(GENO LUDWIG/Chewelah Independent)

The future looks bright with Kiana Johnson, Zeke Crockett and Cole Foster returning in 2020.

Underclassmen shine for Cougar boys, Johnson powers through knee injury for gritty finish at state…

Zeke Crockett ran his career-best time and Cole Foster ran under 18 minutes for only the second time as a rookie freshman, to showcase a bright future for Cougar cross country at the State 2B Cross Country Championships in Pasco. Crockett ran the 5000-meter course at Sun Willows in 17 minutes, 42 seconds, placing 47th overall as a sophomore. Foster toured the course in 17 minutes, 59 seconds, finishing 64th among the 154 runners in the race. It was the first appearance at the state finale for both young Cougar runners.

“I thought they did as well as they could have,” Coach Ed Anegon said. “To have two run sub-18s as underclassmen is stellar at this point and bodes well for the future of the boys program.”

“Zeke PR’d on the Sun Willows course, a course that is a much tougher go than the course they saw at Chewelah last weekend. Cole came away a bit disappointed in his race as he didn’t look or feel all that good throughout much of it, but he pushed through and still managed to run just under the 18 minute mark, a remarkable performance for a freshman. He may be one of the best freshman Chewelah has seen in quite some time.” More

(GENO LUDWIG/Chewelah Independent)

Jake Jeanneret reaches out for the goaline to score against Reardan. Chewelah won their district crossover 36-23 (Brandon Hansen photo)

Cougars down Reardan 36-23 in rematch…

It was three weeks before the traditional eating of the Thanksgiving turkey, but Chewelah got to break the wishbone early. The Reardan wishbone, that is.

On a chilly fall night at Snyder Field, the Cougars used a balanced running and passing attack to defeat the visiting Indians 36-23 in crossover play with the winner earning a ticket to the State 2B Football Championships. Chewelah will host the Tonasket Tigers at Snyder Field on Friday night, November 15, with kickoff time set at 6 p.m.

The Cougars went from being ignored by the football polls to being seeded fourth into the 16-team state bracket. They had never been ranked in the Seattle Times, the MaxPreps or the Associated Press top ten. However, the WIAA 2B bracket seeding committee gave Chewelah the best seed from the eastern side of the state behind westsiders Onalaska, Napavine, and Kalama. Tonasket entered the bracket as the 13th-ranked team.

“We’re all pretty excited,” said Coach Cameron Gump. “We got a good seed into the tournament. The seed means nothing. Now, we have to prove that we deserved it. Some teams on the west side may be upset with our seeding, but there is no doubt that we are the best team from this side of the state. How we do from here on out will depend on how much effort we put in. We have to stay disciplined and keep rolling. More

(GENO LUDWIG/Chewelah Independent)

Chewelah volleyball gets pumped for the district playoffs.

Cougars make final sixteen in state…

The day Chewelah volleyball coach Kaya Landers took the job, her family made hotel reservations in Yakima for the state tournament.

Now, the Chewelah’s Lady Cougars will be competing in the State 2B Volleyball Tournament at the SunDome in Yakima, beginning this morning, November 14, and continuing until a state champion team is crowned on Saturday afternoon. The Cougars won two of their three matches at last Saturday’s District 7 2B Tournament at Liberty High School and will now face Tri-Cities Prep in the opening round of the 16-team state championships. They will play again this afternoon against either Lake Roosevelt or Kalama.

“We were all really excited to punch our ticket to state, but honestly, we had set that intention from the very beginning so I very much expected to be getting a berth,” Landers said. “I think it’s important to have more than a goal but to have an expectation and an intentional action plan to do what you set out to do.” More

(BRANDON HANSEN/Chewelah Independent)

Zech Curran hauls in a pass from Jay Link in Selkirk’s big win over Cusick for the NE 1B North title. (KS Brooks photo)

MAKING HISTORY: Selkirk wins first league title, picks up first victory over Cusick since switching to 8-man football…

Last Friday was a historic night for the Selkirk Rangers. Their 62-20 win over Cusick was the eight-man program’s first win over the Panthers, and it just so happened to clinch its first ever NE 1B North title.

At 7-0 in league and 7-1 overall, Selkirk has one more game against winless Curlew and will then be at the mercy of the WIAA seeding committee as to whether they host or travel for a 1B playoff game.

“It’s an awesome feeling winning a league title after what we have been doing as a team through the years,” Selkirk Coach Jeremy Link said. “I am super proud of the kids they worked really hard to get to this point.” More

(BRANDON HANSEN/Chewelah Independent)

The Springdale Chargers have moved their win total on the season to five. (KS Brooks Photo)

Avery Kitt named WIAA Athlete of the Week…

While not eligible for postseason play, the Springdale Chargers are certainly playing like they’re ready for it. With wins over Inchelium and Wellpinit, Springdale is 5-4 on the year. Avery Kitt had six total touchdowns in both games and was named the WIAA Athlete of the Week for his efforts.

On Tuesday, scheduling a makeup game after Hunters cancelled it’s football season due to not enough players, Springdale took on Inchelium in 1B matchup that saw the Chargers come away with a 44-14 victory.

Avery Kitt scored three touchdowns for Springdale in the matchup and the Chargers finished with 258 yards of total offense.

