Gold Beach football’s run in the post season came to an end Saturday afternoon after making it to the second round of post-season play and making the long trek to Colton Oregon, to take on the Colton Vikings.
The 5-1 Vikings came into the match-up coming off a convincing 50-0 win over #14 Toledo, after finishing the regular season with 317 offensive points in 7 games while touting a defense that allowed only 148 points against them, and it was their defense that dominated Saturday’s game against the #6, Gold Beach Panthers.
The Vikings scored in first period after driving down inside the Gold Beach 5 yard line to take a 6-0 lead. The game then became a defensive stand-off in the second and third periods as the Panthers defense shut down any passing game attempted by the Vikings.
However, the Viking running game was successful on the ground, rushing for over 300 of the Colton Vikings 331 total yards of offense after the strong Panther defense forced 3 Viking fumbles for turn-overs.
But the Panthers just could not get the breakaway big plays that propelled them to leads all season long as the Colton defense kept the game in front of them, holding the vaunted Panther run game to just 19 yards and only 112 yards of total offense in the game. Another Colton score in the fourth quarter would put the Vikings up 12-0 and sending onto the third round.
Talking with Panther head coach Chris Higgins after the game, he told the Wild Coast Compass, “Colton just came out to play, and we couldn’t seem to get it going offensively. I feel we are the better team, but they had a better day. The battle was won by them up front on both sides of the ball. We had a couple of key players come out with concussions and just couldn’t find an answer to put the ball in the endzone.”
“Once you hit the playoffs, you have to either win it all or go home disappointed that it’s all over. You spend 75 percent of your time as a big family, from summer camp thru the end of the season an we end up spending more time with each other than we do our own families during the season, and to have it all end suddenly is a tough thing to swallow.” he said.
“Each year we go into a new season knowing we’re losing some special kids that won’t be coming back to our program when we start back up in the spring.. This year we’re losing 5 great kids with tremendous hearts and personalities, but they will always have a place in this Panther family. These kinds of things are hard to get over and will take some time to process for all of us.”
“Even though it didn’t feel good on how we went out and ended this great season, I am very proud of all the hard work our kids put in this season, and I know we will be back next year bigger, faster, and stronger than we were this year. Now it’s time for the kids to move on to the next sport while I get to spend more time at home as a husband and a father. It’s a bitter sweet feeling, but we will be prepared more than ever going into summer camp, and the Gold Beach Panthers will be ready to make a run at the State title. Our community can count on that!!”
