Change sparks East Valley

When your team is 1-5 and struggling, sometimes change can, well, spark change. That’s exactly what happened for the East Valley football team. After a slow start, coach Adam Fisher thought the best thing to do was shake up his lineup on offense and defense. And, in a sense, build toward the future. So he inserted two sophomores at quarterback and tailback – Adam Tally and Taylor Watkins. “At the time we were 0-2 (in league) and thought there were just two playoff berths,” Fisher said. “So we made changes thinking about next year.” As it turned out, the Great Northern League received three playoff berths. Five wins in a row and the Knights (6-5) find themselves in the final eight. East Valley travels takes on Prosser (10-1) in a 2A state semifinal Saturday at Lampson Stadium in Kennewick. Kickoff is at 4 p.m. “The kids have responded,” Fisher said. “We were turning the ball over too much and struggling on defense. We just made a bunch of personnel changes.” It was evident in EV’s 36-27 win at Clarkston last Saturday, a reversal of an earlier 21-6 loss. EV led 30-13 in the third quarter before Clarkston scored two straight touchdowns. Tally rushed for 173 yards on 32 carries and Watkins completed 11 of 16 passes for 177. EV had three stops on fourth-down situations that kept Clarkston at bay.