EVERETT – It was an inauspicious debut.
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
Back on Sept. 2, the Archbishop Murphy High School football team’s defensive line looked downright shaky. It got thrown around, missed gap responsibilities and suffered a self-esteem crisis in a 35-28 season-opening victory over Marin Catholic of California.
With only one returning starter – senior co-captain Chris Hoerauf – in the unit, the Wildcats seemed stuck with a glaring weakness.
First-year Murphy nose guard Nick Snyder, a junior playing just his second year of organized football, was utterly lost. “I didn’t even know what was going on,” he said. “I had problems in pretty much every area I could think of.”
Jennifer Buchanan / The Herald
Now, fast forward to the Class 2A state semifinals last Saturday in the Tacome Dome. From the beginning, Murphy’s D-line wreaked havoc on Cashmere. On the opening offensive play, Hoerauf, a tackle, and Snyder blasted through the line of scrimmage and threw Cashmere quarterback Matt Caples for an 8-yard loss. Five plays later, Snyder sacked Caples again, this time for a 2-yard setback.
By halftime, Murphy’s linemen had accumulated four sacks and several key tackles. Their game-long disruptive effort against a potent Cashmere offense was crucial in the Wildcats’ 14-13 victory, which launched Murphy (14-0) into Saturday’s Class 2A state-championship game against Pullman (13-0) at the Tacoma Dome.
How far has Murphy’s D-line come this season? After last Saturday’s game, Cashmere coach Phil Zukowski called it the best group his team faced all season.
“They have made really steady progress,” Murphy head coach Terry Ennis said. “We even feel at this point of the season that they can get better.”
With three-year starter Hoerauf providing leadership, first-time D-line starters Snyder, senior Eli Wolff, juniors David Sinex and Joey Duncan, and sophomore Ryan Bourke have turned an apparent soft spot into a dominant force. One key has been their mastery of a daily “budding” drill in which Murphy linemen use their hands to improve leverage and maintain assigned gaps.
“That’s been a main emphasis for us,” said Murphy assistant coach Austin Matson, a Cascade High grad who played defensive line at Washington State University.
“We just work really hard in practice and we have a lot of confidence in our linebackers,” said Wolff, who starts at tackle on defense and center on offense.
The most surprising contribution has come from Snyder, who skipped football last season to run cross country. He immediately impressed Murphy’s staff when he returned to the team (Snyder played on Murphy’s freshman team two years ago).
“All of us (position) coaches were jockeying to have him play for us,” Matson said of the 6-foot-1, 170-pound Snyder.
Snyder, a standout track athlete who last spring took second in the 110-meter hurdles and sixth in the 300 hurdles at the 2A state meet, also earned high praise from his head coach. “He’s just as tough as nails,” Ennis said. “We didn’t have any real high expectations for him, but he worked so hard and was so rugged that we kept thinking of places that he could play, and he’s been playing great. All the coaches recognize his ferociousness and tenacity.”
Once unsure of the most basic details of playing nose guard, Snyder became comfortable in the role around midseason. He uses technique to compensate for his lack of size. “I know I’ve definitely improved in almost every area,” Snyder said. “I learned to keep my pad level low. … I stay as low as I possibly can without being on the ground or falling over.”
Snyder has become proficient at running parallel to the line of scrimmage and making split-second decisions, Matson said.
“Everything you do happens right in your face,” Matson said. “It’s not like sitting at safety where you have everything in front of you and you can wait and react.”
“He just moves his feet well,” Matson continued, “and he wants to do it.”
Notes
Simply amazing: Pullman coach Bob Wollan said he admires Murphy’s Ennis, who he met a few years ago when they coached for opposing teams at the 2A/1A/B East-West all-state game. “He worked those kids into a finely tuned machine in one week. His track record speaks for itself,” Wollan said of Ennis, who is 62-10 in six seasons at Murphy and has 274 career coaching victories, second on the state’s all-time list.
“He’s just a winner,” Wollan added. “He’s got a system and a plan in place and he knows how to implement it. What he’s done during his career is amazing.”
Crank it up a notch: Pullman likely will rely on its running game more than Murphy’s semifinal opponent, Cashmere. But with 25 touchdown passes, Pullman certainly has enough skill players to keep Murphy honest. “(Pullman) is a very talented team,” Ennis said. “They have two outstanding wide receivers (Aaron Pflugrad and Ashton Gant). Gant (26.3 yards per catch, 11 TDs) gives them an outside threat with speed, and their two running backs (JC Sherritt and Mike Thomas, who have combined to rush for 2,367 yards and 37 TDs) are big, strong kids. And their quarterback (JT Levenseller) is a threat to run or pass.”
Ennis said his Wildcats “clearly know that the best opponent that we have faced (this season) will be Pullman. (Murphy) made a great effort last week and it probably needs to be a notch up (on Saturday).”
Gridiron food drive: The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association has teamed with Northwest Harvest, a hunger-relief non-profit agency based in Seattle, to sponsor a food drive at the Gridiron Classic. Fans are encouraged to bring non-perishable food items today and Saturday to help combat hunger during the holiday season. Collection bins will be placed throughout the Tacoma Dome. For more information about Northwest Harvest, which supplies food to more than 300 food banks and meal programs across the state, visit www.northwestharvest.org.
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