FORKS — Forks football is building for long-term success.
The downside to that is a ruthless learning curve in the short-term, which continued Friday night with a 31-0 loss at home to the Elma Eagles.
Little things led to the large deficit for the Spartans.
Holding penalties either negated big plays or moved Forks back into holes from which its offense isn’t ready to climb out.
Other times, the offense moved the ball but couldn’t complete drives.
Defensively, the Spartans kept the Eagles’ running game in check, for the most part, but many times they were lulled into stuffing the run and Elma quarterback Tristan Robinette beat them with the pass, including three touchdown passes, two of which came on fourth-down plays.
Just as the small miscues piled up Friday, first-year Forks coach Craig Shetterly foresees the little successes and improvements adding up in the future.
“I think that that’s just been kind of the story of where we’re at right now,” Shetterly said.
“And I think that what we do is we take care of our fixable mistakes and we’re going to be a competitive football team.
“Right now, our kids and us as a coaching staff, we’ve got to keep working to find a way to get over that hump.
“And I think that that’s what it comes down to. We don’t know where the game’s going to end up once we fix that stuff, but we know we’ll be competitive.
“But right now it’s just controlling those fixable mistakes.”
Junior running back Kenny Gale was a bright spot for the Spartans, racking up 131 yards on 25 carries.
“Kenny’s a really good runner,” Shetterly said.
“Hard runner. Tough kid. He’s the classic Forks runner.
“He’s gets in there and he finds a hole. And he’s just tough, man, he’s a tough kid.”
While Forks has a long lineage of strong runners like Gale, the Spartans are still learning with mixed results the somewhat foreign language of the forward pass.
With Elma leading 6-0 in the second quarter, sophomore quarterback Cole Baysinger completed passes of 59 and 17 yards to Austin Whiting to move the Spartans inside to the Eagles’ 5-yard line with a chance to tie or take the lead.
But Baysinger threw a quick pass before Keishaun Ramsey was looking, and it was picked off in the end zone by Robinette.
In the third quarter, two personal foul penalties and an ejection moved the ball near the red zone, but Baysinger threw an interception on the next play.
“Our guys are learning passing concepts for the first time,” Shetterly said.
“We’re learning how to read the field, and we’re challenging them to do things that they haven’t done before.
“Recognition is there, but it’s just about production and doing it in the moment.
“We’re young, and we’re teaching them a lot of new things, new concepts, and once they figure that out, like I said, we’re going to be pretty good.”
That’s the focus in Forks this season: learning and growing.
And as rough as it can be at time, it doesn’t appear to be a miserable experience.
Despite being minutes removed from their fourth consecutive loss, and second time being shut out, the Spartans’ postgame meeting was fairly light and upbeat.
“They recognize that we’re just going to continue to coach them,” Shetterly said.
“We’re not going to bail on them, we’re not going to blame them, because it all comes back to — you know, it sounds cliche, it comes back to me. Buck stops at my desk. And we’ve got to get better as a coaching staff, we’ve got to keep coaching kids up.
“I think they recognize that, and that keeps our kids around. I mean, we continue to add kids throughout the season, we’ve got more and more kids turning out. That’s a good sign. That’s a good sign.”
And most of the players will be coming back next year because Forks has a small senior class this season. Only four players were honored prior to Friday’s game as part of senior night.
Shetterly praised the seniors’ play, particularly that of Reece Moody.
“Reece Moody was all over the place on defense,” Shetterly said. “He was in on just about every play, it seemed like.”
And though they’ll only play for the new coaching staff for one season, Shetterly said the seniors still are part of what is being built at Forks.
“We’re seeing some good play from of those guys. I’m proud of them,” Shetterly said.
“We talked about building a legacy and that they’re part of that legacy, and they just need to [provide] that good representation of leadership.”
Forks (0-4, 1-5) begins its season-ending stretch of three straight road games this Friday at sixth-ranked Hoquiam (4-0, 6-0).
The Grizzlies defeated Montesano 10-6 on Friday.
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Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
