Coach’s Corner

WAITSBURG -- Any- time you win a state championship, there is a big target on your back.

The success of our team one year ago allows other teams a huge incentive to be able to play and defeat the state champs. Coming off this huge year with a 14-game winning streak and state championship, we will have our work cut out for us.

Our league is arguably the best in the state and it will be no different this year. DeSales lost only five seniors and Tri- City Prep only two. Both look to be a huge challenge to us this fall. And TOR will be the best team they have put together in a long time. League rivals Dayton, who we barely beat, 7-6, a year ago, and Asotin will also add to our challenge. But the biggest change in our schedule is our pre-season schedule.

The 2012 season is as difficult as we have seen in all 13 years of my being the head coach at Waitsburg. It is with great relief that we have a large senior class to lead this year's football team in defense of our three-time league title and state championship.

In my mind we will not slow down, but will continue to speed up and expect to win again in 2012.

Off of this year's pre-season schedule are Davenport, Elgin and Riverside. New to the sched- ule are Heppner, Weston-McE- wen & Mabton. We had to add Mabton to our schedule as they will play the league schedule, but will not be in our league. Mabton will remain a 1A school in all sports except football and will not be eligible for the playoffs in football. It was my understand- ing that Mabton, who was in the 1A league with powerhouse Royal City and Connell, has had trouble winning and the turnouts were really small. So, they got approved to move down to the 2B level for football.

The Mabton game took the place of Riverside and we will owe them a game down the road as they came to our place in 2011. We were going to return to Board- man in 2012. We will most likely make that game up on another season. Davenport was our open- er in 2011 and was the second game of a home and home with them. Because of the distance, we did not pursue another two-year commitment with them.

Elgin is now an eight-man school and is no longer an option.

In the place of Davenport and Elgin are two traditional power- house schools out of Oregon. We open up with Heppner on Aug. 31. Two weeks later the team will travel to Weston-McEwen for the road opener on Sept. 14. Both schools are fine pro- grams and are well-coached teams.

Like WP, both schools lost a senior class that was significant in their successes and will be sorely missed.

Last year, Weston was undefeated and finished in the final four before losing and being shut out, 39-0, to Gold Beach in the semifinals in the 2A playoffs in Oregon. Heppner lost to Weston last year, and after a 13-year run as league champs, settled for a tie for second with Enterprise. They lost in the first round of the playoffs. These two teams added to schedule that already has stiff competition in our own league makes for a very difficult schedule in 2012. But, with the success over the last three years we wanted to up our schedule and make it as competitive as we could. We did that and it will be a challenge. The coaches and the kids are looking forward to that challenge. We hope to see a full house on Aug. 31.

Football schedule magnets are being sold to raise money for new end-zone clocks for WP. Pick up yours today at the Waitsburg Grocery store or at the Times of- fice in Waitsburg.

WP 2012 Varisty Foobtall Schedule:

August 31 home Heppner September 7 home Pilot Rock September 14 away Weston-McEwen September 21 away * TOR September 28 home * DeSales October 5 away * Dayton October 12 home * Mabton (homecoming) October 19 away * Asotin October 26 home * TCP November 2 crossover with district #9