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Crimson Bears enter week two of gridiron road grind
- Klas Stolpe
- 6 minutes ago
- 6 min read
JDHS football team returns to Anchorage to face storied East High
By Klas Stolpe
Juneau Independent
One week after getting their cleats dirty on the grass at South Anchorage against the defending state champion Wolverines, the Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears travel back to Anchorage to face the senior-laden Bettye Davis East High School Thunderbirds, another Cook Inlet Conference team with a tradition of tough football against Southeast squads.
“JDHS always comes to play with a physical style,” East head coach Jeff Trotter said. “They run schemes that are well coached and the players run them precisely… Like last year, we are still a young team. They work hard and are eager to learn. They keep getting better each week.”
East fell to the CIC Service Cougars 14-8 last week. The Thunderbirds could have easily won as a last-possession pass was ruled out of bounds, and Service was able to grind out the remaining minutes. JDHS lost to South 16-6 but held the Wolverines scoreless in the second half.
Back in Juneau, the season’s first four full quarters of action came under review.
“Film study was great for everybody,” JDHS coach Rich Sjoroos said. “Lots of chances to see things we did well, areas for improvement and now in week two you make all the right adjustments and you start heading upwards as far as execution… I am sure South feels the same way, there were a lot of missed opportunities on things. If we would have done better in certain areas we definitely could have scored more points, got more yards and flipped that game around. But at the same time, still lots of positives.”
The Crimson Bears defense stood out against one of the state’s top rushers in South’s Ethan Yarrington. No one has stifled the all-state player in two seasons, and JDHS did as well as any defensive line has. Linebackers Jaxin Jim, Caleb Aube and Sylvion Washington were key in coming up to the line and covering a wide area of turf. Jake Chambers provided key defensive plays along with Avei Tuvaifale and Ethan Van Kirk at safety.
“Everyone has a pretty thin playbook in week one,” Sjoroos said. “I think once we saw their playbook, I was like, okay, I don’t think they have any more wrinkles than what they have shown us. And I feel like we have some pretty good players as far as communication and things like that. I think we just really dug in the second half and had confidence, too. Number five (Yarrington) is a had guy to bring down, and I thought we did a great job with that and it gave our players confidence.”
The Crimson Bears also had good ball security. Some of that came from the protection of the offensive line with Logan Womack, Tyler Oudekerk and Chambers taking on that challenge for the first time. Quarterback Krew Ridle, despite connecting on one of seven passes for 29 yards, had command of the blocking and running of Washington (9 carries for 28 yards), Jim (6-38) and Van Kirk (7-8). Ridle got in on the action with eight carries for 33 yards. Ridle also connected with Andrew Sanders on a 28-yard pass play that showed the potential of both.
Six-foot-five, 330-pound senior Isaiah Galletes-Fale and 5-foot-10, 320-pound junior Liam Fenumiai were easily commanding attention on the defensive and offensive lines, respectively.
East has 19 seniors - roughly the same number of the JDHS varsity - but only 10 are in rotation with a solid group of sophomores and juniors. The Thunderbirds will welcome the Crimson Bears to battle at 2 p.m. Saturday (JV action 11 a.m.).
“We have 10 seniors that play consistently,” East coach Trotter said. “And about half of those are rotating with younger players. Been a young movement the past two seasons. This group keeps fighting. Even in the loss last week we saw good things and they never believed we were out of the game. That was the main reason we had a very good opportunity to win at the end. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.”
East senior lineman Alena Masaniai is 6-foot-3 and 350 pounds and had a sack, two tackles for loss and was responsible for the T-Birds’ first points of the third quarter as he frightened the Service quarterback into an intentional grounding penalty in the end zone.
East junior quarterback Travis Motoa took East 71 yards in the final four minutes on 4-of-6 passes and connected on East’s final play of the game from the seven-yard line, but the pass had a receiver controlling the ball out of bounds.
“East is going to be a handful,” Sjoroos said. “Especially going into that field. Credit to Service going in there and winning last week. We have been there many times over the last eight to 10 years. Tough place to play and they will be pretty hungry and motivated. They had a chance to win last week in the last minute, but the catch was ruled out of bounds and Service was able to kill the clock… East has a good kicker, one of the best I have seen there in years, and one of the best quarterbacks in our conference.”
Against Service, East’s Motoa hooked up four times with sophomore Kaiedenn Sanders for 28 yards, three times with junior Justin Ziolkowski for 46 yards, and another 17 yards with junior Kiona Toa. He also rushed for 20 yards. Senior Thomas Curry rushed for another 60 and three more backs totaled 35.
“It is going to be a tough go for sure,” Sjoroos said. “But we made some adjustments, I am sure they did too, and hopefully we can execute enough to come out on top...They have a good, physical line, too. We think we have a couple big guys with Isaiah (Galletes-Fale) and stuff, but they have Isaiah’s bigger brother - (Sjoroos chuckles) - so they have some size up there... I always tell our guys, nobody wins the state title in week one, week two… Your whole goal is to see improvement, see growth. Obviously, you want to win, that’s why they have a scoreboard, but at the same time there are a lot of boxes you can check that show you are doing the right thing and getting yourself ready for the stretch run of the season.”
JDHS’ lack of depth means they have a smaller margin of error as far as keeping players healthy.
“I have two receivers,” Sjoroos said. “I’ve got two running backs, I’ve got only twos of kind of a number of things. Whereas other teams probably have four or five. It creates some challenges but to our kids this is nothing necessarily new. It is one of those things we take on and deal with... I also thought we played very disciplined football for week one. We had very few penalties and that helped keep the game a lot closer. We need a little more ball security, I think we ended up with two turnovers in the game. And we have been working hard on special teams this week, focusing on getting people in the right spots… I can’t remember the last time we started with two games on the road. I don’t think I have ever done it… The positive of that is a great one: the final six games, four of them are at home. And the other piece to it is if you play at home early in the year, school is not going, so you really don’t have that kind of school support. They don’t feel connected to the team yet. So having a week of school under their belt before the first game will be nice, a lot better turnout and crowd support.”
After traveling to East on Saturday, JDHS will host the North Pole Patriots on Saturday, Aug. 29.
• Contact Klas Stolpe at sports@juneauindependent.com
