Behind The Bench
Ep: 145 – Hustle plays, girls soccer outlooks and Wolf Pack football
This week on the Behind the Bench podcast, the crew discusses some of the best plays from Carson and Douglas football through the first three weeks, including a pair of hustle plays that have set the tone for both squads so far this fall. After that, Carter Eckl, Jeff Mulvihill, Jr. and Duke Ritenhouse add some chatter about girls soccer and the gift that keeps on giving. Plus, some Wolf Pack football discussion at the end of the episode.
- Broadcast on:
- 03 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
[MUSIC] Welcome back to another episode of Behind the Bench with Carter Echolas episode 145. I'm your host Carter E. Join us always by producer Jeff Mulvahill Jr. Today we are once again accompanied as well by Nevada news group, news editor Duke Rittenhouse, who rejoins us again. Duke, how you been over the last 14 days or so? >> No, I guess busy, I always answer busy. >> Yeah, try to impress the listeners. But yeah, we, not to tell you how the sausage is made. But Monday holidays for our business, those are tough. >> Yeah. >> And often not holidays. >> Yeah. >> But the good part is a lot of what I do that I help out with is sports content, which I enjoy. And we are, we're going full bore now on not only our high schools, but also the Wolfpack, and that part of it's enjoyable and great. But for the 15th time in a row, I'm going to answer busy. But when you throw sports in there, to me, it's good busy. >> And we will get to the Wolfpack here at the end of today's episode. But of course, we're going to start locally with high school stuff. Got us lead with Douglas Outlasting Spring Creek 2722 Friday night down in Minden, back and forth game pretty much the whole way. The Tigers led early on, but we're able to maintain that lead at half time, thanks to a big chase down tackle from Zach Jackson. Spring Creek broke loose on a play at Jackson, tracked the Spartan ball care down around the eight or nine yard line. And before Spring Creek could even call another snap, they had taken an unsportsman like conduct penalty. It may have been on the bench, I couldn't quite tell who they called it on. But anyways, it backed Spring Creek up to the 23. Douglas's defense forced him into a fourth in goal from the 23. They opted to try to go for that. And it didn't work, which allowed Douglas to go into the locker room with a lead. And then the Tigers score immediately out of the half as Zach Jackson breaks loose on a 62 yard touchdown run. That gave the Tigers a 21 six lead. But Spring Creek responded with 16 unanswered points. Ended up going up 22 21 late in the game. But once again, the Tiger offense was able to march down the field. Back to back plays, Jackson Ovard found Brenton Weston the first to convert a fourth down. And then the second was a 35 yard touchdown pass that moved Douglas in front 27 22. I believe Douglas did not get a two point conversion there, if I remember correctly. But anyways, up five. And then Spring Creek kind of just kept inching their way forward. They converted a fourth down, got on the Douglas side of the field, converted another fourth down and then tried to run a quick little passing route on a, I believe it was a second down and Douglas junior defensive back. Nathan Preus stepped in front of it and picked it off, which allowed the Tiger offense to come back out on the field, take a couple kneel downs. And when that game 27 22, we actually have a quote from Nathan Preus here on the podcast this week. So here is that walk me through what you were thinking there on that interception. Did you see anything in particular that led to that or walk me through what was going on there? So what I saw was we were in a, I was in an under coverage and I saw the guy go deep. Quarterback side shifted down low and I saw the guy come across. I knew he was going to throw it. I thought he was going to throw a bullet, so I was going to have to go hit the kid. I saw him throw that little lob and I just, I had to go get that ball. Oh, what was running through your mind after that? I was so emotional. It was just like everything that I've wanted since I was a child was just, it was, it was coming to me. It was like this, I've been watching this team since maybe I was five six-ish. Just wanted to be in that position and it just all came rushing to me. And I couldn't control my emotions. I was about to start crying. I go, I think pretty cool quote, all things considered to listen to a kid talk about how he's watched Douglas High School football since he was five or six and how much it meant to him to have a game ending interception there. All in all, you know, a Spring Creek team that Duke, I know we had you on the podcast two weeks ago to chat about because they played Galena, then they played Carson, and then they played Douglas. So they were getting their fill of the, the old five-aid North, I guess it's split now a little bit with between division two and division three. But by all accounts, a Spartan team that looked much improved this week. I believe they had seven turnovers against Carson last week. They did not, they did not turn the ball over, at least in terms of an interception or fumble once against Douglas this past Friday. So again, an improved Spring Creek team, but a Douglas team that, you know, continues to kind of show what it's got late in games in these