2B football: Colfax will host LRS Broncos in battle for state playoff ticket

Colfax football team will host the LRS Broncos Friday for a chance to qualify as one of the 16 teams around the state to get a ticket to the first round of the state playoffs.

The Colfax-LRS matchup surfaced after final south side league games went into the books last Friday with Colfax getting the bye date.

The key for Colfax was a 61-13 win by Liberty over Reardan. That knocked Reardan out of a chance as the league’s number-one qualifier and bumped them down to number four with a 2-2 mark.

Colfax Coach Mike Morgan noted Reardan faced a tough test Friday because four or five of their starters went to the FFA nationals in Indianapolis, Ind., and missed the game.

Asotin, also a 3-1 finisher, gets the number-two slot, and Liberty, a 2-2 finisher with the win over Reardan, gets the three slot. Reardan takes the number four slot for this week’s NE crossover round.

Lind/Ritzville/Sprague finished as the number-five team on the south side, but they landed number four on the north slot because their record topped the record posted by number four north side team. The provision was put in the books before the start of the season because the NE North had just four teams, and the NE South had five.

For the other three crossover games, Asotin will host Northwest Christian; Liberty will travel to Davenport, and Reardan will travel to Chewelah.

Chewelah stopped Davenport 35-15 Friday to take the top slot among the north side qualifiers.

Colfax defeated LRS 39-13 in the first league round Oct. 4, but Coach Morgan doesn’t believe that spells a win in the bag for the Bulldogs here Friday. He noted one of the themes of league play this year is how results can vary according to what players are in the lineup on state game day.

If Colfax wins, they will have to wait until Sunday to see where they will land among the 16 qualifiers. The WIAA uses several sources to rate teams in the state, and the matchup will be determined by the ratings.

Generally, the matchups put the top eight team against the bottom eight. One aim is to keep the top four of five teams from colliding early in the playoffs.

Morgan noted the rating matchups don’t carry much weight as far as geography is involved and cross-state game dates can be expected.

Morgan stressed the Colfax-LRS game here Friday starts at 6 p.m., one hour earlier than the game time which has been in place for the season.