Newport stays undefeated

NEWPORT – The Newport Grizzlies football team shut out Columbia of Burbank 22-0 to remain undefeated in a home game Friday, Oct. 17.

“We got the job done but we looked a little flat,” Newport coach Mark Duxbury says. “You’re always concerned about coming off a big win if the team can keep up the energy and focus into the next game.”

Last week Newport beat Freeman by a point in a hard-fought game that came down to the Grizzly defensive stand in the last half minute.

Against Columbia, the Grizzlies scored first, capitalizing on an Ares Swain interception midway through the first quarter. Ares also had a sack.

A dozen plays later Kutter Driver made an 8-yard touchdown run. That was followed up with a 2-point conversion run just before the end of the first quarter.

After stopping Columbia and forcing a punt, Newport used 14 plays to march down the field and score again, this time on a 1-yard quarterback keeper by Brad Martin. Damien Hamburg kicked the extra point.

Duxbury thought the offense could have been better.

“Not our best game offensively,” he says, although the team did control the clock with long drives. But the team didn’t execute the 2-minute offense very well just before the half. He says the Grizzlies had the opportunity to score a third time but made some crucial mistakes.

Newport scored again on their first drive in the second half following a 72yard, 11-play drive capped with a short Driver TD run followed by a successful Hamburg PAT kick.

Defensively, the Grizzlies dominated, holding the Coyotes to 94 yards total offense – 71 rushing yards and 23 passing yards.

Newport’s offense was effective, with 342 yards, including 293 yards rushing and 49 yards passing.

Driver accounted for 174 of those rushing yards, carrying 30 times. Jacob Reimers carried nine times for 61 yards, Preston Wacenske gained 22 yards on four carries, Martin had five carries for 21 yards and Gavin Hunt-Estrada had three carries for 17 yards.

Martin completed three of four passes, for 49 yards. Aidan Kramer caught one for 27 yards, Driver had one for 15 yards and Dylan Aubrey had one reception 8 yards.

Newport’s game with Chewelah was canceled after Chewelah didn’t have enough healthy players. Newport’s last regular season game will be at Reardan next Friday. Reardan is coming off a 44-7 loss to Freeman.

Duxbury says Newport had costly penalties against Columbia.

“The second half we had several penalties on offense that killed two drives,” Duxbury says. “We need to clean that up for our last league game this week against Reardan.”

The Reardan game will be played Friday, Oct. 24, starting at 7 p.m.