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PAGE A10, KEIZERTIMES, NOVEMBER 4, 2016 KEIZERTIMES.COM Finally: McNary 33, West Salem 32 Defense plays lights out in fourth quarter By DEREK WILEY Of the Keizertimes SALEM—McNary’s offense landed two haymakers in the fi rst four minutes and the defense then fi nished the job in the second half as the Celtics knocked out one of the giants of the Greater Valley Conference, West Salem, 33-32 on Friday, Oct. 28. “This has been a long time coming,” said senior Kolby Bark- er, who had yet to defeat the Titans in his high school career. “We were ready to take it to West with everything we had. We were not going to lose this game. It’s personal pride for this se- nior class and everybody. This is something we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.” McNary jumped out to a 13-0 lead at West Salem. On fourth-and-1 from the Titan 4-yard line, quarterback Jo- siah Gilbert fought his way into the end zone to complete a six-play, 76-yard drive. The extra point was no good. After the Celtic defense forced a three-and-out, the offense needed only one play to strike again as Gilbert found his favor- ite receiver, Brendan Van Voorhis, for a 72-yard touchdown. “That (13-0 start) probably gave us the confi dence that we could be in this game and win the game,” Van Voorhis said. But West Salem, who entered the contest 7-0 in league-play and needed a victory to win the GVC outright, wasn’t going down without a fi ght. The Titans marched 73 yards on nine plays in four and half minutes to get within 13-7 when quarterback Jared Oliver threw a play-action fade pass into the left corner of the end zone for a touchdown. Aided by a defensive pass interference penalty, Oliver found another open receiver in the end zone to put West Salem on top, 14-13, early in the second quarter. On his fi rst carry of the game, A.J. Johnk sliced through the Titan defense for a 20-yard score to put McNary back ahead 19-14 with 7:36 remaining in the fi rst half. With fi rst-and-goal at the West Salem 9-yard line, the Celtics looked to add to the scoreboard but a holding penalty pushed them back to the 22 and then Gilbert was intercepted. Instead, the Titans closed the second half on a 15-0 run as Oliver threw two more touchdown passes. “I didn’t know which way we were going to respond,” Mc- Nary head coach Jeff Auvinen said as his team entered halftime trailing 29-19. West Salem got the ball fi rst in the second half and went right down the fi eld. But on fi rst-and-goal from the McNary 2-yard line, the Celtic defense held the Titans to a 22-yard fi eld goal. Please see FINALLY, Page 12 KEIZERTIMES/Derek Wiley Junior Walling, No. 81, and Jakoby Doke, No. 12, celebrate a sack of West Salem quarterback Jared Oliver late in the Celtics 33-32 victory on Friday, Oct. 28. Celtics to open playoffs at Tigard By DEREK WILEY Of the Keizertimes On fi lm, McNary will open the OSAA football state play- offs on Friday, Nov. 4 against a Tigard team that’s as good as anyone the Celtics have played this season. “I think they are more tal- ented and play harder than probably anybody in our league,” McNary head coach Jeff Auvinen said of the Tigers, who on Oct. 7 were tied with No. 1 West Linn 14-14 before the Lions scored the game- winning touchdown in the fi nal minute. Tigard’s only other loss was to No. 9 Sherwood the fol- lowing week, 35-20. The Bowmens made it to the state semifi nals last season. “It shows that they (Tigard) can play but we just need to worry about ourselves,” Auvinen said. “If we take care of ourselves, good things are going to happen. The way we’re playing right now, if we play really well, we’ll be fi ne against anybody. If we don’t play well, we’ll be in trouble. It’s that way every week in the playoffs.” McNary quarterback Josiah Gilbert agrees with his coach. “We’ve just got to be us,” he said. “Last year (in the play- offs) I feel like we tried to do too much. We know who we are. We have our identity and we’ve just got to stick with it and play hard.” The Celtics have lost in the fi rst round of the