October 23th, 2015

By Kyle Botermans, Courtney Baker, Janiya Lapat 

Although every game on a team’s schedule poses a challenge, some seem to present less of a challenge than others. Heading into their away game against the Klamath Union Pelicans, the Pirates were looking forward to a blowout similar to Mazama’s 60-0 win over them a few weeks back. Unfortunately, the Pirates got off to a dreadful start only managing to score once in the final seconds of the first half. On the contrary, the second half began with a bang as the Pirate’s first play from scrimmage resulted in a long touchdown run by Justin Knight. This put our boys up 14-0 as the defense continued to dominate. Knight finished the night with another extraordinary stat line as he nearly eclipsed 250 yards and ran for all four of the Pirate’s touchdowns. Though the final product wasn’t a complete blowout, the 26-0 victory represented the first time the Pirate defense pitched a shutout in the season. This win sets up the match-up we have all been anticipating: a Mazama versus Phoenix rematch for the conference championship. While the Pirates got their fourth win in conference, so did the Vikings in their 69-14 shellacking of the North Valley Knights. In the contest the Viking offense racked up 750 total rushing yards and dominated the game from start to finish. From an analyst standpoint, the Knights played enthusiastically and put little effort into the game as they looked like a completely different team when compared to the Knights that played the Pirates two weeks back. As Pirate coach Toby Walker puts it, “The Knights played their best game against us”.

Looking forward, the match-up between the two rivals seems to be an evenly matched contest between two teams that pride themselves in physical defenses and overpowering running offenses. The Pirates possess most likely the best running back in 4A state, but the Viking offense has quite possibly the best mobile quarterback. Curtis Anderson has utilized his offense’s option style to catch the defense out of position for huge gains all year, but the Pirates understand this and have a specific game plan to nullify his athletic ability. The keys of the game for the Pirates include getting off to a fast start as they have been slow out of the gates recently and also to limit turnovers as the Mazama defense has been terrorizing opposing offenses with a flurry of forced turnovers. Another important development to monitor is the progress of the Pirate passing attack. The team has become so dependent on the running game that the passing offense has become virtually nonexistent. Because of this, teams have been stacking 8 men in the box making it difficult for Knight and company to find consistent running lanes without having to make something out of nothing. If the Pirates can utilize quick passing concepts with simple reads for the quarterback to get the ball out in space quickly, to pick up some cheap yards, the run game will pick up momentum and be nearly impossible to stop. This game of revenge, after the two losses last year to the Vikings, represents a source of pride that the Pirates would love to win. This game will decide the conference champion for the Skyline conference and there’s little doubt that it will live up to the hype.