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Grants Pass
takes advantage of repeated good field position to roll to 43-7
win
By BEN MCCARTY
News staff writer
September 3, 2008
One of the new features in this year’s batch of football video
games is a “do-over” option where a player can try again if a
play goes horribly wrong.
The Hood River Valley football team was wishing real life had
that option one play into its season on Friday night.
The Eagles’ first play from scrimmage was a dropped-backwards
pass that was recovered by the Grants Pass Cavemen. One play
later the Cavemen were in the end zone and on their way to a
43-7 romp in Grants Pass.
“We’ve got to get our minds right,” Eagles coach Tracy Jackson
said on Monday. “That’s our challenge this week.”
Jackson said the Eagles came out flat on Friday and that lack of
execution put them out of the game early.
“The things we didn’t do well, I have to take responsibility
for,” he said.
After the turnover on the first play, Friday night quickly went
from bad to worse for the Eagles.
Grants Pass used three one-play drives in running up a 36-0 lead
at halftime, and the majority of the Cavemen possessions started
either near midfield or in HRV territory.
HRV struggled to find any offensive momentum in the first half,
struggling through penalties and a stiff Grants Pass defense.
“We will never really know how we could match up with Grants
Pass because we didn’t fight them,” Jackson said. “So we don’t
really know were we are at.”
The Eagles’ only touchdown came in the waning moments of the
third quarter when Sean Baker was able to fight his way into the
end zone from a yard out.
On what was otherwise a miserable night for HRV Jackson pointed
to Dalton Frazier and Elliott Sherrell as two players who made
the most of a tough game.
“We had some guys who were hurt and Dalton stepped up and played
very well,” Jackson said.
Jackson plans to spend this week re-emphasizing fundamentals
like tackling, which he said hurt the Eagles badly against the
Cavemen.
“If you are going to be good at anything it’s going to be hard
work,” he said. “It’s hard to be good.”
The Eagles will host the Hillsboro Spartans this Friday at 7
p.m. at Henderson Community Stadium in their home opener.
This week: Hillsboro, a 5A school in the Northwest Oregon
league, opened its season with a 40-6 win over North Salem on
Friday.
According to the Hillsboro Argus, Hillsboro quarterback
Dominique Mims keyed a dominant showing by the Spartans, with
three passing touchdowns and a rushing touchdown. He also
intercepted a pass on defense.
“Hillsboro is a good team,” Jackson said. “They came into the
season as one of the highly ranked 5A teams.”
Around the Mount Hood Conference: It was a rough opening
week for the eight schools in the MHC. Only two teams managed
wins, and several, including Hood River Valley, lost in
blowouts. Sandy, which failed to get a conference win last
season,
posted one of Friday’s more surprising efforts, but still
came up short in a 16-15 loss to Forest Grove.
Central Catholic and Gresham were the two teams to end up on the
winning end. Gresham squeaked past Roseburg 23-21, thanks to a
field goal by Nick Ingram in the closing minutes,
according to the Gresham Outlook. Central Catholic rolled
past Bishop Kelly of Boise, Idaho, 42-22 in Boise to open their
season.
According to the Idaho Statesman-Journal, the Rams scored
two touchdowns in the first five minutes and never let Bishop
Kelly get back into the game.
In other MHC games, Barlow fell to Westview 34-21; Centennial
was blasted by Tigard 63-19; David Douglas lost to McNary 26-7;
and Reynolds was routed by North Salem 49-7.
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