Final Thoughts on No. Thurston/Olympic Game
September 19th, 2009 by Annette GriffusLate starts combined with crashing computers equals a major rush to meet deadline.
That’s what happened to me after covering the Olympic vs. North Thurston game Friday night, so I wasn’t able to get in everything I wanted to from the Rams 38-34 win.
Thank goodness we have the Prep Blog. And if you’re still smarting over the loss Trojan fans, no worries, I won’t feel bad if you don’t want to read any further. For the rest of you, enjoy.
1. No matter the opponent Larry Dixon is impossible to stop. And North Thurston did their very, very best. In fact, the Rams held Dixon to just 65 yards on 13 carries in the second half. Blake Johnson did a good job spelling Dixon on plays, but he is and will be the main option for the Trojans. Dixon did have three catches for 50 yards in the final scoring drive. He now has 15 touchdowns this season. Yes. 15.
2. NT’s Jacob Klumker has a solid arm. The 6-foot-3, 215-pound senior quarterback went 12 for 15 for 223 yards. Klumker had all the time in the world to throw as the Rams’ offensive line held off Oly’s D. Klumker landed on his back just once — on a sack in the second half. Klumker was the Rams’ starting tight end last year, but did start five games at QB his sophomore season.
3. Western League vs. Olympic League. This one goes to the Western League. If Capital, Timberline and Yelm are anything like North Thurston, then Oly, Bremerton, North Kitsap and Port Angeles better get ready. The Rams are a balanced team, just like Oly thought, and aside from the opening kickoff, didn’t make many glaring mistakes.
Quotes from Oly interim coach Tim Allbee
On Rams RB Lawyer Tillman: “He’s a slasher. I think our kids were over-persueing a little bit, trying to get too aggressive, and that gave him the cutback lanes, because that’s what he was doing.”
From Rams coach Rocky Patchin
On Larry Dixon: “We told our kids he’s going to get his yards. You’ve gotta slow him down, pound him, and at times during this game we did a tremendous job. I think we shocked them a little bit early, especially. If we don’t give up a kickoff return for a touchdown — which we had not planned on kicking that to him.”
On playing Olympic: “That’s a good Olympic team. Games like this are fun for the fans and make coaches go gray.”
On how big will the win be later in the season: “It’s hard to say. There’s so many good teams in this league and I think Bremerton’s playing very good and we’ve got Port Angeles and North Kitsap coming up in the next two weeks and they’ll be tough. We’re just not good enough to not overlook anybody so we’re going to just continue to work to get better.”
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
September 19th, 2009 at 9:00 am
As an ex-olympic linebacker and center, my take is the two early scores proving to be the biggest difference without that, Oly wins. Their (oly) outside linebackers trailed too deep sometimes on chasing from behind.Also, the rams got too much yardage too fast all game long. They just seemed to get those big chunks time after time and kept scoring, it was a scoring race against the clock for both teams. Olympic gave up too many deep passes as well.A great game though and Larry Dixon goes without saying. My ex-quarterback Steve Anthony is an assistant there and did a fine job and it was nice to say hello. I may assist next fall– that would be a great time.