Sports & Outdoors

Loggers struggle to gain ground this season

Saturday’s football game in California against Whittier ended in a 48-66 loss for the Loggers, in spite of the 456 yards made by the team. From the score of the game it is apparent that the Loggers fought hard against the Whittier Poets, but lost in the end, making their current record 0-3. Even with another loss, the Loggers still made important game plays throughout the game.

Senior wide receiver Adam Kniffin (Salem, Ore.) was a key player in the Whittier game. During the game, Kniffin broke a 42-year-old school record by catching his career 20-second touchdown. Kniffin caught a 79-yard touchdown pass along with a 50-yard and 25-yard touchdown pass, adding 18 points to the Logger’s score.

At the end of the game Kniffin was six yards away from breaking another Logger football record. He had 216 receiving yards needed 222 to tie the record, which was made in 1982.

He is definitely one of the many players to watch this season. Other important players for the Loggers this game were Cody Petro–Sakuma (Honolulu, Hawaii) and Casey Coberly (Boise, Idaho). Petro-Sakuma led the Logger defense with 13 tackles, and Coberly had 10 tackles. Both were important for the defense during the Whittier game.

The game started well for the Loggers, even though Whittier scored the first touchdown of the game. The Loggers quickly caught up thanks to Kupono Park’s (Waimanalo, Hawaii) run to tie the game 7-7. The Loggers stayed on par with the Whittier Poets ending the first quarter with a score of 14-14.

Within the second quarter, Whittier slowly took the lead away from the Loggers, until Tieler Souza (Camarillo, Calif.) ran 93 yards for a touchdown from a kick off. Souza’s return was the first kick return for a touchdown since 2006. George Kaai (Aiea, Hawaii)  threw a seven-yard touchdown to Ryan Rodgers (Tacoma, Wash.) to try to keep the Loggers in the game. However, Whittier scored several more times during the half and ended the half 42-27 in Whittier’s favor.

“Next week we are heading into conference play, so our sights are completely set on PLU next week. 0-3 isn’t where we wanted to be at this point in the season, but non-league games have no impact on conference standings. We need to take care of a few things and start conference off with a win in order to keep our goals of a conference championship alive,” senior Tyler Vlasak (Sumner, Wash.) said.

The Loggers are not focusing on their most recent losses, but moving ahead in the right direction as they finally begin conference games this weekend on Oct. 1. They will be facing cross-town rivals PLU at Sparks Stadium in Puyallup.