close games. They've now played three of them. And they said it two and one on the year. But yeah, once again, a Spring Creek team that, that looked much improved and continued to keep converting four thounds late in the game. You know, it's interesting to me that, you know, this is two years in a row. They've challenged themselves. And I think that's great. When the last year they opened with Galena this year, they opened with Galena. They've got their league schedule coming up and it's almost a repeat. In 2023, Galena shut them out, then Spring Creek got better. This year listeners might remember a couple of weeks ago that Galena game was close until it wasn't, you know, one of those things where the second quarter got away from them. And then that there was just no time to catch up in the second half. So interesting that they challenged themselves. And now they were honorary 5A members and now they can go back to their own level. And we'll see if that, we'll keep an eye on them and see if it benefits them. Carter, I have a question for you though. And I saw your, I saw your video. That's the second, at least the second touchdown saving tackle you've seen, right? In early in the season where not only did it save the touchdown, but kept points off the board, which is huge. Huge. And my question is, were both of them Douglas or was the first one Carson? The first one was Carson against Canyon Springs in week one. I believe that was, oh no, I shouldn't have started saying who I think it was. Ian Thomas. Thank you, Jeff. Ian Thomas tracked down at Canyon Springs wide receiver. I believe that tackle was made around the three or four yard line. So again, inside the 10 and both, yeah, much like we saw this past Friday, it allowed the defense to stay on the field and get a, get a stop. And both times teams have gone for it on fourth down. And both times the team that has made the hustle play has ended up keeping points off the board. Like you said, Duke, big tackles. Yeah, huge plays all around. And just something that you don't get unless you get some real serious buy-in. Because you look at, both of those plays on film, and I imagine pretty much everybody in the stadium on both of them is thinking, well, he's gone. Yeah, I mean, it's a desire play, right? It's, it's, there's coaching and all that, but that's desire at the end of the day. And it's the sort of thing that, you know, even in our box scores, whoever's keeping the box score, it shows up as one tackle. It's not very, you know, an 85 yard touchdown run is jumps off the page. But that's why I think sometimes it's, it's important that reporters and stuff are there at these games, because you can say that that was huge. You know, it's literally one tackle, but that was huge. So I love that sort of thing. And, you know, when you get it at the high school level, a lot of times with kids who have no intention of playing football beyond their senior year of high school, that's total desire. Yeah, absolutely. Real quickly run through some stats from Douglas football since I got him. Jackson Novard was nine of 13 this past Friday for 152 yards and a touchdown. He's continued to be real efficient with the ball and also showed, showed off his legs a little bit scrambling on the pocket a couple times to pick up some key first downs. Zach Jackson, of course, with that touchdown saving tackle, also had two touchdowns of his own on the ground, had 107 yards on 11 carries. I believe also had roughly 45 yards receiving there. Evan humans had six carries for 33 yards and a touchdown in the first half. Bretton Weston six catches 107 yards, clearly over its favorite target Friday night and a touchdown there. He also had 15 tackles on defense, including three tackles for loss. And then a nor and Brayden lens on the tiger defense also recorded three tackles for loss as well. Douglas will head to North valleys this Friday at seven o'clock. The panther's offense looks like it could be fairly, fairly high flying in this year too. So very curious to see how that offense matches up with Douglas's defense, the way they've been playing who the first couple of weeks speaking of defense. Carson managed to play a tight one with Highland out in Pocatello, Idaho. That final ends up going 22 seven in favor of the Rams. But that game was seven seven there midway into the fourth quarter. So all in all, I mean, just, you know, 15 points is really not much, but I'm not even sure the final score does that justice with just how close that game was throughout. Pretty cool environment to be playing in the dome on the campus, Idaho state. That seems pretty neat from the photos I saw and obviously from watching on NFHS, which, you know, we'll also guess I'll save my opinions on that. Carson scores early in the fourth quarter to make it seven seven. Drake heard Castle hit Zach Eaton for a touchdown pass. Eaton finished with five catches 42 yards and a touchdown. Hardcastle was 14 to 25, a hundred and seventy four passing yards through there, a TD, and then two interceptions late that allowed the Rams to hold on. But all in all, I mean, Carson's defense is once again showing that it is, it is for real. You know, you see, you see week one that gets King Springs and you go, okay, you know, starting to see, see what the coach, coach Steph's talking about. And then you see it again. And then you see it again. And it very quickly becomes evident that