No reason to turn your newspaper upside down. Those Class 2A Greater St. Helens League standings are correct.
Sure, they might look like they are almost completely flip-flopped from last year, but that’s only because the standings have practically flip-flopped from last year.
Woodland, a team that went 0-9 last season, is 3-3 overall and 2-0 in league play.
Hockinson won a game last year in the regular season, a 14-10 victory over Woodland. Now the Hawks are 4-2, including 1-0 in league play.
Washougal, meanwhile, was coming out of a football funk last season, a funk that had lasted for years.
There was hope after a 5-4 season. But yet, the Panthers still finished third in a five-team league and missed the playoffs.
Hello 2011.
The Panthers are 6-0, 1-0 in league, and host Woodland on Friday in a key matchup.
“Our student body is pretty excited. The community is excited,” Washougal coach Bob Jacobs said. “Part of my job is to keep everybody on an even keel and not get people too excited and look beyond anything. Six-and-oh is great on paper, but the reality is we’re 1-0 in league. Each one of these last three games looks like murderer’s row.”
Washougal next faces defending league champion Mark Morris and then Hockinson to finish the season.
Mark Morris is 0-2 in league play but with close losses to Hockinson and Woodland.
“We have two weeks of league championship games,” Woodland coach Mark Greenleaf said. “We can’t look at just this game. We can only focus on one game this week, but it … could be the league championship game the following week, too.”
Woodland takes on Hockinson in Week 8 to finish its league schedule.
Hockinson, meanwhile, is looking to improve to 2-0 in league this week with a game at R.A. Long.
“There is a big hype for that Woodland-Washougal game,” Hockinson coach Rick Steele said. “Our kids listen to that stuff. They think that everybody thinks the winner of that game is going to be the league champion.”
Steele said he has no problem with anybody overlooking his squad.
“Nothing wrong with being under the radar,” he said.
Interestingly, Hockinson and Woodland have similar DNA. A year ago, both teams were forced to play younger players due to injuries or just a small senior class. Both teams took their lumps but also learned from the experience.
“I think what’s happened to our league is it’s very reflective of 2A football. Sometimes you get a run of kids, sometimes you don’t,” Steele said. “We were very young last year. There’s that huge difference between varsity speed and freshmen/JV speed. At the end of the year, we had five freshmen starting.”
Despite the losing, those players found a desire to improve, Steele said.
“We had our best weight room attendance ever,” Steele said. “Couple the experience with the natural growth of their bodies, this year they started playing football. That’s a big part of why we’re here.”
The Woodland Beavers can relate.
“One of the things is our senior leadership is more positive than it has been in the past,” Greenleaf said. “We’ve had some kids who have worked a lot harder this year than they have in the past.
“And once you know how to win, it’s a confidence level. We have a better confidence level than we’ve had in the past.”
Greenleaf said his team had its best game of the season last week, a 42-14 win over R.A. Long.
“The kids are starting to figure it out,” he said. “I’m proud of our kids for finding the answers to what we needed to do.”
That’s how the Panthers have turned things around in Washougal. The Panthers, after going 2-16 in the two seasons prior to Jacobs’ arrival, are on an 11-4 stretch.
“I asked for the DVDs of the previous seasons. I analyzed what was going on,” Jacobs said. “There was some stuff that was fixable. The biggest thing for us turning things around was getting our kids familiar with our system and working our tails off in the weight room. Teaching our kids how to be more fundamentally sound has been a big factor for us.
“Making sure our kids understand their responsibilities has been a big thing.”
All of this leads to a the potential for a classic finish in the race for the 2A GSHL football crown.
It starts Friday with Washougal’s home game against Woodland.
“Woodland is much better than their 3-3 record indicates,” Jacobs said. “We’re expecting a pretty tough, physical game.”
All three teams have high expectations this season, playoff expectations, in fact.
Quite a difference one year has made.
