Mount Si goes toe-to-toe with Bothell

June 18, 2008

By Ryan Piersol

Wildcat coaching staff pleased with results of summer scrimmage

It took just one play to make people believe the 2008 Mount Si football team is about to return to glory.

The Wildcats, fresh off a 5-5 season, had their lone head-to-head competition of the summer in a scrimmage with powerhouse Bothell at home Saturday evening. Mount Si scored on a 40-yard off-tackle scamper by Sean Snead on its first play and went on to hold its own with the two-time 4A defending state runner-up Cougars.

“It was a great night,” Mount Si head coach Charlie Kinnune said. “Number one, we stayed healthy. And, after that, we affirmed what both our weaknesses and our strengths were.

“We were just really excited to bring in a team like Bothell, which has had success for years.”

Bothell is coached by Tom Bainter, a former offensive coordinator at Mount Si under Kinnune. Bainter also played at Western Washington University when Kinnune was on the coaching staff there.

“It was a lot of fun. It was the first time for us to get our teams together and play each other,” Kinnune said.”Both teams had success and both teams got an idea of where they need to improve. I think it was good on both ends.”

The Mount Si coaching staff came away especially pleased with its big guys in the trenches. The Wildcats have five seniors - Ryan Ransavage, Mark Stetson, Michael Nelson, Zach Brevick and Alex Hiebert - starting on the offensive line.

“We liked our offensive and defensive front. There’s no doubt that’s our strength right now,” Kinnune said. “Our front allows us to have a running game on offense and our defense is stopping the run. When you can do that, you’re halfway to a winning situation.

“We’re big right now. We sort of ran out of gas, so we’ll need to work on our conditioning. But it is the summer.”

As much as anything, the scrimmage seemed to give the Mount Si coaching staff a good idea what it has to work with less than three months before the start of the season. The Wildcats have four starters on offense and three on defense they need to replace off last year’s team.

“We need to work on not turning the ball over and not making mistakes. We still need to work on our passing defense, but we knew that going in,” Kinnune said.

“Everything we knew we needed to work on came out during the scrimmage, so that was a good thing.”

 

Written by Ryan Piersol · Filed Under Sports