Tarriers could be a sneaky 3-6 team

ROYAL CITY — When Wiley Allred told me last Friday night that Charles Wright Academy would be here this Friday at 1 p.m. for a first round playoff football game, I was taken back to 1989, the year Toppenish beat the Tarriers for the state title.

I was editor of the Toppenish-Wapato Review-Independent then, and I followed the Wildcats the way I follow Royal now. But I must admit I wasn’t as confident in that Toppenish team as I am in this group of Knights.

Toppenish had lost a game to a so-so Goldendale team, and that’s why the Wildcats were suspect to me.

I wasn’t convinced Toppenish could pull off the state title until after the semifinals. They beat then-state powerhouse Ephrata handily in Yakima.

That Charles Wright team had a winning record and a quarterback who could throw. He led his team to 16 points, but they weren’t nearly enough.

The Tarrier team you’ll see Saturday also has a good passing quarterback who can scramble. The Tarriers have a 3-6 record, but it’s hard to tell what that means.

The Tarriers have lost big and won big. They lost to Vashon Island, 52-48, and later beat the same team 76-52.

In case you’re wondering, a Tarrier is not a dog. According to the best dictionaries, a Tarrier is one who tarries.

That’s Charles Wright. It started the season with four straight losses. The Tarriers came on late to get into the state tournament.

The Tarriers will be led by No. 3, senior quarterback Henry Cheney. He has averaged 281.8 passing yards per game and a total offense of 335.8 yards per game.

When Cheney is not passing the ball, he’s usually handing it off to fleet running back Desmond Jones, who averaged 60.7 rushing yards per game.

According to the Tacoma News Tribune, Charles Wright was expected to do better than it did. The Tarriers were projected to improve on their 4-6 record of 2014.

The TNT said Cheney’s junior year was a season to remember. He passed for 2,311 yards, ran for 537 and accounted for 28 touchdowns. His challenge for this year was a brand new receiving corps that now has nine games under its collective.

Two players Royal Quarterback Kaden Jenks will find of interest are Jones and Alex Meadowcraft. Both were all-league defensive backs in 2014.

You can bet the defensive plan for Royal Saturday will be to ground the Tarrier passing attack. That is the game they like to play, and they’ll be awful uncomfortable without it.

If both teams play their best, the Knights should handle Charles Wright about the way they’ve handled most teams this year.