Stakes much higher for Wayne, Tolsia
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
By RICK RYAN - The Charleston Gazette
Seven weeks ago, neighboring rivals Wayne and Tolsia thought they were playing for the county championship. Little did they know they’d revisit their rivalry under slightly different circumstances.
Welcome to the Wayne County Bowl, otherwise known as the Class AA state championship.
Only three high schools can be found in Wayne County, and two of them — No. 3 Wayne (11-2) and No. 4 Tolsia (11-2) — clash for a West Virginia title Friday night in Wheeling. (AAA Spring Valley is the other county school.)
It’s the first time two schools from the same county have squared off for a title since DuPont and Capital met in the 1993 AAA finals at Laidley Field.
Normally, teams meeting for a championship hail from different parts of the state and know little about each other. That rule, however, doesn’t apply this time. The Pioneers and Rebels know one another quite well — too well, perhaps.
“I’m sure it’s a tough situation for both teams,’’ said Wayne coach Tom Harmon. “You’re in a pickle. Do you continue to do the things that got you to this point, or do you stretch out a little bit and do something that might catch a familiar opponent off guard? I’m sure both teams are going to stick with what they do best.’’
Tolsia coach Drew Waller realizes the teams may resort to deception in order to mask their true intentions — a gridiron cat-and-mouse game, if you will.
“We know them pretty well, and they know us pretty well,’’ Waller said, “so it changes a few things. The things that worked real well the first time, they’re probably working to try and take that away from us so, yeah, it kind of changes things around. Maybe try a few different formations, that type of thing.
“But we haven’t changed much all year. We run the football, we run B.J. [Evans]. We rely a lot on our defense. They’ve played pretty good for us. We don’t change a whole lot, but they may.’’
Tolsia has little reason to change its stripes for Friday’s showdown. The Rebels turned Evans loose against Wayne the first time and he responded with a monster 41-carry, 354-yard, four-touchdown effort that sparked his team to a 30-19 win on Oct. 13.
It marked a season-high in yards for Evans, a Kennedy Award dark horse, and also broke Tolsia’s school record. For good measure, Evans also completed 1-of-2 passes for 24 yards as the Rebels racked 404 net yards.
“He ran all over us,’’ Harmon said. “Of the 13 games they played, he ran over us more so than any game they played all year. Not only that, they totally dominated the line of scrimmage. If you do those things, you’re going to win the football game. The credit for that goes to them — they’ve certainly got some horses in there, and they’ve got a coaching staff that knows what to do with them.’’
Harmon wondered aloud about changing his team’s strategy against Tolsia.
“Certainly, we’d liked to hold [Evans] under 350 yards,’’ he said, chuckling, “which is what we couldn’t do the last time. But there’s probably not a lot of different tactics [to use]. Make sure you’re in the right place and when you do get there, you’ve got to make the tackle. If we can do that, it gives us a little better opportunity to win.’’
Some folks might be surprised to see two Wayne County teams meeting in the finals — Wayne has made it this far twice, and this is Tolsia’s first go-round — but Waller said the Rebels held high expectations in August.
“Most of the time, we make a commitment that we want to make the playoffs,’’ he said, “but this year, we decided early in the season that we wanted to play for the state championship. We talked to our kids about it, and we talked to the parents about it.
“We felt like, coming into the season, we had a good-enough nucleus that we could do that. Sometimes during the season you have bumps and bruises and you start to wonder, but those kids stayed with that goal all year. That tells you a little bit about their character, especially our 15 seniors. One thing about them is they’ve played with a lot of heart.’’
