High School Football: The Gridiron Grump gets giddy for Civil War week
Regular Season Regrets – R.A. Long and Mark Morris ready to tango in 2A GSHL finale; and the rest of the Week 9 nuggets
The Gridiron Grump special to Blast Zone Media / blastzonenews@gmail.com
Prep Football / Grumblings
A lot of people complain about candy corn, but I’m here to tell you those sugary little morsels get a bad rap. It’s all about moderation, and variety with the candy corn folks. Think of it like a bowl of trail mix – too many raisins and you’re all out of whack. Candy corn simply needs to be accented by other, more versatile offerings like tootsie rolls and peanut butter cups, and skittles and laughy taffy.
Heck, I even like a good ol’ Bit o’ Honey.
But you know what’s gross? Fun Size candy. That’s just insulting. Everyone knows bigger is better when it comes to candy, and nobody is fooled by this double-speak marketing.
And you know what else is gross. Taking a bye on a week where you could be playing football.
This week Toledo is in my crosshairs after failing to pull together the best Week 9 matchup of all. The Riverhawks slobberknocked Onalaska 32-0 last week in a game that told us so much more about Toledo than the Loggers, and then walked off the field not knowing if they’d be able to play this week. Toledo head coach Mike Christensen even challenged the football gods by noting that there simply aren’t any teams good enough to accept the last-minute game this late in the season.
And that seemed just about right, until Chewelah forfeited to Top-3 ranked Newport late Sunday night. There were numerous pleas on social media for the Riverhawks and Grizzlies to do the seeding committee a favor by facing off in the final week of the regular season, but the matchmakers were not appeased this time around.
Look, I get it, injuries are bad and falling in the polls if you lose is bad, and giving away your game plan before the state tournament is also bad. But you know what is good? Top-3 teams playing football on Halloween. That’s what. I asked some of my buddies down by the river, and they all agreed.
However, that’s a tricky subject when you get right down to it. Obviously, turnout for games tends to be depressed when kickoff and tricker-or-treat time collide. And personally, I loathe being forced to choose between free candy and prep football. And if you doubt that I’m able to pull off a good trick-or-treat ploy in my advanced age, just know that the secret is to have a good mask. This year I was even going to dress up as an ICE agent so I can enter homes without a warrant and nobody will question me for fear of being called unpatriotic.
Which brings me around to the part of Halloween football that I enjoy the best; costumes at games. I want to see a Lumberjack dressed as a butterfly and a Monarch dressed up as a president. I want to see referees dressed up as zebras and student sections that look like tryouts for the next Toon Squad.
Which brings me all the way back around to where my mind has been all along – thinking about the impending Civil War. Not not that one. I’m talking about the one at Longview Memorial Stadium tonight.
In order to be prepared, I’ve been scanning the microfiche files at the Longview Public Library and mooching their power supply in order to dust up on some history.
Most folks remember that Mark Morris won 51-7 last year. But what you might not realize is the Monarchs also set a series record for most points scored in a game without even embracing the potential of the forward pass.
That victory left the newest public high school in The Planned City on a seven-game winning streak in the rivalry games. That run of victories is technically the longest in the series history thanks to a technicality induced double forfeit back in 2008, which Mark Morris won on the field. A win for the Monarchs this season would erase the need for an asterisk in the record book.
R.A. Long’s last win came in 2017 (35-8). I don’t believe in coincidences, but I do believe that’s the last time the Lumberjacks scored more than 14 points in a Civil War.
There’s also some history standing in the way of the Monarchs as they attempt to keep a path open to the playoffs. That’s because Mark Morris has won two games in a row, but hasn’t been on a three-game win streak since 2022.
However, the Monarchs’ defense has held back-to-back opponents to just seven points, and if they can do that again this week it will be their stingiest string of performances since 2012.
And that’s not an entirely unlikely scenario considering the Lumberjacks have already been shutout five times this season. That’s the most goose eggs on the scoreboard in a season for any team in all The Blast Zone since Toutle Lake in 2010. It’s important to note that no team in Cowlitz County has been shutout six times in a season since I last updated my wardrobe (see: 30 years). In fact, the only teams in the area to suffer that fate were Winlock (seven times in 2013) and Naselle (six times in 1996).
In case you were wondering, the largest margin of victory in a Civil War game is 46, when R.A. Long shutout Mark Morris in 1966.
Happy Halloween, and goodbye regular season. It was nice knowing you, even if you do owe me money.
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