Steve Gress: Lebanon a surprise at 2-0 Comments
The Lebanon Warriors announced their presence in the race for the Mid-Willamette Conference football title on Friday night.
That puts the Warriors, who edged South Albany last week 27-21 with a last-second touchdown, in a tie for second with West Albany.
The Warriors and Bulldogs are behind Crescent Valley (5-0, 3-0), which has played one more conference game.
CV travels to Lebanon next Thursday in a game that will put one of them in position to challenge West Albany for the title.
The Bulldogs have not dropped a conference game since reclassification three-plus seasons ago.
After struggling to a 7-7 tie at the half with Woodburn a week ago, West Albany throttled Silverton on Friday. WA was up 33-6 before winning 40-26.
CV rolled to a 42-6 win over Dallas.
Corvallis has a long road ahead as it has just one more home game, in two weeks against Silverton.
The Spartans should get a win next week at Woodburn, but those Bulldogs have played better this year. They were up 10-0 at CV before losing 47-10, and on Friday night they led 12-6 against South Albany and were down 29-20 at the half before falling 49-20.
“We just need to get ready for Woodburn and learn from this, grow, stick together and have great attitudes going into practice,” CHS coach Chris McGowan said after Friday’s loss.
The Spartans have the ability to be a good team. They had a few catchable balls fall incomplete on Friday, and had those been caught, they could have seized the momentum.
But Lebanon looked good, both running and passing the ball the few times they attempted a pass.
Avants completed six of his eight attempts for 75 yards, including two for scores.
And while the Warriors struggled last year to a 2-8 overall record and 1-6 mark in the MWC, they are just two years removed from a state semifinal appearance, so coach Rob Allen and staff know how to coach.
And Avants and Tance Privratsky, who rushed for 120 yards and burst up the middle for most of those yards, are both juniors.
That could mean good things not only for this year, but next year as well.
But first they must not get ahead of themselves or go in too confident next Thursday.
The Raiders have done exactly what they expected this year, winning big the games they should, and getting past Silverton last week in a barnburner.
What made last week such a good win was that the Raiders overcame so many adverse situations to win in the final 30 seconds.
I wish I could see the game but I will be on the road to San Francisco for a missions trip with my church’s youth group.
But I will throw out a prediction after having seen both teams now: CV 30, Lebanon 27.
![[Post to Twitter]](http://sports.mvourtown.com/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter.png){kind=icon}
Related posts:
