Sports - Sports News

POSTED: Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009

PREP FOOTBALL ANALYSIS: Pioneers make necessary adjustments for amazing comeback

Despite the 20-point deficit his team faced at halftime, Nooksack Valley football coach Robb Myhre said his team's confidence never wavered in its Class 1A State Quarterfinal at King's on Friday, Nov. 20.

"As the game went on, we always felt there was a chance," Myhre said in a phone interview on Saturday. "I never thought when I looked in the kids' eyes or talked to the coaching staff that they felt this game was over."

That determination didn't even diminish when King's scored again on its opening possession of the second half to put the Pioneers in a 27-point hole.

"We kept talking about our past experience," Myhre said. "We talked about how we had scored 21 points in 21/2 minutes the week before (in a first-round victory over La Center). We've played well in the second half all season. I don't think we've lost a game in the second half in the last two years, except maybe that game against Montesano (in the 2008 state quarterfinals). We just kept thinking we were going to wear them down."

The Pioneers' resolve turned into results, as they scored 41 points during a 13-minute stretch from the middle of the third quarter to the middle of the fourth and found a way to slow up the quick-strike King's offense enough to allow Nooksack Valley to come from behind for a 54-47 victory.

But how exactly did the Pioneers pull off this amazing comeback?

The first thing they needed to do was to find a way to keep the 40-13 deficit from getting any worse, and that meant stepping up defensively.

Nooksack Valley was unable to stop the Knights in the first half, as the only King's drive that did not end in a touchdown was one that ended with a missed 27-yard field goal. Quarterback Thomas Vincent and his speedy group of receivers had their way to the tune of 268 total yards on 27 offensive snaps - and that's not counting Nick Swanson's 83-yard kickoff return of a TD to open the game. Vincent passed for 189 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for 80 yards and another TD before halftime and added another 75 yards passing and a TD pass to Swanson on his first chance of the second half.

"We knew they were a faster team than us coming in," Myhre said. "In the first half, we just wanted to keep them in front of us. We played a lot of Cover 4 defensively, sending our defensive backs deep and hoping we could get some help from out linebackers underneath. We just weren't getting it done. The second half, we decided to get our guys in their receivers' faces and slow their routes a little more. We figured if we got beat deep, things couldn't get any worse."

Myhre and his defense got the results they were looking for, as Vincent completed only two of his final 10 pass attempts for 16 yards. Nooksack Valley also got a couple of Vincent's passes, as Anthony Reese's interception in the end zone set up the Pioneers' game-winning touchdown drive, and a beautiful, over-the-shoulder interception by Caleb Cragle allowed Nooksack to run out the final 6:16.

"We also wanted to try to get more pressure on their quarterback, and I think you saw that we did that," Myhre said. "We got to him a little on Caleb's interception, and that ball kind of fluttered."

Stopping the Knights a couple times was great, but not even giving them a chance to get rolling offensively was even better.

After Vincent's TD pass to Swanson, King's only had possession for 5:50 of the final 21:32 - nearly one third of the time Nooksack Valley owned the ball.

Part of the reason for the discrepancy was that the Pioneers recovered one of two onside kick attempts and managed to scoop up another squib kick that bounced off the facemask of a King's player.

"Travis Benner did an excellent job with the kickoffs in the second half," Myhre said. "We only tried two onside kicks, and we put Jon Charroin and Levi Stuit in the middle and told them to go after it and put fear in the eyes of their guys, and that's exactly what they did. The other kicks were just well placed by Travis. We told him where to kick it - they had a freshman out there and we wanted to see how he handled it - and we were able to get another one."

The Nooksack Valley offense made sure those extra opportunities - and one that was given to them by an 82-yard kickoff return by Reese to the King's 2 - didn't go to waste.

The Pioneers' offensive line and some powerful, hard-nosed runs by Nick deGrasse up the middle and off left tackle seemed to take their toll on the Knights defensively, as Nooksack scored touchdowns on six straight drives.

"As we were going to the locker room at halftime, we had this Nooksack Valley fan reminding us, 'Speed slows down, but big doesn't get smaller,'" Myhre said. "We were like, 'Yeah, that's right.' We've always been a second-half football team, because teams just get worn down by our size."

Now the question is will Nooksack Valley be able to recover from Friday night's unbelievable win in time for the 1 p.m. 1A state semifinal against Cascade Christian or Montesano on Saturday, Nov. 28?

"I expect our kids to be exhausted physically, because we played a good, fast team," Myhre said. "But I know there's also going to be some emotional exhaustion because it was so exciting. We're going to look at it and see how hard we can practice them this week, but I know this group of kids will be ready by game time."

And Friday night showed the Pioneers that anything is possible.