The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG—Dayton-Waitsburg Football played Tri-Cities Prep Jaguars in an Eastern Washington Athletics Conference (EWAC) football game Friday night.

Coach Troy Larsen said that Tri Cities Prep (TCP) is a very fast and physical team that likes to attack from their 3-4 defense.

“DW, (we) had a hard time picking up the blitzing linebackers and that gave Monte Pettichord some challenges with who to read,” said Larsen.

With DW guards not getting to the linebackers, the running game was a tough go and the team turned to the passing game. Pettichord threw the ball to four different receivers for 272 yards and two touchdowns.

Mason Finney led the team with seven catches for 124 yards and a touchdown (TD), while Shawn Evans was right behind him with six catches for 112 yards and a TD.

“I was really impressed with how Monte settled down after a couple interceptions and started to throw the ball away instead of trying to make the big play,” said Larsen, in an email. “The second half looked a lot better as the team adapted to the speed of Prep and our lineman started to make more blocks which allowed Hudson Reser to run for 46 second half yards. With the Prep focus turning to Reser, it allowed the DW play action and Run-Pass-Option (RPO) to start working and DW had two really good looking drives in the fourth quarter against the starters from TCP.”

Larsen shared that if the team can eliminate mistakes, like a bad offensive call to run a speed option on the goal line, which ultimately resulted in a safety, and mishandling a punt for a TD, the team would have been “right in the game” against TCP. He did note that weather conditions wreaked havoc on the team’s kicking game, ending with turning the ball over to TCP multiple times in DW territory and providing easy scoring drives for the Jaguars.

On the Defensive side of the ball, Adam Puckett and Theo Anderson had great games. Puckett led the team with 12 tackles and Anderson followed close behind with 11 tackles, a blocked PAT (single point conversion), and a sack.

“Theo is starting to really grow as a player and is showing glimpses of a next level type of lineman,” Larsen noted.

The third defensive stand out was Colton VanBlaricom tallying 10 tackles with 4 of them being solo tackles. Van Blaricom, from his outside Linebacker/Strong Safety position, can really cover the field.

“You will see number 19 everywhere during a game,” Larsen shared. “It’s really fun to watch Colton compete on the field.”

Dayton-Waitsburg will travel to Mabton High School on Saturday for a 1:00 p.m kick-off. Everyone can watch the game on the Mabton School District Facebook page live stream. Mabton has the same type of depth that DW has, and Larsen expects it to be a competitive game.

“It will be a big test for our DW defense as we go up against the number one QB in the league.”