SEQUIM — The two-point conversion proved vital for the Sequim football team in its 37-14 dismantling of previously unbeaten-in-league play Olympic League foe Olympic.
The Wolves completed passes on their first three 2-point attempts and stuffed a Trojans 2-point try when Olympic cut the Sequim lead to 16-6 after halftime.
And the Wolves offense utilizes an interesting-looking formation on its conversion attempts.
The swinging gate formation, popularized by Oregon back in Chip Kelly’s coaching days with the Ducks, lines up with the entire offensive line — the exception of the center — on one side of the field, leaving the quarterback and center, and perhaps a running back, unprotected.
A different look than normal, the swinging gate can cause uncertainty in the defense.
And for Sequim, the choice to go for two is made more out of necessity.
“Truthfully, it’s partly because we are good at it, but also because we are not good at kicking,” head coach Erik Wiker said. “If we were 50/50 at kicking [extra points] and 50/50 with two-points, might as well do the two every time. We practice and try to get that down because it vital to do and it’s also why we put the gate in.”
Wiker’s son Taig is the Wolves quarterback and he broke down what the team is looking for out of the gate — mainly trying to force and exploit 1-on-1 matchups.
“It’s kind of just reading the defense a little bit but being a baller at the same time,” Taig said. “We put athletes outside on the back, get those 1-on-1 matchups, see the field. There’s a lot of things that people don’t know about the gate.
“When I hit on the post [to Hayden Eaton], we haven’t hit that all season yet and they didn’t know it was going to be there. There’s lots of options to catch them off guard.”
Wiker versatile
Taig Wiker showed his versatility on the defensive side of the ball against Olympic, moving from safety to middle linebacker to fill in for suspended starter Lane Mote.
“I don’t think he’s played there since middle school and I think it speaks to what a good player he is, whether he’s my son or not,” coach Wiker said. “Just as a football player that we can move him down and he can play where Michael [Young] was at free safety or move him to middle where he hasn’t played for awhile with a bum knee with Lane [Mote] not in, otherwise it’s a freshman [filling the spot]. Just real happy with how he played.
“He’s the one who blasted the one guy, got the turnover and we scored right after [to go up 16-0 at halftime.] That was a huge momentum turner for us.
“I was really pleased. That’s a spot in the middle that against [Olympic] this team running right in the middle, too. I was happy.”
For his part, Taig Wiker said it took a little time to get his bearings.
“I’m familiar with middle backer from freshman year,” he said. “It was weird, but I sort of got into it in the second half and it started to come back a little bit.
It was kind of foreign to me at the beginning of the game but in the second half I was feeling better. At safety you have a little more leeway to make a certain amount of plays that you can’t make at middle backer.”
Reunion for Forks’ Highfield
It will be a special game for Forks new head coach Trevor Highfield when the Spartans travel to Bremerton to clash with the Olympic Trojans.
One of the coaches Highfield will be facing is the Trojans’ assistant coach and offensive line coach Andrew Peterson, a former teammate from the University of Washington.
Trevor Highfield is in his first year as head coach at Forks and has the Spartans off to a 4-2 start. (Lonnie Archibald/for Peninsula Daily News)
“Actually, he’s my best friend. I was best man at his wedding,” said Highfield, who also officiated at the wedding of Peterson’s daughter.
Highfield and Peterson played right next to each other on the offensive line for the Huskies. Highfield said when he looked at this year’s Forks’ schedule, he saw he would be going up against his old friend.
“It’s one of those deals where it’s a dream come true,” Highfield said. “This is very, very cool. This is beyond exciting.”
In fact, Peterson used to teach and coach at Forks and Highfield credits Peterson with helping to bring him out to Forks to take the Spartans’ head coaching job. He actually is in Peterson’s old office at Forks.
Peterson is doing a great job in his first year at Olympic as the Trojans are 4-2 this season and 3-1 in the tough Olympic 2A League.
Highfield has an exceptionally busy weekend. After making a fairly long road trip to Bremerton, Highfield will get on a bus with his players back to Forks. Then, early in the morning, he will be back on the road heading to Seattle for Washington’s Homecoming game against the Oregon Ducks at 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
And Peterson will be right there with Highfield at the Huskies’ game.
Riders will battle
The Roughriders had an awesome defensive game against Bremerton this weekend. The Riders couldn’t pull out a win, but had the Knights held to just eight points until midway through the third quarter and 24 points for the entire game.
That is the Knights’ lowest scoring output all season. Bremerton had scored 52 against North Mason and 49 against Rochester earlier this season and in fact, even scored 27 against league powerhouse North Kitsap. To hold that team to 24 points is a great accomplishment and the Riders’ best showing on that side of the ball all year.
The defense is led by Tyler Bowen, who is a vacuum cleaner picking off passes in the defensive backfield and linebacker Derek Bowechop, a tackling machine.
The Riders struggled on offense against the Knights as they lost their starting quarterback Brady Nickerson to an ankle injury. Those struggles are the only reason Bremerton was able to score 24 points and the defense eventually got worn down with the offense not having much time of possession.
That defense will be put to the test against a very good Sequim team this weekend.
Quilcene still the one
The Rangers went up against an undefeated team in Evergreen Lutheran on Saturday and crushed them 58-34. Quilcene has dominated the Sea-Tac 1B League in recent years, but on paper, this looked like a tough road test for a young Rangers team.
It turns out that Quilcene is still very much the team to beat in the Sea-Tac 1B. The Rangers are young, but they are deep as they had three running backs — Bishop Budnek, Chase Newman and Isaac Dugdale — with more than 70 yards rushing.
Quilcene has one more tough test coming up in November against Muckleshoot, which is also undefeated in league.
