EVERETT – The team that came closest to knocking Everett from the unbeaten ranks during the regular season is hoping the third time is a charm.
The red-hot Tri-Cities Fever (10-5) meet the Everett Hawks (15-0) in a National Indoor Football League Pacific Conference semifinal showdown at 7:05 p.m. today in the Everett Events Center.
“They’ve won twice,” Tri-Cities coach Dan Whitsett said. “But, it’s this last one that counts.”
Tri-Cities stumbled to 2-4 after back-to-back losses to Everett in late April. Since then the Fever have won eight of nine games, including an impressive 49-46 victory at Wyoming last Sunday in the opening round of the playoffs.
“We know we’re one of the top four teams in the league,” said Whitsett, who took over as coach after the previous coach was dismissed following the Fever’s lackluster 1-2 start. “We respect Everett – they’re a great organization – but we’re certainly not intimidated. We expect to have a hard battle and get a win.”
Everett coach Dan Maciejczak said Whitsett’s confidence is understandable.
“He should be proud,” Maciejczak said. “They’ve got a great organization. With their coaching and personnel changes they’ve done a great job. They’ve played us close already so of course they’re going to come in and think they can beat us.”
The Fever fortunes changed immediately with Whitsett’s hiring and the signing of quarterback Doug Coleman (11 games, 57 touchdown passes). Tri-Cities handed then-unbeaten River City its first loss in a 67-52 home victory, which evened its mark at 2-2.
Then came a memorable game at Everett April 21. The Fever led much of the way, but the Hawks rallied to win 64-62. Everett quarterback Albert Higgs ran 22 yards for the go-ahead touchdown with 47 seconds remaining. Coleman – who averaged 211 yards passing per game during the regular season to rank second to Higgs’ 216 – countered with a 9-yard TD pass to Nick Iano with 14 seconds to play. Travis Salter led a defensive stop on Jarvis Dunn’s 2-point conversion attempt to preserve the Hawks narrow victory.
The two teams met again April 30 at Tri-Cities. Everett fell behind 14-0, but eventually scored 17 unanswered points in the final seven minutes – two AJ Street TDs and Craig Hawley’s 48-yard field goal – and prevailed 72-55.
There have been few Fever letdowns since.
“We brought in the right people and started putting the pieces of the puzzle together,” Whitsett said.
A key move was the addition of nose guard Garrett Smith.
“Garrett Smith is probably our most valuable player on defense,” Whitsett said. “He makes (linebacker) Ron Childs a better player. Childs (73 tackles) was getting it done before, but now he doesn’t have to work as hard to make those plays. They compliment each other very well.”
Maciejczak, a former center, has seen enough film of Smith to be wary. “He’s really quick off the ball and works his hands well,” Maciejczak said. “Sam (Adams) thought he looked good. We’ll have to account for him and Childs too. Our center (Ed Powell) is pretty good so it should be a good battle. I’ve presented the challenge to Ed about playing against this kid, hopefully he’ll get the better half of it.”
Another concern is the emergence of wide receivers Kevin Heard and Sonte Wong to a group that already includes Mike Rigell (66 receptions, 782 yards, 19 touchdowns); Dunn (48, 521, 9) and Josh Jelmberg (41, 483, 13). Heard has caught eight passes for 141 yards in the last two games.
And Wong?
“Ask Wyoming about him,” Maciejczak said of Wong, whose 10 receptions for 77 yards and four TDs disarmed the Cavalry Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Fever faces challenges of its own. Chiefly, trying to figure out a problem no NIFL team has heretofore been able to solve: How to prevent Everett from scoring at will?
“Everett’s a tough team to stop,” said Whitsett who spent four hours watching the Hawks on film immediately after arriving back in Tri-Cities following the victory at Wyoming.
“You never see them repeat anything. They just have all the right athletes, players of high caliber in every position. They’re pretty much unlimited in that respect.”
Now, the two teams have run out of time to figure out how to best deal with each other.
“They went through the turmoil and my hat’s off to the coach. They’ve got good owners, they’re good people and now they’re in the same boat were in,” Maciejczak said. “Anytime you get cross-state rivals it’s fun. We’ve passed all the tests so far. Hopefully we can pass three more.
“Our guys are pretty well focused on the task at hand. We just need to get stops and scores and never look back. At this point a blow out would be more exciting for our fans, but that’s not gonna happen.”
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