TACOMA — Another Thanksgiving weekend, another trip to the Class 1B state football semifinals for Neah Bay, the school’s seventh consecutive visit to the Tacoma Dome.
And they’ll meet a familiar opponent today (Friday) at 1 p.m. in the Lummi Blackhawks (9-2).
This is the seventh straight season the two programs have met in the playoffs, and fourth straight semifinal matchup.
Neah Bay has swept the three previous semifinal meetings, with Lummi taking two of the three other playoff contests.
“Oh, we know Lummi,” Red Devils coach Tony McCaulley said.
“And they know us.
“They have a roster full of talented, athletic kids and a great coach in Jim [Sandusky].
“We will have our hands full trying to stop them.”
Neah Bay and Lummi also are Northwest Football League members and met earlier this season, a 62-12 Red Devils win that at first glance looks like a rout.
But Neah Bay (10-0) led just 14-6 with 18 seconds to go until halftime in that contest, before rattling off 34 unanswered points against a less-than-full-strength flock of Blackhawks.
It was the Red Devils’ 10th straight win over Lummi counting regular and postseason play.
“That one we can’t really count because they were short players,” Red Devils junior Kenrick Doherty Jr., said.
“They didn’t have Hank Hoskins, their big running back. Last year it was a one-score game, 26-20 [in the semifinals].”
Neah Bay also will have its 35-game winning streak, the longest current streak in the state, to play for.
Doherty said McCaulley has been mentioning Lummi over the last few weeks.
“Tony has told us it won’t be easy,” Doherty said.
“He’s been telling us that every week.
“We have to fight every down and look forward to the next play because there’s not going to be those 70, 80, 90-yard runs every play.
“We have to take what we can get, and if it’s three or four yards at a time, that’s OK because it extends the drive.”
Exactly which Blackhawks team Neah Bay will face won’t be known until today’s opening kickoff.
A broken leg and an elbow injury knocked out Lummi lineman Keegan Jojola for the season in a game two weeks ago.
The status of Hoskins, the focal point of the Blackhawks’ offense at running back and defense at linebacker, is a mystery.
McCaulley had heard Hoskins had suffered a dislocated ankle.
Sandusky didn’t go that far in an interview Wednesday with Bellingham’s KPUG-AM
“He’s got a bad ankle, bad separated ankle, same injury he had two seasons ago,” Sandusky said.
Hoskins did sit out of last week’s 40-0 quarterfinal win over Quilcene.
“I wouldn’t count him out right now,” McCaulley said.
“If I was going to be a gambling man, I think he’d play this week.”
McCaulley said his team will prepare as if Hoskins will play.
“They’re a whole different team with him,” McCaulley said.
“They’re a whole lot better.
“If he’s there, we’re going to have to play the run hard.
“When they have him, they can run it and throw it.”
Part of playing the run hard is getting proper leverage on tackles.
“We had that problem last year,” Doherty said.
“We played them three times and [Hoskins] tore us up because we were tackling too high.
“Every time we play a good running back Tony tells us to take them down at the legs and they’ll go down.”
If Hoskins is a no-go, Lummi becomes more of a passing threat offensively, especially to speedy junior Trazil Lane.
Lane is the reigning Associated Press 1B state basketball player of the year, and presents a big target for Blackhawks’ quarterback Jonathan Casimir at 6-foot-2, 185 pounds.
“Trazil Lane is just a super athlete,” McCaulley said.
“He was probably best basketball player at state last year.
“He runs good routes, catches the ball nice.”
The job in space against speed, Doherty said is to avoid being overextended defensively.
“We’ll need to break down and stay in our lanes,” Doherty said.
“We can’t overpursue, and we all have to do our jobs.”
Lane also will be a handful defensively, typically playing as a deep safety or a linebacker for Lummi.
“He has the speed to come up and stop them from going all the way,” Sandusky said.
Other players to watch for the Blackhawks include the Borsey twins, Raven and Free.
“The Borsey twins play on opposite sides on defense as outside linebackers and corners and they are really great tacklers,” Sandusky told KPUG.
Today’s game will be broadcast live on Forks 1490 AM and online at forks1490.com.
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Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-452-2345, ext. 5250 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com. Sports Editor Lee Horton contributed to this report
