Colton Wildcats take win string to Touchet

Colton’s defense put enough brakes on the LWK speed game Friday night at LaCrosse to carve out a 66-20 showdown win and move to the head of the SE-Eight race. The 4-0 Wildcats will face a different test Friday afternoon when they travel all the way to Touchet to play another always-tough entrant in the league.

“I think a lot of the credit goes to our defense,” Colton Coach Clark Vining said on the big win at LaCrosse. He added he never expected a 45-plus match when the Wildcats’ rolled to LaCrosse Friday.

“It really started like a tennis match,” Vining reported.

The game began with the senior speedbacks from each team shifting into high gear. Garrett Blauert broke out on a 45-yard TD run to open the scoring for LWK, but Colton came back with a 55-yard run by Sam Robertson on the Wildcats’ first play. Colton then forged ahead on a TD pass from Josh Straughan to Taylor Spence, but the Tigercats tied it with a kickoff return by Sam Harder.

After that Colton broke to a two-TD lead, 26-14, before the end of the first quarter. The Tigercats scored again in the second quarter on a plunger by Garrett Whitney, but that turned out to be their last score.

Colton added 34 points in the second half to take the win and move to the front of the SE-Eights pack.

Robertson finished with six of the TDs on a 27-265 night and Straughan passed for 258 yards and four TD shots.

Coach Vining said three forced turnovers played a big part. The Wildcats recovered two fumbles and picked of an LWK pass.

Steve Eacker, outside linebacker, finished with 11 tackles to top the Wildcat defense, and Bricyn Abdul, noseguard, had 10 tackles.

The Wildcats Friday will go up against a Touchet team which has changed its traditional offense to a wide open attack with Gary Dorman, long-time assistant, replacing Wayne Dickey, long-time dean of the SE coaching ranks, at the helm of the Indians.

“It’s kind of an Oregon Duck offense in an eight-man version,” Vining noted. “They spread the offense all over the field.”

Touchet Junior QB Jacob Hodenfield will be the focus point of the attack.

Touchet will host after a 48-24 win over the new Sunnyside Christian Club.

After the trip to Touchet the Wildcats will have two more league games, both at home, against Sunnyside Christian Oct. 16 and Tri Cities Prep Oct. 30 They also face a long trip to Lyle which cannot qualify for the playoffs.

The Tigercats have a bye this week.

St. John/Endicott, the other SE contender in the county, will host the 2-2 TCP team this week. The Eagles are 2-3 overall after splitting non-leaguers with the GP Vikings.

The top three teams in the SE will get a shot in the first round of the playoff in a crossover round with eight-man qualifiers out of the NE.