Silver Valley Sports Recap: Sept. 2-8

Wallace Volleyball

WALLACE — The Kellogg and Wallace ladies waged net warfare last week, but it was the Wildcats who came out on top, knocking off the Miners in three sets (25-16, 25-17, 25-21).

The Wildcats played hard, but seemed to be working against themselves at times by allowing the Miners to stay in the game with mistakes.

“Wallace had a lot of hustle plays to keep the ball alive, which resulted in a lot of good rallies,” Kellogg coach Steph Brunner said. “I felt like we had good moments but we are still struggling at figuring out how to run the game at our tempo and controlling the pace. We typically go a lot faster than we did tonight.”

Kellogg was paced by their two towers, Hailey Cheney and Cierra Brandt. Cheney finished with 13 blocks and 11 kills, while Brandt finished with 12 kills and three aces.

Wallace capitalized off Kellogg’s errors from the service line, and kept themselves in the match with their deadly back row hitting which made things difficult for the Kellogg front line.

Fortunately, the Wildcats got a lift from their back row players who made sure that Wallace could only threaten them instead of giving up their lead.

Brunner was particularly happy with two of her seniors in that regard.

“Our passing from Chloe Wilbur and Erin Van Hoose in the back row was good which allowed our setters to run a lot of specialty sets,” Brunner said. “They got up almost every ball in their area.”

Kellogg (1-1) will host Bonners Ferry at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12, while Wallace (0-2) will host Genesis Prep on the same day at 6 p.m.

Mullan Volleyball

MULLAN — The Mullan Lady Tigers are 2-0 to begin their season after knocking off Priest River JV (three sets, on Sept. 3) and then North Idaho Christian (five sets, on Sept. 5).

No further stats were received. The Tigers host Kootenai at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12, at the Mullan Pavilion.

Wallace and Mullan Football

WALLACE — For better or for worse, the two most easterly schools in the Silver Valley met for a football game last Friday evening.

It had been seven years since the Mullan Tigers and Wallace Miners had battled it out on the gridiron, the Miners won that game 68-22.

Both schools went their separate ways following that season with the Miners moving to 1A DI ranks, while Mullan stayed in the North Star League.

While Wallace spent seasons playing in the uber tough Whitepine League, Mullan went through a renaissance of sorts, losing their program for a year, playing a season of six-man football, and then finally entering a cooperative agreement with out-of-state school St. Regis to make sure both schools could field one team to compete in the shrinking North Star League.

But despite all of that adversity, Mullan continued to improve.

Wallace on the other hand, saw middling success for a season in the WPL, but has struggled the last few years as turnout for the football team has dwindled.

On Friday night, these two teams met for the first time in seven years.

And it was all Mullan.

A 74-0 blowout of your closest neighbors might not seem like something to make a big deal of, but these co-oping Tigers are giving local football fans something to cheer for that has only been experienced in Shoshone County in small doses over the last decade.

The belief that a state championship could be well on the way.

Friday night the Miners got a front-row look at these Tigers — who they will play again — and what they are all about.

Whether it was the blistering speed of Skye Gallaway, the lockdown defense of Ian Farris, or Mullan’s collection of bruising talent — both young and old — it was a total domination that left everyone at Sather Field wanting to see more of these Tigers.

“Oh man, what a heck of a job by all 15 of our guys tonight,” Mullan head coach Stetson Spooner said. “From staying disciplined and doing their job, to executing our game plan. We had a lot of scoring distribution from our starters and great growth gaining solid minutes and playing time for our younger guys for a lot of the game.”

The Tigers consist of 10 kids from Mullan and five from St. Regis, but the two towns have nearly seamlessly blended together to form one Tiger hyped community.

It can be tough to maintain in a game like this, from a sportsmanship and class standpoint, but Spooner won’t accept anything less than perfection when it comes to those categories.

“We felt that sportsmanship on both teams with the fans, players, coaches and all the staff was amazing,” Spooner said. “In games like those, sometimes it can be hard to keep things like sportsmanship and class in check, but we feel that it did just that.”

Spooner can never help but gush about his team, and once again he did just that following his team’s second consecutive dominant performance.

“Our freshman quarterback Caleb Ball showed a lot of poise again leading our offense,” Spooner said. “Gallaway and Farris continue to explode on nearly every touch. Meanwhile Adam Ball and Luke Trogden continue to be our work horses and make teams aware of them whether it’s on offense or defense. Riley Trogden is probably our most consistent player. He is a luxury on both sides of the ball and special teams knowing that he will execute every play from whistle to whistle.”

It was 22-0 at the end of the first quarter and it became wildly apparent that Mullan was in the driver’s seat as many had expected, but Spooner is a big believer in effort and he credited the Miners for not throwing in the towel after falling behind early and even thought they had some strengths that needed complimenting.

“Kudos to the Miners for continuing to be aggressive and sticking together,” Spooner said. “To be honest up front in the trenches, our staff thought Wallace has great push and presence maintaining inside gaps.”

Wallace coach Jared Young was thoughtful as he discussed his team and their performance on Friday night.

“We are rebuilding our team and have had to move a few players around to field eight spots on offense, especially, so we are very young and still evolving as a team,” Young said. “We had a lot of mistakes, but this week we did do a much better job engaging with our blocks and fighting and competing, and for that I really liked what I saw out of our team. We moved the ball a little better this week and with the injuries and player movement it was good to see us start to move the ball this week, we have a long way to go and a lot of weight room visits. We are building for now as well as the future for Miner football. We look to build on what we did well this week and continue to improve and compete versus Clark Fork this week.”

