Friday Night Lights are off and running
The lights shine bright on Friday night and despite the fact that summer was all too short, high school football took center stage on the eve of the Labor Day weekend.
It’s on and the most noticeable numbers in the Columbia Basin come from the 1A ranks where the top two teams in the South Central Athletic Conference East once again look like the top two teams in the state, at the 1A level that is.
The two-time defending 1A state champion Royal Knights dismantled Ellensburg 42-0. Sawyer Jenks is picking up where older brother Kaden left off, passing for five touchdowns. The Knights destroyed Ellensburg, which is considered one of the top teams in the Central Washington Athletic Conference in the newly aligned CWAC South.
Wiley Allred always maintains Royal isn’t defending a state championship, they’re just trying to win another one. If teams around the state were thinking the Knights might be down because the gunslinger (Kaden Jenks) is off to test his skills at Weber State University, it doesn’t appear they lost a step with the younger brother taking his turn at the helm.
Connell, which lost twice to Royal a year ago, once during a regular-season shootout and again in the Tacoma Dome for the 1A state title, looks good as ever. Eagles quarterback Austin Smith was slightly overshadowed with Kaden Jenks in the league, but the 6-foot-3, 205-pound junior stepped up his game in leading Connell to a decisive 28-10 victory over Othello. Smith was 13 of 21 for 129 yards and two touchdowns against the Huskies’ defense.
Yeah, it doesn’t look like either of the teams lost a step since playing for a state title a year ago.
The Ephrata Tigers won just one game last season. They had more questions than answers coming into this year with coach Jay Mills moving quarterback Chris Walker to wide receiver and running back Zac Berryman under center. Mills talked about a philosophy, “First you hope, then you think, and finally you know you’re going to win.”
The Tigers were missing that last part a year ago, but Friday’s 21-10 win over Cashmere kind of jumped them into that “know they can win” category. Berryman was 13 of 22 for 152 yards and two touchdowns. Wide receiver Jake Oxos caught eight balls for 62 yards and a touchdown, as the Tigers equaled last year’s win total in the first game.
The Quincy Jacks rattled their sabre a bit last year with consecutive CWAC wins to finish the season. This year, they banged on the door right away with a 35-7 non-league victory over Chelan to get the Quincy fan base on its feet.
The Moses Lake Chiefs dropped a 24-14 decision to Chiawana to start the season off with a loss. The Warden Cougars had some tough sledding with a 49-6 loss to Okanogan as did Soap Lake, which dropped a 54-6 decision to Tonasket. No. 3 Almira/Coulee-Hartline lost to fifth-ranked Sunnyside Christian in a battle of eight-man ranked teams. It’s only Week 2, but already it feels like Hank Williams Jr. is warming up the band, “Are you ready for some football?”
Rodney Harwood is a sports writer with the Columbia Basin Herald and can be reached at rharwood@columbiabasinherald.com