T-R football team to really hit the road in 2015

Tekoa/Rosalia football gridders, who were slated to hit the turf for the first time Wednesday morning, are booked for a unique season the year.

The Timberwolves are scheduled to play eight games with four at home at Rosalia and four on the road.

“They’re all over the place,” Scott Eaton, new head coach of the Timberwolves, commented.

He credited Dan Hutton, Tekoa principal who also serves as athletic director, with finding foes for the team and booking the games.

Tekoa/Rosalia has to go on the hunt for opponents after opting out of the NE League last spring. The Timberwolves were placed in the 2B division after the new alignment, which took shape in early 2014, put the student count into WIAA’s bracket for the 2B division. That landed the new team in the NE District 7 for all sports last year.

Coached by Bob Buschko, a retired coach from Olympia, Tekoa/Rosalia ventured into the 2B grid scene with a small team and logged a winless season.

The NE last year, which also added Kettle Falls and Wilbur/ Creston, booked a football schedule solid with league foes.

After looking at the potential turnout for this season, Tekoa/Rosalia decided to opt out of the NE for football and will play smaller schools. The move will mean they will not be eligible for playoff competition at the end of the season.

Eaton, a school counselor at Tekoa, moves up to coach varsity football after heading the jayvee program for six years with most of that in the Tekoa/Oakesdale Nighthawks format. He has marked 10 years of coaching.

Assistants will be Cullen Grow, who assisted Eaton with the jayvees and Russ Tampien.

Eaton Monday said he expected 22 to 23 players to turn out for the team, but he really won’t know the count until the first day of practice.

Tekoa/Rosalia will start the season against Colton Sept. 11 in a non-leaguer at Rosalia. The Wildcats were the only county 1B school which could accommodate the Timberwolves in their hunt for 1B foes late in the scheduling season last spring.

After that the Timberwolves will start a road schedule which probably rate them at the top of the state standings in miles traveled. They will play at Clark Fork, Idaho, Sept. 18; at Elgin, Ore., Oct. 9; at Darrington, Oct. 16, and at Wallace, Idaho, Oct. 23. All are Friday games.

Coach Eaton noted plans for the cross-state trip to Darrington will include an overnight stay.

The other three home games will be with Soap Lake Sept. 25, Yakama Tribal Oct. 2 and Kootenai from Harrison, Idaho, Oct. 30.

The then new Tekoa/Rosalia combo last year was ranked fifth from the smallest among 59 school placed in the 2B classification with a 101 count of students at the start of 2014. Liberty of Spangle was ranked third from the bottom with 94 students in the 2014 count.

Schools in the 2B classification range from Warden with a 224 to Tacoma Baptist with 90.

DeSales, one of four schools which opted to play in the SE 2B league, was listed with 81 students.

The 1B classifications was charted with 63 schools ranging from 87 at Columbia Adventist Academy to 26 at Bickleton.