Turnovers open door for Greyhounds in 37-7 loss
By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter
In the beginning of last Friday's football game with Pullman it looked as though Medical Lake might have carried momentum with them from a win the week before.
Tim Haynes capped off a six-minute drive with his 8-yard touchdown run and Joel Linafelter's kick gave the Cardinals a 7-0 lead. Medical Lake head coach Wes Hobbs said Medical Lake “stunned them. We marched right up the field and had a 6-minute drive, scored and we're up 7-0.”
But then came the meltdown in the Greyhounds' 37-7 non-league victory as Pullman scored 28 points in just over six minutes and it was game over. “So we give them a short field, probably 20 yards, and then we muff a kickoff return and then they have to go first-and-goal pretty much inside our own one,” Hobbs explained.
“You don't have to be a scientist to know that leads to two touchdowns for Pullman,” Hobbs said. “Then it was just ‘deer in the headlights syndrome,' and it was over.”
“Their A-team showed up Friday night,” Hobbs said. Pullman, Hobbs added, “Is a much better football team than their record indicates.” Medical Lake fell to 1-4 on the season while Pullman improved to 3-2.
After the Cardinals were stopped on their second drive, that fumbled snap on the punt gave Pullman a short field, Hobbs said, and Pete Barner made the best of it scoring on a 3-yard run with 1:01 to play in the opening quarter.
On the ensuing kickoff Medical Lake muffed the return giving Pullman the ball deep in Cardinals' territory again. James Bledsoe's 1-yard run gave the Greyhounds a lead they would never surrender with 11:04 in the half. Barner struck again on a 4-yard run with 8:36 to play and Brendan Barrington's 30-yard pass from Tyler Langerveld capped the blitz at the 6:40 mark of the second.
“The bottom line for us is that the things we can control – no matter if you're facing an opponent that's better than you skill-wise – things like fumbling, overthrowing passes, dropping passes, tackling and those type of things, we blew it out the door after the first series,” Hobbs said.
A week removed from a stellar performance in their 20-8 win over Bonners Ferry where he threw for 203 yards, sophomore quarterback Adam Paulson suffered through a 2-for-17, 18-yard disaster, adding a couple of interceptions to the pain. Paulson “is still learning,” Hobbs said. “Like it or not we're going to have mistakes.”
Haynes led the Cardinals with 91 yards rushing on 23 carries. As a team Medical Lake was limited to just 162 yards after putting up over 400 against Bonners Ferry.
The loss in itself was tough enough but with his personal ties to Pullman – Hobbs lived in and played football there in the 1970s – the defeat carries a little more sting. “I'll be eating crow for another two years before we get back down there,” he said.
“We have to flush that disaster,” Hobbs said. “We are better than that.”
Medical Lake will find out if that's true this Friday at 7 p.m. for Homecoming when they entertain the McGloughlin Pioneers out of Milton Freewater, Ore., just minutes south of Walla Walla. The school has an enrollment of 529, about the same as Medical Lake.
After an 0-2 start the visitors from the Greater Oregon League have won three straight, including a 55-16 victory over Riverside of Boardman and 35-0 against Umatilla. Medical Lake and McGloughlin have met twice before back in 1995 and 1996, splitting those two games.
Hobbs said there just happened to be an open date for each team so scheduling it was a perfect fit for the 2A Cardinals who are playing an independent schedule in football but are still full-fledged members of the Great Northern League in all other sports.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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