Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Defense locks in as Carey enters playoffs

Carey (8-1) hosts Richfield Saturday


"We're very motivated right now and are looking forward to playing in Holt Arena again," said Carey School football coach Lane Kirkland Monday.

Kirkland's top-ranked defending State 1A Division 2 champion Carey Panthers (8-1) won their seventh consecutive game Friday with a 48-0 mercy-rule triumph over the North Gem Cowboys at Bancroft.

It was Carey's fifth shutout of the season and fifth 45-point mercy rule victory. In contrast last year's state championship team had only two shutouts and the 8-2 Panther squad of 2005 logged just one shutout.

Kirkland said, "The defense has done an outstanding job with five shutouts and has held some of the other teams to 100 yards of offense or less."

Carey (44.2 ppg offense, 9.8 ppg defense) has been exemplary this season on defense and will take a confident attitude into the first round of the State 1A Division 2 playoffs Saturday, Nov. 3 in Carey.

The two-time Sawtooth Conference champion Panthers will host #4-seeded Richfield (5-4) Saturday at 1 p.m. at Derrick Parke Memorial Field. The teams have met once before on the same field, Carey winning easily 50-0 back on Sept. 7.

Kirkland said, "Richfield has worked out different things and will come in with four straight wins. They will be a lot more challenging than last time we played. We expect them to give the ball to Luke Wood up the middle and have other options to the Lezamiz brothers (Matthew, Michael)."

With a win Saturday, Carey will move into the semi-final game over the weekend of Nov. 9-10 against the winner of Friday's 1 p.m. quarterfinal between host Dietrich (6-2) and Mackay (5-4). Dietrich has beaten visiting Mackay 42-30.

Kirkland expects the semi-final game to be played indoors at Idaho State University's Holt Arena, where his Panthers beat Mackay 36-28 and Salmon River 50-20 in last year's semi-final and championship contests.

The other quarterfinals this weekend: #3-ranked Salmon River (7-1) hosting #2-ranked Garden Valley (7-1) Saturday at 1 p.m. in Riggins, and #4-ranked Kootenai (7-1) entertaining Clark Fork (5-2) Saturday at 1 p.m. Host Salmon River whipped Garden Valley 46-0 Sept. 28 and Kootenai was a 24-14 home winner over Clark Fork Oct. 18 in northern Idaho.

At North Gem Friday, Carey outdistanced the Cowboys 320-76 in rushing and 368-76 in total yards. The dominance was similar to Carey's 46-0 home victory over Murtaugh Oct. 19 when Carey had 375 more total yards than the Red Devils. In the last two games Carey has 30 first downs to three for its foes.

Senior Blake Whitby (13 carries, 179 yards, 2 TD) and sophomore Gonzalo Zarate (12 carries, 63 yards) paced the offense. Junior Heith Adamson added two touchdowns and two conversions. He scored on an 11-yard fumble return after a bone-crushing Whitby tackle.

Here are final league standings of the Sawtooth Conference: Carey 7-0, Dietrich 6-1, Mackay 5-2, Richfield 4-3, North Gem 3-4, Rockland 2-5, Murtaugh 1-6 and Camas County 0-7. Check the Web site for Carey game stats and a composite score through nine games.




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