CdA, till they meet again

Coaches get old quickly with games like Coeur d’Alene’s thrilling 19-14 win over Lake City on Friday night.

Try playing a game like that two weeks in a row.

How about two years in a row?

Next weekend’s 5A football pairing was set going into Friday’s game at Coeur d’Alene, but a league title and home-field advantage were on the line.

“Last year they beat us in the last game, we beat them in the playoffs,” Vikings coach Shawn Amos said. “We want to make sure to not let that (scenario) happen again.”

At first it looked like there was no doubt the rematch would be at Coeur d’Alene, at least until the second half when it appeared the game would have to move west across U.S. 95.

Then CdA junior quarterback Chad Chalich engineered a six-play, 71-yard drive in the final 94 seconds, capped when Connor Harris slipped two tackles after running a little drag route across the field and turned it into a 28-yard touchdown down the left sideline with 43 seconds to play.

“Chad had a good game,” Harris said. “A junior quarterback that can do that is pretty nice.”

That he did, completing 25 of 38 passes for 258 yards and three touchdowns. But after the top-ranked Vikings (8-1, 3-0) controlled the game and built a 13-0 halftime lead, the Timberwolves (6-3, 2-1) reversed things.

LC ran 22 plays in the first half and was outgained 181-91. In the third quarter, the Timberwolves had six snaps and 15 yards while the Vikings pounded the ball for 108 yards. Four plays into the fourth quarter the visitors led 14-13.

“We’re playing with a young quarterback,” LC coach Van Troxel said. “We just made some adjustments. We have a second-half formation we use. That was just a good high school football game.”

He also had an interesting decision to make that wasn’t difficult for him at all.

His kicker missed the point-after following Allen Carmichael’s 1-yard plunge to cap the opening drive of the second half. Coeur d’Alene had the same thing happen on its second touchdown, a 10-yard pass from Chalich to Deon Watson on the last play of the first quarter.

With more than 10 minutes of football left, Troxel went for two and Bobby Traverse, who completed just two other passes for 5 yards, hit Kaleb Mitchell to put the Timberwolves up 14-13.

“I don’t play for ties,” Troxel said. “Hats off to them. They played a great game. They won and we have to get better.”

The Vikings scored quickly on the opening possession with Chalich hitting 4 of 5 passes, including a 40-yard scoring strike to Matt Lambert as Chalich was getting drilled by a blitzing linebacker.

The second half was different with LC’s Carmichael pounding the ball. He finished with 193 yards on 42 carries.

“We’ve got to take over the line of scrimmage,” Amos said. “It was pretty obvious they controlled the line of scrimmage. That’s the first time we’ve had a game (the opponent) has done that. They played at a high level. They won the battle; you don’t get to win very often when the other team’s front wins the battle.

“They feel pretty good about themselves now. I think they feel better than we do. We feel like maybe we got away with one.”