Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
KENNEWICK--The always-intense rivalry between the Reardan Indians and Davenport Gorillas reached another level in 2005, with the two schools facing off twice, once in the regular season and once in the state semifinals. This week, The Times looks back to the state 2B semifinal matchup where Reardan exacted revenge for its regular season home loss to Davenport, rolling 29-7 over the rival Gorillas. The win sent the Indians to the state championship, where they would defeat DeSales 14-10 to become state champions. The look back is told through the eyes of players and coaches from both teams.
The game was played in the Tri-Cities, despite both schools being within a 15-minute drive of each other. The weather was warm and breezy for a December.
Mike Perry (former Davenport assistant coach, now superintendent of Arlee Public schools in Montana): I do remember it being warm. I remember our kids cramping up. I think both teams struggled with that, because up in Reardan and Davenport it was a little bit colder.
The game wasn’t as close as Davenport’s 29-22 victory over Reardan in the regular season had been. Reardan held a 13-0 lead at halftime. The Indians had several advantages throughout the game, including an injury to Davenport quarterback Kyle Nelson and the Gorillas failing to take advantage of a first-half scoring opportunity.
Jim Shillam (former Davenport offensive coordinator, now a high school business teacher and football and baseball coach in the Dallas area): Early in the game, we had a good opportunity to score and take the lead. Kyle threw a pretty good deep ball, but our receiver couldn’t connect with him. He probably would’ve scored, had he caught the ball. That kind of was a letdown at the time.
When Kyle got hurt, I think he got hurt in the second quarter, that was a big blow to us. Our entire offense ran through that kid…When he went down, that kind of limited a lot of what we could do.
Davenport had changed its offense from a Wing T to more shotgun action. Reardan adjusted by covering the center and having middle linebacker Bob Christerson track Davenport’s star running back, Luke Rodenbough.
Eric Nikkola (Reardan head football coach): I don’t know if they thought they would catch us getting prepared for what they had run before, but they changed some of their offensive philosophy, and either they hadn’t perfected it or wasn’t running it as smooth as they thought it would. We also changed our defense, and we protected our middle linebacker a heck of a lot more than we did the first time around.
Rodenbough (now lives in Greeley, Colorado and works in oil fields as a pipe welder): We didn’t have any answer to the way they covered our center, so we couldn’t run our blocking schemes.
Shillam: It seemed like wherever Luke went, he (Christerson) went. His job was to make sure Luke didn’t beat him. That really hampered us, because he was effective at it. That was a wrinkle to their defense they didn’t have in the first game.
Perry: We kind of switched up, and I think we lost sight a little bit of who our players were. One of the biggest things in coaching is knowing who your personnel are and making your offense fit that. I think we went away from that a little bit.
Offensively, Reardan was led by senior quarterback Eric Everett and Christerson, who also played running back. Everett ran for two touchdowns and threw for another, while Christerson added a 12-yard score. The turf field gave the Indians an advantage.
Everett (former Reardan quarterback/cornerback, now lives in the Cheney area and works for Nutrien Ag Solutions): They always say you’re quicker on turf. I know Bob, he was one of the fastest, biggest backs that I’d seen at that level of high school football. I had some mobility as a quarterback, which helped me be successful.
Rodenbough: Our linebackers were pretty fast, but Eric Everett is a hell of a quarterback. There’s a reason he was the state player of the year.
The Indians pulled away from the Gorillas, with a 36-yard touchdown run on a quarterback draw by Everett providing Reardan’s statement on the victory.
Nikkola: We had been just pounding the ball over and over and over repeatedly up the middle, and we came out and we spread them way out. I think everybody stood as if we were passing, and I think there was quite a few folks going, ‘what is Coach Nik doing?’ It was just a quarterback draw…we motioned our running back out of there. Their middle linebacker stepped right up to the line of scrimmage, because his responsibility was the quarterback. He just gave our center just enough angle to block him, and there was nobody in the middle. As soon as he stepped up, I knew this thing was going for big yards.
Everett: It was kind of a quick design, spread everyone out. We saw what they were doing when we’d run trips or two receivers out. We saw a spot. I think our coach, Casey Doyle in the booth, pointed it out. We ran that play earlier in the season against Ritzville and had good success with it.
Reardan had exacted revenge for Davenport’s victory on the Indians’ home field en route to the state title.
Everett: That was a game you don’t lose, and we hadn’t lost to them in my career yet. To do it at Reardan, to lose at Reardan, was definitely something we held onto (and) we remembered in that semifinal game. It wasn’t going to happen again.
Nikkola: Our kids still remembered that loss from earlier in the season…that game, sure I was nervous, but I had a good feeling that my kids were going to respond well and win that game. That was the kind of payback or revenge, or whatever you want to call it; they needed to win that game and they knew it.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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