playoffs each of the past two seasons. “We have to get through that perspective that we’re just happy to be here,” Auvinen said. “We’d like to compete and get after it and do some good things. The last few years we’ve fallen fl at on our face in the playoffs. Last year, we gave up 21 points in the snap of a fi nger and then (played) even the rest of the game. You can’t do that (fall behind 21-0) in the playoffs, ever.” Tigard lost in the second round last season and played for the state championship in 2014, falling to Central Cath- olic. This time around, the Ti- gers enter the playoffs as the 14-seed. “I think they’re a little bet- ter than that but it’s hard to tell sometimes on fi lm,” Auvinen said. On offense, Tigard has a senior quarterback in Ryan Worthley, whose biggest weapon is Braden Lenzy, a ju- nior wide receiver with schol- arship offers from Univer- sity of Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA and many others. But Auvinen is more concerned with the Tigers collection of running backs. “He’s (Worthley) not the strength of their team so we’ll make him beat us and their re- ceivers beat us and see how it goes,” Auvinen said. McNary Varsity Football (6-3) SEASON STATS PASSING YARDS 1750 TD 20 CARRIES 109 Lucas Garvey Josiah Gilbert 122 Marc Baiza 67 Xavier Martinez 25 AJ Johnk 28 Brendan Van Voorhis 14 YARDS 530 499 202 92 215 90 TD 2 8 2 1 2 0 RECEIVING REC 27 36 13 8 6 2 YARDS 843 351 184 117 63 16 TD 13 4 0 1 1 1 PATs 24/28 FG 4/7 LONG 35 yds Josiah Gilbert C/ATT 113/214 RUSHING Brendan Van Voorhis Josh Benson Lucas Garvey Jonathan Williams Kyle McCallister Xavier Martinez KICKING AJ Johnk INT 9 Please see TIGARD, Page 12 McNary soccer teams fall in fi rst round of state Lady Celts shorthanded at Sherwood By DEREK WILEY Of the Keizertimes McNary’s fi rst trip to the girls soccer state playoffs since 2009 ended in the fi rst round as the Lady Celts lost to No. 3 Sherwood 7-0 on Saturday, Oct. 29. MHS went into the game shorthanded, missing sopho- more starters Natalie Gonza- lez and Anita Lao, who were out with injuries. At Sher- wood, the Lady Celts lost another sophomore player in the 15th minute as Katy Wyatt went down with a knee injury with the game tied 0-0. Please see FALL, Page 11 Celtics come up short at No. 3 Jesuit Submitted/Andre Panse McNary senior Kolbie Kopp helped lead the Lady Celts to the playoffs for the fi rst time since 2009. By DEREK WILEY Of the Keizertimes McNary gave one of the top boys soccer teams in the state a scare but couldn’t quite pull the upset as the Celtics fell 2-1 at No. 3 Jesuit on Saturday, Oct. 29 in the fi rst round of the playoffs. “Our boys played re- ally, really good,” MHS head coach Miguel Camarena said. “They stepped up their game. We had our chances. Unfortunately, they didn’t go through.” Jesuit, which has advanced to at least the quarterfi nals of the state tournament each of the past three seasons, scored its fi rst goal against McNary in the fourth minute and dominated the fi rst 20 min- utes of the game. But a string of substitu- tions, bringing sophomores Jose Luis Bravo and Miguel Bravo in off the bench and moving forward Luis Lopez back, evened play. The Celtics took control in the second half but Jesuit caught a break, getting a pen- alty kick with 15 minutes re- maining to extend its lead to 2-0. With fi ve minutes to go, Gustavo Villalvazo had a long kick bounce off the Crusader goalkeeper’s hands, which Michael Reyes fi nished for McNary’s only goal. “I’m just proud of the guys for their effort,” Ca- marena said. With the season over, Ca- marena had mixed fi xings. He pointed to ties to Alo- ha and Newberg early in the season as games where Mc- Nary blew leads. With a 5-6-3 record, the Celtics had to win a play-in game to even get into the state tournament. “There were games we should win, games where we were ahead and didn’t hold the lead,” Camarena said. “There were mistakes that cost us points. When you had opportunities to win games and it didn’t happen, that hurts. On the other hand, it’s time to recover and get ready for next season.”
