Bulldogs to host Panthers

Asotin’s Panthers, a team which was stopped by Colfax last year in the NE-SE crossover round after the end of the regular season, will visit Colfax Friday night to launch the football season at Schmuck Park.

Colfax will host the Panthers after getting good marks last Friday in the football jamboree at Ritzville. Asotin will arrive after sustaining a 6-31 crunch from McCall-Donnelly in the Panthers’ season opener at Asotin. The M-D team visited Asotin after posting a 26-22 hard-fought win over Orofino in the Idaho opener two weeks ago.

Colfax Coach Mike Morgan said the Bulldog coaches rated the Bulldogs’ jamboree start at Ritzville last Friday as a success.

“I think they were just very happy to be playing somebody with different colored jerseys, “ Morgan commented. He added a lot of the first-outing energy came from the jayvee players who excelled when they were paired up with an equivalent force on the opposite side.

Colfax varsity started the evening by holding Kittitas scoreless in their first set of plays.

In their next segment, they scored twice against Newport, the A division guests at the jamboree. Colfax came back on defense to lock out the Grizzlies offense on their 10-play segment of the matchup.

“We really didn’t have any idea what Newport was going to do against us, but the real point of the jamboree playoff is to see how you react when you’re faced with certain situations,” Morgan noted.

Colfax finished their jamboree stint Friday by scoring two more TDs over 10 plays against Mary Walker of Springdale.

Against the chargers, the Bulldogs had a better idea of what the league foe would put on the grid. Colfax also scored twice on the Chargers in a 10-play varsity segment.

Colfax jayvees booked a stellar start in their jamboree stints. The jayvees, made up of 13 freshmen and six or seven sophomores, scored seven times on their 21 offensive plays.

Friday, Asotin will visit the Colfax team which marked an end to their season last year. Colfax shut out the Panthers 43-0 in the SE-NE crossover game. That matchup came after the Panthers had finished fourth in the SE standings with a 4-5 mark.

The win started a Colfax playoff run which ended against Waitsburg/Prescott in the semi-final game.

Asotin Coach Sal Lopez, starting his 10th year as the head of the Panthers, has just five returning seniors on the squad this year. The returnees are mostly linemen with all-SE tackle Cody Koch leading the list.

Also back are Robert Selbly, another lineman; Kile Davison, running back, Brett Keener, running back; and Ian Hurst, offensive line and defensive end.

Quarterback competition on the Lopez squad includes Daton Krull, a sophomore, and Erick Losety, a junior.

Top receivers were Neil Landrus, a junior; and Carson Jagannaty, a sophomore.

Coach Morgan noted Asotin last year played out of the shotgun formation, but this year appears to be back running their traditional offense which is very much like the Colfax offense. In fact, Morgan said he wouldn’t be surprised to see the Panthers include a few “borrowed” Colfax plays in the Asotin playbook and vice versa.

Asotin moves into the first-game slot on the Colfax schedule which has been occupied by the DeSales Irish in recent seasons.