Sharing the wealth

COULEE CITY — No. 4 seed Almira/Coulee-Hartline takes on No. 5 Neah Bay on Saturday, as the Warriors bring their balanced offensive attack into their quarterfinal matchup against the Red Devils. 

“I’d hate to try and scout us, because we have multiple guys that can do a lot of things,” Head Coach Brandon Walsh said. “That’s a luxury a lot of teams at our level don’t have.” 

A season ago, the Warrior offense primarily featured two players; running back Carter Pitts and quarterback Caden Correia, who had 179 and 178 carries, respectively, over 12 games in 2023; the two combined for 61.1% of the attempts on the ground in a run-heavy ACH offense. 

This season, Pitts has tallied just 116 carries to Correia’s 86 through 11 games this fall. Several Warrior players have stepped up to share the load, including juniors Brady Roberts (44 carries) and Harvest Parrish (49), as well as sophomore Brody Pitts (59). 

“I wasn’t really sure how it was going to be until I started getting more and more carries each game, and it’s a lot of fun to be behind this offensive line,” Correia said. “I wasn’t sure about it to start off the season, because it’s a new offensive line, but the offensive line’s been great this year.” 

For players like Roberts and Parrish, who were both members of last year’s team as sophomores, an off-season of growth and development has been key to taking more significant roles in the offense. 

“We knew they had talent, but we limited them a little bit on offense last year because they were playing a lot of defense,” Walsh said. “It was just a conscious effort to not put too much on them as sophomores; and we had a couple older kids where it was their time.” 

It’s not just the run game, either; Correia has thrown for 1,068 yards this fall while increasing his touchdowns from 15 in 2023 to 20 and decreasing his interceptions from seven last year to three this season. 

“At the beginning of the year, we thought, ‘Man, we’re not going to be able to pass it,’ because Max Grindy, who isn’t playing this year and was our best receiver last year, but then guys stepped up,” Carter Pitts said. 

Grindy is out with an injury, but that allowed senior Jameson Conley to step in as the team’s top receiver; Conley has posted 21 catches for 465 yards and six scores this season. 

“Going in, we definitely didn’t expect to be passing,” Conley said. “We played a couple games and threw the ball around and realized we had way more weapons than we thought we did to begin with. We can spread it around to everybody.” 

On top of more players being involved with the run game, being able to throw the ball effectively also opens the rushing attack. 

“The goal is we would always like to be balanced, or more balanced than we were last year. That was just what the team dictated or how the games went, so that’s how it ended up,” Walsh said. “It’s nice, this year, to have options and weapons, and guys that are ready to share the load.” 

There are plenty of offensive plays that are designed for the skillset of an individual player. 

“We’ve got speed guys, we’re going to put them on flex sweeps and try to run them downfield on a pass to get them open in the open field, and we have a guy like Carter (Pitts) who’s a very good inside runner and doesn’t go down on first contact,” Walsh said. ‘We’ve got counters to the speed stuff with the inside run, and it’s nice to design that stuff when you have multiple options.” 

A balanced offensive attack has produced several games where multiple players reach the end zone. In nine of ACH’s 11 games this season, there have been at least four different players that have scored touchdowns. 

“It’s been a huge change compared to what I thought it was going to be like this year,” Parrish said. “Eight-man (football) has always been 12 (players) playing each side of the ball. But with as many weapons and people that we have, we’ve been able to switch. Some games we’ve gone the whole eight on defense is different than the eight on offense.” 

ACH rosters 33 players this season, a significant amount in the 1B classification. 

“With all the guys, you’re going to get some athletes in there,” Pitts said. “Some good football players.” 

Players aren’t upset about sharing the wealth, Walsh said. 

“These guys want to win, and they’ve said it multiple times; some people might get their feelings hurt if they don’t get their carries or don’t get their stats, but these guys don’t care,” Walsh said. “They’re all team-first guys, and as long as we’re winning, then they’re happy to do whatever they need to do.” 

Kickoff between ACH and Neah Bay is at 1 p.m. Saturday at Lions Field in Moses Lake. The winner advances to play either No. 1 Liberty Christian or No. 8 DeSales next week. 

    Almira/Coulee-Hartline senior Carter Pitts runs with the ball in the first half against Inchelium on Friday. Pitts has run for over 1,000 yards this season.
  

    Almira/Coulee-Hartline junior Brady Roberts, right, runs toward the end zone during Friday’s game against Inchelium. Roberts scored three touchdowns in the win over the Hornets.