Medical Lake opens football season on road against Orofino
Medical Lake's Isiah Farmen tackles Lind-Ritzville/Sprague Bronco Jacob Saetre in last Friday's jamboree. The Cardinals got to experience some of their first true contact as they prepare for their opener Friday at Orofino.
Lind-Ritzville/Sprague's season-opening football jamboree last Friday in Ritzville came at the perfect time for the Medical Lake Cardinals as they prepare to face the Orofino Maniacs on the road this Friday, Sept. 4.
"The jamboree's been a good thing for us the last couple of years," Cardinals' head coach Wes Hobbs said. "We have to limit our full-speed reps (in practice) in order to stay healthy."
The evening offered one of the first times in preseason drills that the Cardinals have been able to actually have contact with other players.
The jamboree was played in a round-robin format. The field was split in half to play two games at once. Each team received 40 total plays, 20 on offense and 20 on defense. No scores were kept in the contest that included the hosts, Lind-Ritzville/Sprague, Northwest Christian, Davenport, Colfax, Tri-Cities Prep and Warden.
Medical Lake played defense against LRS, offense against Davenport, offense against LRS and closed out the evening playing defense against Colfax.
"We really hadn't laid a hat on one another until we went to the jamboree," Hobbs said. "We were happy to see what we saw."
That will make the Cardinals feel a little better taking on an Orofino team that opened its season Aug. 28 with a 28-21 victory on the road against McCall-Donnelly.
The Maniacs finished 9-2-1 in 2014 and advanced to the quarterfinal round of the Idaho state playoffs. Medical Lake handed Orofino one of those losses, 41-30 at Holliday Field.
Medical Lake would go on to finish the season with a 4-5 record overall, 3-4 in the Northeast A League, recovering from a 1-4 start. They played with slim numbers, and will do so again in 2015, the eighth season under Hobbs.
"The problem's going to be our depth," Hobbs said. "We're gong to be hitting the road with maybe 22 or 23 kids."
As for Orofino, "Those kids are tough," Hobbs said. "That's one of the reasons we open with those two Idaho schools." The Cardinals play St. Maries next Friday, Sept. 11, in their home opener at 7 p.m.
"They play a tough brand of football and we need that to grow up a little bit," Hobbs said. Orofino is not as big as they were in 2014, Hobbs said. "They were huge."
Being on the road will make it that much more difficult, Hobbs said of the 155 mile, three-hour trip into Central Idaho.
Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.
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