Carson's defense is going to be one of the better groupings in the north this year, regardless of classification. I think they proved that again against a really good Highland team. And as I've said in multiple stories at this point coming off the class five a state title in Idaho, which is the biggest classification in the state of Idaho. So it's 22 seven loss. I mean, again, I don't think you'll ever hear a coach say this is a moral victory. But in some respects, I feel like it absolutely is to once again say that, you know, this, this Carson football team is certainly appears capable of making some noise here after the first three weeks of the season. Second week in a row, JT Heaton has had 13 tackles. Christian Ray had a fumble recovery. That is Carson's 12th force turnover through three games, which is mighty impressive. And especially since other than the two picks late, the offense hasn't really been turned in the ball over too much either. So a pretty nice turnover differential for the senators. I know head coach Ryan Boseard has been very complimentary of his offense's ability to protect the ball. And it's, it's, it's helped them out a lot. Here's the step that that's kind of surprised me so far. Carson ran for 32 yards on 13 carries and it's a center offense. We are very used to seeing, you know, pound the rock repeatedly. And obviously that says something about Highland too with, with how good that defense was. But Carson's offense only averaging about 80 yards rushing through its first three games and varying opponents, you know, you don't necessarily have to run the ball all the time, Duke, but are you a little surprised to see that the senators may not be as run game dominant as they have been in the last few years? Yeah, just because, you know, we've all seen it and even if you go back at eight or 10 years, you know, you're running the jet sweep to a Carter brother, basically, right? I mean, how many times did we see that? So they do love when, when Blair was, you know, the last portion of his coaching career. Yeah, establish the run. I mean, it's a bit old school maybe, but, you know, the other thing at this level and not just Carson, I mean, this can be anyone, but you could have, especially a younger quarterback who's developing as a thrower and you're going to want to limit the mistakes there. And so you've got to run. So yeah, but, you know, getting it done two in one with the one loss to a state champion, you know, overall to me that the two things that jump out to me first, Carson, much improved, I think, which is something we've been waiting for. And secondly, I think to a certain extent, we got a little mileage out of saying Douglas's schedule is going to be much harder. It is. And I think they're handling it just fine. Those are the two early takeaways for me. But yeah, you know, if I go out and watch Carson and I don't see that receiver sweep come around about five times thinking I'm at the wrong game, basically. Well, and Carson fans, we'll get a chance to see them at home this Friday against McQueen. It'll be the senator's first test within our, you know, northern region. Look, obviously, Spring Creek, you know, in northern Nevada, but a bit out of the way as far as the the 5A North is concerned, Jake Winterger had a 45 yard punt return that set up Carson in enemy territory. The senators opted to go forward on fourth down on that particular drive and did not get it there. But another solid return from a guy we've talked about plenty in the return game over the last two years, Ethan Hindi also had four catches for 75 yards for the senators as well. But yeah, very curious to see what Carson can do against the McQueen team that scored 47 on against her points last week. So it should be an interesting battle this Friday for Carson at home. These are both interesting games, don't you think? Yeah, very much so. I think both games could be close. I think both games could kind of send either team in pretty drastic directions, depending on how they play out. And you want to be careful not to look ahead, right? Because who do they play next week? They play each other, which I'm sure we'll get to at some point. But you don't want to get caught with that because it really is a good rivalry. But you've got important things to do this week. And the first one would be win. But the second would be keep establishing what you're trying to do. And don't be thinking, man, I can't wait to play those guys seven days from now. You don't want to get in that trap. Right. And this is the first of three home games in a row for Carson, obviously with Carson and Douglas being next Friday the 13th at Carson High School. So don't worry. We will have plenty more on that. We're not going to get too much into into the weeds there. But a very good point from you, too. That is definitely something you don't want to get yourself caught looking looking head to too much. Moving around to some other things going on in the area. Sawyer Macy broke the Oakmont invite course record this past week in 11 minutes, 45 seconds and 90 milliseconds, 4,000 meter course there. He wins the event on the center boys side. Sean Thornton was 24th and Alex Miner was 34th as the Carson boys took 5th out of 33 teams. You know, another we'll get to the cars of girls in a second. But the Carson boys may be maybe putting up their flag for a potential look at a regional and state title this