kickoff return punctuated like a nail in a coffin by a touchdown) to gain the upper hand on the psychological ledger and the score board, then further pummel their opponents with an impenetrable defense and heartbreaking TD-generating turnovers. "There is a reason both our teams are in the semi-final," Morgan said. The head coaches, too, are well matched. Morgan has been the Bulldogs' top coach for 13 years. Bartlow has led the Cardinals for 12. While Morgan was a graduate assis­tant coach at WSU, Bartlow held that same position with Oregon State's Beavers.

"Jeff is an outstanding coach," said Morgan, whose football knowledge Bartlow describes as deep and whose field tactics he characterizes as "risk taking" and emotion­ally draining (from the other coach's perspective). That includes Morgan's tendency to create turnovers and steal momentum through onsite kicks. The two men obviously admire one another and look forward to Saturday's much-anticipated showdown at Martin Field. "The stakes are high," Bartlow said. "They're the best opponent we could face. It's an honor to play against them."