Mullan and Wallace will square off again on Thursday, Oct. 10, at 3 p.m. at John Drager Field in Mullan.

Mullan will be playing a quasi-home game this week when they host Victor, Mont., at St. Regis High School at 6 p.m. on Friday.

Wallace will be on the road to take on Clark Fork at 7 p.m. Thursday.

Kellogg Football

Weiser 35, Kellogg 7

KELLOGG — The Wildcats faced a stout test in the form of a 3A State Rival in Weiser last week.

Don’t let the score totally fool you, either — the Wildcats were definitely up to the challenge, but once again seemed to get in their own way.

The Wolverines made the long trip to Kellogg as the No. 1 state-ranked team in all of the 3A classification and they definitely looked the part.

The Wildcat defense once again showed their chops as run defenders, but looked a little shell shocked when trying to cover Weiser’s spread passing offense.

Weiser’s sophomore quarterback Brett Spencer made several big-time throws to keep Weiser safely ahead, but the Wildcats stifled them on the ground.

The Wildcats had multiple drives for positive yardage, but always seemed to either stall themselves out with penalties or missed opportunities.

Midway through the fourth quarter Kellogg senior Brandon Miller hit Graden Nearing for a 30-yard bomb to get the ’Cats on the board for the first time this season.

After falling behind 28-0 in the first half, Kellogg played the Wolverines evenly in the second half.

Kellogg (0-2) will host Orofino this Friday at 7 p.m. at Teeters Field.

Kellogg Cross Country

ATHOL — Kellogg’s Garrett Miller was among the hundreds of runners competing in the Timberlake Invitational meet at Farragut State Park on Saturday, Sept. 7.

Miller placed 58th in the boys race, finishing in 18:46.9.

Timberlake’s Logan Hunt was second in the boys race in 16;14.8.

Other local top 10 finishers were Sandpoint’s Jett Lucas in fifth, Braden Dance of Coeur d’Alene in seventh and Maximillian Bazler of Lake City in 10th.

Sandpoint’s boys finished second, eight points behind Meridian.

In the girls’ race, Post Falls sophomore Samantha Wood won the event in 19 minutes, 1.4 seconds to pace the Trojans to the team title.

Sydney Shanahan (fourth) and Bailey Shanahan (eighth) also finished in the top 10 for Post Falls, which finished with 54 points. Capital of Boise was second with 85 points.

Lauren Forster of Coeur d’Alene was fifth, Angelyca Chapman of Lake City was sixth and teammate Clara Stephens 10th.

Kellogg Soccer

Timberlake 2, Kellogg 0

SPIRIT LAKE — Hanne Larson broke a scoreless tie with a direct kick from 40-yards out, sending the Tigers past the Wildcats in a Sept. 5 Intermountain League match at Timberlake High.

“The girls didn’t give up,” Timberlake coach Steve Michael said. “They were consistent with their gameplan, tried to have a better passing game and hit the back of the net.”

Izzy Hilliard scored in the 76th minute for Timberlake (3-2, 3-1 IML), which hosts Coeur d’Alene Charter on Tuesday.

Kellogg is 0-3-1 overall and in league.

Wallace Swimming

MOSCOW — Seven members of the Wallace High School swim team competed Saturday at the Ice Breaker Swim Meet hosted by Moscow High School at the University of Idaho Swim Center.

More than 200 competitors descended on the U of I from as far south as Lewiston and as far north as Bonners Ferry.

Ten Wallace athletes made the trip on what coach Ed Chilgren said was the “first school bus ever used for the Wallace swim team,” a program that included only three swimmers last year. The coach said some of the athletes traveled to watch because they didn’t yet have enough practices to compete.

Chilgren described his overall feeling at the end of the meet as “ecstatic” but with a lot of work to do to fulfill the team’s potential.

A strong turnout of boys athletes this year has enabled the Miners to enter two relay events. The quartet of junior Will Farkas, sophomore Dorsey Pearson, and freshmen Aydin Hazs and Jorden McNeil finished 7th in the 400-yard freestyle relay, while Farkas, Pearson, Hazs, and junior Carter Bailey finished 8th in the 200 yard freestyle relay.

“Our starts were bad, most of them didn’t even attempt flip turns, and we were still good,” said Chilgren. “We just need to drill the fundamentals to add to their athleticism.”

The coach believes school records in each relay event are realistic goals this season.

Individually, Pearson shaved 22 seconds off his best 200-yard freestyle time from last year and set a school record in the event at 2:25.15, while finishing 10th overall. Pearson also finished 16th in the 100-yard freestyle out a field of 40 by posting a time of 1:06.14.

During their first competitive high school swims, Bailey, Hazs, freshman Jorden McNeil, and Farkas all finished in the top half a field of 53 in the 50-yard freestyle. Bailey, who is rehabilitating an ACL injury from a year ago, claimed 19th place in the sprint with a time of 28.94, not far off the school record of 25.8. Hazs, McNeil, and Farkas finished 21st, 23rd, and 24th. The four also posted strong outings in the 100-yard freestyle with top 25 times.

Sophomore Jackie Richardson of Kellogg High School and Francis Conboy represented the Miners for the girls. Richardson competed in the 100-yard backstroke and 50-yard free while Conboy honed her skills in the 50-yard free and 100-yard free.

The next Wallace swim meet will be Friday, Sept. 13 at the Kroc Center in Coeur d’Alene at 3 p.m.