year there. Of course, on the girls side, they were 4th out of 25 teams in attendance. Villaminer was 24th, Ginny Pongzok was 32nd, and Madison Hager was 35th, just to name a few. You can find the full results in Wednesdays, Nevada Peel, and of course online at www.navadapeal.com/news/sports. But another record chocked up for Sawyer Macy who continues to do very impressive things. And, you know, I remember from talking to him last year during track season about how he kind of runs angry thinking about the things that he thought he might have a chance to accomplish. And didn't get a chance to for one reason or another. And I can only imagine where he's at to start this year, especially already knocking off course records so far this season. And the other thing, Carter, is winning these California invitationals is hard, man. I mean, there's big fields, these are, you know, California's got, we should look it up. California must have a thousand high schools, right? And you're going to shock me. You know, I mean, you're going to get in every sport to just the depth is amazing. And I ran in dozens of these California races. And I mean, if I got a second or a third place, I was thrilled because there's always some hot shot who's as good as you are, you know, and you're in like, you said, what did you say, 35 teams? Is that right? 33 teams are the boys. That's a lot. Yeah. I mean, that's, and so to win, to win one of these is actually, to me, a pretty big deal. Course record is gravy. I love it. That's great. But to go out there and say, pay fools of all these, you know, more than 100 runners out here, I'm the best guy. It doesn't happen every day. You know, as someone who's been there, I'm, to me, that's just super impressive. And I couldn't tell you the exact number of runners, but there was a grouping right behind him. He did not, did not win that by more than a second or two. There was, there was at least four or five runners within, you know, four, four or five seconds of them at the top of the pack there. But yeah, once again, keep an eye on these Carson cross country teams as they continue to push for, for regional and state titles. Of course that girls team is coming off back to back state titles there as well. So something to keep an eye on. Also around the region this Wednesday, we will have a season outlook for both Carson high girl soccer and Douglas high school girls soccer as both teams kind of have similar projections of what they want to accomplish this season, but are in a little bit of different spots at the moment. Carson girls soccer coming off a one zero win. Thanks to an Addie Morgan goal in the 75th minute. Douglas girls soccer had two good results to start the season and then fell to Reno in the game. I was at they, of course, are kind of feeling after team chemistry and are under the leadership of a new head coach in Greg Cressimano out there in Minden. So something to keep an eye on. You can find all those, both of those season outlooks, like I said, in Wednesday's newspaper or online. Duke, your favorite thing in Nevada high school sports that happens Thursday. It's realignment. There's a second realignment meeting Thursday for anybody keeping tabs on that. Of course, I will have, if there's something worth writing about, I will have that up online. At some point Thursday or Friday, I guess I can't hold myself to too much of a standard. If it's an eight hour meeting, it can be kind of tough to turn those around super quickly. But the gift that keeps on giving in the words of Duke Rit House will be back Thursday. And as we noted right before we went on air, there seems to be two different types of agendas for the NIAA, which, you know, real quickly, they always have to post these publicly. It's open meeting law, et cetera, et cetera. And the board of control meetings tend to be these 200 page packets with maybe upwards of 50 items that they're going, that they hope to get to, right? And it's page after page after page. And these realignment ones tend to be one page because they listed as one item. And basically in plain English, it's we're going to talk about realignment. I love it. It's great because, like you said, you don't know if you're going to have anything to write about it. It could be the worst meeting ever, or it could be absolute chaos of Las Vegas schools joining Arizona. And, you know, I mean, and then all of a sudden you have something to write about, right? But when you've got an agenda that says, yeah, we'll talk about it. You don't know. So I'm with you. It's hard to know if there's going to be anything at this particular meeting worth writing about. