KHS football and soccer, WHS volleyball wins
Photos by Josh McDonald Raiden Rickets evades Lakeland defenders during a run in the first half of Kellogg’s home win over the Hawks’ junior varsity.
Kellogg’s Justin Waller breaks off a big run against Lakeland.
Lora Allred, right, shoots the ball toward the goal for her first goal of the season in the Wildcats’ 2-1 win over the Badgers.
Photos by Josh McDonald/ Kellogg keeper Shea Curran knocks the ball downfield during the Wildcats’ season opening win over Bonners Ferry.
Hannah Garitone watches the ball soar over the net during the Miners’ win over Clark Fork on Tuesday night.
Kellogg High School
Football
Kellogg d. Lakeland JV
KELLOGG — The Kellogg Wildcats earned their first win of the young season last week when they knocked off the Lakeland JV squad 39-26 in a rare Wednesday night game.
The Wildcats coaching staff had been under the impression that they were to be playing a blend of Lakeland’s varsity and junior varsity squad, but that wasn’t the case.
After jumping out to a 26-0 halftime lead, the Wildcats rested their varsity players and used the remaining half to get their junior varsity guys some much needed minutes and experience.
Coach Dan Lucier thought the game went pretty well all things considered and was thrilled to see both teams in his program get reps during a week where there had originally been no game scheduled despite the Wildcats already having a bye week later in the season.
“We needed to play tonight,” Lucier said. “We needed guys to get out there and work on some stuff to get us going and I think this did that for us. We didn’t want another off week, because those are so tough to come back from.”
Lucier also saw some things that he really liked that were improvements from the Wildcats’ season opening loss to St. Maries.
“Our offensive line gave us plenty of time tonight and our defensive secondary really stepped up,” Lucier said. “Those were areas where we really struggled last week and this gives us some momentum going into the rest of the season.”
The Wildcats vaunted wishbone offense led to big gains both through the air and on the ground as senior quarterback Raiden Rickets found success in both columns.
The Wildcats are on the road this week as they travel to Orofino for a tilt with the Maniacs on Friday at 7 p.m.
Soccer
Kellogg 2, Bonners Ferry 1: The host Wildcats opened their season on Aug. 28 with a 2-1 win over their Intermountain League rivals the Bonners Ferry Badgers at Teeters Field.
The Wildcats got on the board early after Taeya Sheppard punched a free kick through a line of Badgers near the 30 minute mark of the first half.
The game settled into a back and forth affair with the Wildcats controlling the ball for the majority of it, including several shots on the goal.
Later in the first half Lora Allred scored a goal on a breakaway to put the Wildcats up 2-0 as the half wrapped up.
Kellogg held steady until late in the game when the Badgers finally got themselves on the board, but the Wildcats would tighten back up defensively to hold on to their season opening win.
Following the game coach Craig Petersen was pleased with his team’s efforts and is welcoming the challenge of them playing back to back games.
“This was a really positive start to the season. I'm sure there was nerves, so good to get that first game out of the way,” Petersen said. “Kellogg and Bonners Ferry are always competitive games. We had a really a solid team effort at all positions and it was good to see some first year players step up and make some good passes and play solid defense. We get a 24 hour rest and we'll play again tomorrow (Wednesday) against Grangeville. That should be a good test of both mental and physical fitness.”
Grangeville 4, Kellogg 1: The Wildcats couldn’t overcome the long bus trip and second game in 24 hours as they fell to the Bulldogs on Aug. 29 in their Intermountain League game second game in as many days.
Volleyball
St. Maries d. Kellogg
ST. MARIES — Lumberjack Madison Cordell had 11 kills and Dakotah Wilks 33 assists to lead the Lumberjacks past the Wildcats 25-19, 25-11, 25-15 in a non-league match.
Wallace High School
Volleyball
Wallace d. Clark Fork (Mont.)
WALLACE — The Lady Miners continued their winning ways on Tuesday night, Aug. 28, when they hosted Clark Fork (Mont.) in four sets (25-21, 28-26, 11-25, 25-21).
The match struggled to get off the ground as officiating issues slowed the pace down to a near halt, but the Miners managed to put that behind them and rattled off two hard fought sets before the Mountain Cats managed to steal the third set.
Wallace would rally to finish the match early, but coach Anali Spooner did see a few things that she would like to shore up as the season progresses.
“That third game we got in our heads a little bit with serving and receiving and we couldn't get out of a tough rotation,” Spooner said. “I was so proud of their will to not give up.”
The Miners had some standouts during the match as Kali Davis and Hannah Garitone held down the Wallace back row, Catie Sheppard looking like a star from the service line, and Maggie Howard being the Miners anchor throughout the evening.
The Miners (2-0) are clicking on a high level right now as they have knocked off two bigger schools in their opening matches.
Coach Spooner thinks that the team mentality of her newest squad may be what could make them her best one yet, but she isn’t taking any of the credit.
“It absolutely is a team effort and it wasn’t my doing for that,” Spooner said. “The girls really have been encouraging each other and making sure everyone is involved in the game in one way or another. I took less girls on varsity on purpose this year in hopes that 10 girls who play consistently would be better and it is, but it's my 10 girls who know their role and know each others and they work so well together.”
Mullan High School
Football
Deary 40, Mullan 18: The combined Mullan/St. Regis Tigers showed that they may be young, but they are for real this year as they hung with perennial powerhouse Deary until the end on Friday, Aug. 31, but it wasn’t enough as they fell to the host Mustangs.
Mullan had four takeaways on the night which has coach Stetson Spooner thinking he may need to take a more defensive approach to his new cooperative.
“Defense and takeaways seem to be our new identity,” Spooner said. “We aren’t happy losing, but we aren’t hanging our heads at all. This was a big step in the right direction for us.”
The loss to a state semi-finalist from last season is nothing to balk at, but the real win for the Tigers was how they competed.
All-State junior back Skye Galloway did his best Christian McCaffrey impression as he took three passes from freshman Luke Trogden for touchdowns out of the backfield.
“We were locked in a scoreless battle after one quarter,” Spooner said. “It definitely felt good for us to compete with such a consistently solid program.”