The Archbishop Murphy football team beat North Kitsap 27-0 to advance to Saturday’s 2A state semifinal against No. 1-ranked Tumwater, but the Wildcats certainly weren’t as sharp in the win as they had been in previous weeks.
The Wildcats led just 6-0 at halftime against a team that had lost to Black Hills, which Archbishop Murphy trounced 56-21 and led 49-7 at halftime in the opening round of the state playoffs.
Defensively, the Wildcats didn’t allow a point, something they had done five other times this season.
However, the Wildcats’ usually potent offense struggled. A punt return for a touchdown in the third quarter by junior Anfernee Gurley sparked a 21-point second half for the Wildcats, but the offense will need to do more against Tumwater if the Wildcats are going to earn a spot in this year’s state championship game.
Head coach Jerry Jensen made sure his team was aware of that throughout the week.
“I would rather have a wake-up call than to have gone out and beat North Kitsap 56-0 and then try to tell the kids that Tumwater is going to beat their butts if they don’t focus up,” Jensen said. “It was cold that night. That was the first time we really have been in those conditions. (Running back and Wildcats’ leading rusher) Kerry Jackson went out in the first series and that’s another thing we hadn’t prepared for. Kerry has been a workhorse for us. It took us a quarter and a half to figure out what we could do and what we wanted to do without Kerry. Once we did that, Anfernee returned the punt and we scored a couple of times in the second half.”
Jackson, who has rushed for 1,018 yards and 17 touchdowns this season, is day-to-day after suffering a hip injury, Jensen said.
Playing indoors at the Tacoma Dome the Wildcats won’t have to worry about the cold, but they do have a 10 a.m. start, which Jensen made clear he doesn’t like and is cause for concern.
“It’s craziness,” Jensen said. “I don’t know why the WIAA puts a game at 10 o’clock. From scheduling whether we’re going to leave school at 6:30 in the morning or if we’re going to try to get the kids in a hotel down there, it doesn’t make any sense. So, yeah, it’s a concern.”
An even bigger concern for the Wildcats might be Tumwater’s potent rushing attack. The Thunderbirds have four players who have rushed for 590 or more yards this season.
“We’ve got to just do what we do and that’s who we are,” Jensen said. “If they’re good enough to beat us and we’re playing what we do, then so be it. We’re not going to jump out and try to do a bunch of crazy things to confuse them.”
Archbishop Murphy vs. Tumwater
Where: Tacoma Dome
When: 10 a.m., Saturday
Key Players: Archbishop Murphy—Anfernee Gurley, jr., RB/DB; Kerry Jackson, sr., RB/LB; Jesus Echevarria, jr., OL/DL; Jackson Yost, jr., OL/DL; Ben Hines, soph., RB/LB; Kyler Gordon, soph., WR/DB; Connor Johnson, jr., QB. Tumwater—Jarid Barrett, sr., FB/MLB; Dominic Jones, sr., RB/OLB; Noah Andrews, jr., QB/RB/FS; Griffin Shea, sr., WR/DB; Spencer Dowers, sr., QB; Cade Otton, jr., TE/OLB; Devon Shedd-Kirkland, sr., DE.
Records: Archbishop Murphy 12-0. Tumwater 12-0.
Twitter: @aaronlommers, @Krueger_David and @heraldnetpreps
Herald Pick: Archbishop Murphy
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