Bulldog gridders face challenge at Chewelah

Colfax football players, who sat out the last round of NE action with a bye last week, face a big challenge when they travel to Chewelah Friday to play the Cougars. Colfax travels north as the number-three finisher on the NE south side to face a Cougar team which finished first on the NE north side.

Chewelah Friday finished out their league run with a 55-14 win over Davenport. The Cougars last week knocked Northwest Christian out of the top spot to get an early claim on the number-one.

Colfax and Chewelah football lore goes back to when both clubs played in the A division, but Colfax dropped down to 2B in 2008.

Chewelah dropped out of the A division at the start of this year.

Coach Mike Morgan, who scouted the Cougars during the Bulldogs’ bye Friday, said the Cougars run a variety pack of offense and have a big front on their 3-5-3 defensive set.

He said the Bulldogs will have to use their wide open attack to spread out the Cougar defense and attempt to break something loose. One big boost would be a score by the special teams to throw the Cougars off their pace.

Morgan noted the crossover round again finds the Bulldogs in the pairings as a number-three entrant, and that makes it tough to get a crossover win and advance to the first round of state action.

For the last three years, Colfax has collided with Asotin in the crossover round, and the Panthers have shut them out of a slot in the eight-game format which makes up the first round of state action.

The NE north and south format this year eliminated the Colfax-Asotin clash in the crossover round.

The Panthers Friday will go up against Northwest Christian in a match of second-place finishers.