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By BEN MCCARTY
News staff writer
August 23, 2008
Perhaps it is just the torrential downpour of rain, but on a
Wednesday night a little over two weeks before the team is to
open its season, only a few cars are parked off WaNaPa Street to
watch the Cascade Locks School football team practice.
It’s a far cry from last year when a small crowd gathered for
seemingly every practice, and newspapers and television cameras
came to see the only new high school football program in the
state.
Pirates coach Ryan Nolin is grateful for all the support the
community has given the team, and the way the town has rallied
around it, but the return to normalcy means the Pirates can
focus on football.
“The first couple weeks last year were really weird with all the
stuff going on,” Nolin said.
The Pirates started their
first campaign with 22 players coming out for the team. They
ended the season with 12. The team had 14 players out on
Wednesday, and Nolin is hoping to get a few more once school
starts back up again.
He doesn’t mind not having large numbers; Cascade Locks will
likely never be able to field a JV team like some eight-man
football powerhouses, but he would like to be able to develop a
core group of players.
“Hopefully we can end up with 17-18 guys and see those kids
stick it all the way through,” he said.
The team lost eight seniors from last year’s team; key among
them Alex Rose and Derrick Harbaugh, who saw the majority of the
time at quarterback for the Pirates.
Nolin is hoping to replace them
with junior Levi Brazille and
senior Adam Rush.
Nolin said Brazille reminds him of a Vince Young-type
quarterback — a player who can throw well on the move but still
has some work to do in the pocket.
“Both of them have been showing some interest,” Nolin said.
Brazille wants to be able to put his, and the rest of the
offense’s, mobility to good use.
“We have a whole lot of small guys who are also fast and strong
guys,” he said.
It was a quick learning curve for the Pirates last year. They
want from learning which pads went where to game action in the
span of a few short weeks.
The early results were predictable: The Pirates lost their first
two games by a combined margin of 94 points, but then lost to
Easton by just a touchdown, beat Washington School for the Deaf
and then a lost by a wide margin to North Lake.
Then they played every other game close the rest of the way
including a season ending win over Mitchell’s JV team.
They want to see that progress carry over into this season.
“Last year we didn’t know what to expect,” senior Montgumry
Sampson said. “This year (Nolin and assistant coach George
Fischer) are working us hard.”
At the end of last season there was talk that the Pirates would
make the jump to the Big Sky Conferences, one of the tougher
divisions in the state for eight-man football, but Nolin said
after looking back over the season the decision was made to get
at least one more year of seasoning before jumping into a
conference.
“We will go over things again at the end of the year and see
where we are at,” he said. “This was just not a good year to
jump back into the Big Sky.”
So while the team will be the only 1A team in the state playing
an independent schedule, they are no longer a brand-new team.
“The hype is gone,” Nolin said as he looked around the field
with globs of water dripping off his jacket. “Now we can just
come down here and play some football.”
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