In the first quarter, Ethan Penland notched a touchdown on a three-yard run, while Avery Kitt returned an interception against the Hornets for the 14-0 lead.
Penland would finish with 76 yards rushing on 13 carries. More

(BRANDON HANSEN/Chewelah Independent)

Colville football will be heading to the state playoffs after placing second in the NEA League. (Taylor Newquist/Statesman-Examiner)

BYE COLVILLE STOCK, DON’T SELL: Indians defense comes up big against Freeman, looks like the team nobody wants to play in the postseason…

While officially the Indians are in the postseason, they’ve kind of been in the postseason since their one-point loss to Deer Park on Oct. 4. Colville needed to snag one of the two top spots in the NEA League to move on to the state bracket and it took four straight wins to do that.

The most recent win came in the form of a 49-33 victory over Freeman on Friday to improve to 5-1 in league play. The score is a bit misleading as the Scotties notched 26 points in the fourth quarter when the JV was in for the Indians.

“Our defense played their best I’ve seen this year in the second and third quarters,” Colville Coach Randy Cornwell said. More

(BRANDON HANSEN/Chewelah Independent)

2B still causing people to scratch heads…

In the 2Bs, No. 1-ranked Onalaska was idle this week which isn’t very gritty. I imagine the loggers spent their bye week not passing, looking up old Eastern Oregon football highlights of Assistant Coach Wayne Nelson and seeing how they could make their uniforms look even muddier come Friday. No. 2-ranked Napavine beat Rainier (no not the mountain) 51-6 to improve to 8-1. No. 3 Kalama beat Toutle Lake 52-8 to improve to 7-2 on the year. Toutle Lake is neither a lake nor a town known as Toutle. It’s a long story.

No. 4 Tri-Cities Prep improved to 8-1 by beating Waitsburg-Dayton 27-15, while No. 5 Asotin also marked up to 8-1 with a 14-13 victory over two-win Lind-Ritzville-Sprague, which makes everyone shake their heads.

More

(GENO LUDWIG/Chewelah Independent)

Chewelah football players sing the team’s fight song after downing Davenport. (Brandon Hansen photo)

POSTSEASON-BOUND: Cougars nab the NE 2B North’s No. 1 seed, face Reardan at home Friday…

One of the four District 7 2B team tickets to the state football championships will be up for grabs this Friday night when the Chewelah Cougars host the Reardan Indians. The Cougars upended Davenport 35-15 last Friday to claim the Northeast 2B League North title, while the Indians were the victims of a 61-13 drubbing from Liberty to finish fourth in the South. The two teams will meet at Snyder Field in one of four crossover games between the league’s two divisions with the winners each receiving an entry to the state tournament.

“From now on, it’s loser-out, lose and done,” said Coach Cameron Gump. “We have to play our best or put our gear away. We have to stay disciplined, play our game, and take care of business. We can’t miss assignments or make mistakes.

“Right now we’re clicking on all cylinders. We’re playing really good football. We have a lot of weapons. It will be difficult for teams to defend against all of them.” More

It has been a crazy few weeks in Washington High School Football. There are a lot of things up in the air for this crossover round and while it usually feels like this week it the one with the most pre-determined results because you have league champs playing the No. 4 team in another league, we honestly have no idea what is going to happen. Here are some things we learned from last Friday’s football mayhem.

1. We have no idea what is going on with east side 2B football

Just throw your arms up on this one and let everything burn. On the west side, Onalaska, Napavine and Kalama are the clear No. 1, 2, and 3 teams in the state but after that, it’s muddier than what the fields will look like in crossover play this weekend.

(This also is kind of untrue because some football heads are saying Onalaska only beat Napavine earlier this year because conditions were muddy and favored a run-only team.)

In the east side hellscape for AP voters and seeding committees, you have No. 4 Tri-Cities Prep with QB Dante Mairui who is an absolute stud and I love everything about his 2,565 yard passing stat line that includes 26 passing touchdowns. He’s averaging 285 passing yards per game.

Also any 2B team that also puts a 3A team on their schedule and beats them also has my respect.

But as good as Tri-Cities Prep is, they lost to Columbia-Burbank 34-28. The Coyotes are ranked below them at No. 9 in the state at 8-1. You may have remembered the Coyotes from Chewelah’s state playoff game last year, and well, they’re back, older, more experienced and even faster. Their lone loss of the season was after a four-hour bus trip to Tonasket. More

(KS BROOKS/Chewelah Independent)

Avery Matherly (88), Wyatt Edwards (9), Avery Kitt (23), Lucas Buche (66) and Braden Parker have been a strong senior core for the Springdale Chargers. (K.S. Brooks photo)

FOUR YEARS IN THE TRENCHES: Springdale seniors have seen big transitions for football program and have forged a family…

Senior night is a special night for those students who will be moving on come graduation. Springdale football players were very much looking forward to their game versus Hunters on their Senior Night, but unfortunately, it was cancelled because their opponents didn’t have enough players. That means their last home game as seniors on the football team won’t be happening.

The Chewelah Independent sat down with seniors Avery Matherly, Avery Kitt, Wyatt Edwards, Lucas Buche and Braden Parker to talk a little bit about how the football program has impacted them. They all agreed that football brought them closer together as a family.

There have been some changes throughout their years, going from 11-man football to an 8-man game, and going from a 2B classification to 1B.
Edwards said that both of those changes were for the better. More