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I feel like I said that a lot on the podcast, given we always do these early in the week and then it's stuff happens later in the week and you can find it online as I've said a few times. But yeah, realignment should be interesting. It's it's set up for 2025 through 2028 based off of what the agenda listed it as. But yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens. I'll be sure to keep you guys in the loop there. Last thing before we get out of here, Duke, Nevada football once again, as a double digit underdog decides to shock the world maybe to extreme, but beats Troy in Alabama. A huge win for the Wolfpack and the first under new head coach, Jeff Choat. I did enjoy his quote saying, I have plenty of these. It's just my first one here. It's very, very nonchalant, very low key for a guy who kind of strikes me as as that kind of personality. Yeah, what a that's a that's a good win. I mean, it's there's no way to develop an answer for this, but I just believe in my heart that the last two years teams, they don't win that game after falling behind 14 nothing. And remember 14 nothing and everyone's like kind of heading mentally to the locker room, you know, Nevada didn't score until very late. You know, you're 14 down on the road. This is the two time defending Sunbelt Conference champion on the road. These guys are, yes, they had some new bodies. Their coaches knew we all know what that's like, right? They're at home. They're up 14 and they didn't get it done. And I just it's a new look to me. I think the team with football, especially we, we have all these numbers we can talk about. But to me, you can't put the tag on attitude and desire and that sort of thing. This team plays hard. I mean, they are, I think night and day. And then, you know, I wonder Brendan Lewis. I mean, he's so far, he's doing exactly what needs to be done. He gains with his legs. They haven't really turned him loose in the air, though. I got to wonder what a Nevada game looks like when he's back there, you know, chucking it like Chris Vargas and Colin Kaepernick and those guys. Is this a team that can now upset someone in the Mountain West? I mean, I don't know. Were you guys able to get a look at it? What do you think? I watched less of it than I saw against SMU. Of course, I was at the SMU game. I forget which Wolfpack player set it post game after SMU. So my apologies there. But when you have players coming out after a close loss like that saying last year's team would have quit, I think that's about as telling is as it gets because, you know, I've heard plenty of coach speak in my time, whether it's high school, college, whatever level that may be. But when the players come out and say something like that, I think that's very telling because very rarely will athletes tell you straight up. This is how it is. And so when when they are willing to share that information, I think that says a lot. And so the fact that they said that about last week's last week's game against SMU and then to turn around, go down 14 against Troy and come back and win that game. I think the effort says at all on top of on top of those quotes that this team just believes more. There's there's generally a more more willing willing attitude here. And it seems like it's something that they've all bought into. And honestly, something they're their coach seems to just emulate really well. And that that that kind of belief, you don't have to stand around Jeff Chote long or listen to him talk long to to really see how a group of a group of young men as they say here, a group of guys can buy in that that seems to be very obvious early on. Yeah, and he he's I like his honesty to last week's my money quote last week after that that kind of tough loss was, yeah, we're getting rid of the old Nevada, you know, and and that's just, yes, he's pointing fingers at Ken Wilson and he's pointing fingers at that staff and some of the players that are no longer with the program. But he's like, I don't care, you know, this the old Nevada would have folded. This is a new this is a new day. Love it. Hey, real quick, not exactly our coverage area, but a sister newspaper, a newspaper we share with the Lake Tahoe papers. How about truckies Marcus Bellin? Yeah, is turning into the return guy and the receiver. And you know, I've interviewed him back when he was a truckie and in cleats, he's not that tall. So that just shows you that it really is nothing to do with the size of the dog, right? I mean, he's I love it when the, you know, the locals get it done. And Duke, forgive me if I'm putting you on the spot here. Who do the wolfpack play this week? It's Georgia Southern at home. And our OG pack listeners might remember that those teams met twice in the old one double a playoffs, including the 1990 championship game, which was actually played at Georgia Southern. They used to do the whole thing at campus sites. The Eagles are two and oh against the pack, both in playoff games. It's it's a rivalry that could have maybe developed into a rivalry, but they didn't schedule each other. They should have, because it was developing should be a super interesting game. Georgia Southern and Boise State combined for a hundred points. Yeah. And Boise got the better of them, which we don't need to delve too deep into, but I think the pack has some opportunities here. I don't think Georgia Southern's a pushover, but it's a home game. I think you'll see the crowd numbers go up. And I have not seen the weather, although I think it's supposed to be warm. So again, we talked about how Carson and Douglas have interesting opponents. I think the wolf pack does too. Big upcoming weekend on the football slate all around here in Northern Nevada. Of course, we will have other sports coverage this week as well. You can check that out online. As I've said, a few times already at www.novatapeal.com backslash news, backslash sports. Big thanks to Griton House for hopping on the pod as well as producer Jeff Mulvahill Jr. of instant image.com where you can find all his photos there. That's going to do it for this week. We will catch you guys next week. Take it easy. [BLANK_AUDIO]