King's Looks to Rebound Against Friday Harbor in Playoffs

The King’s football regular season came to a disappointing end last Friday with a 35-14 loss to 2A power Archbishop Murphy, but the Knights are already looking forward to their district 1 playoff matchup with Friday Harbor at 5:30 p.m. Friday at Woolsey Stadium.

King’s surprised many by upsetting then fifth-ranked Lakewood earlier in the season, but the magic did not repeat against Archbishop Murphy in a game that would decide the 1A/2A league championship. The Knights fell behind 22-0 at halftime and never got seriously into the game.

“We didn’t execute to the best of our ability, but we didn’t play bad either,” King’s head coach Jim Shapiro said. “It just wasn’t one of our better nights.”

The loss may end up being a good thing for the young Knights team, whose only other loss came in a mistake-ridden 34-27 defeat against Cedarcrest in week four. After that game, the team focused on the negatives that had led to the loss and vowed to change them. Shapiro said he expects the loss to Archbishop Murphy to be the same kind of motivator.

“Losing is never easy, but I know the Cedarcrest game was a really good motivator for us, we learned some things about ourselves and I anticipate, after talking to the kids a little bit today, that the Archbishop game is going to be the same fuel for us going into the playoffs,” Shapiro said.

However King’s ends up responding to the defeat, the Knights don’t have time to dwell on the loss, as the district playoffs start this Friday. King’s will host Friday Harbor in the district 1 playoff game, hoping to advance to the district 3 playoffs and then on to the state tournament.

The start of the playoffs is an anxious time for any team, but maybe more so for a King’s program that has suffered back-to-back quarterfinal losses the last two years. The Knights led a huge lead against Nooksack Valley slip away two years ago before falling 42-34 to Meridian in the 2010 quarterfinals.

Most of the leaders from last years’ team are gone and Shapiro said this year’s team has a different outlook on the importance of the playoffs and the goals for the team.

“When Thomas and Curtis and those guys were here, our big dream was to make it to the Tacoma Dome and that was kind of their Holy Grail and, obviously we fell short two straight years,” Shapiro said. “This year’s team, I wouldn’t say that making it to the T-Dome is not important to them, but they have a different mindset about it. It’s really kind of this week-to-week desire to compete and win. It’s less about the destination and more about the journey and the trip that they get to experience every week and every day in practice…I’m not going to change that. I’m not going to talk about the T-Dome, I’m going to talk about what they’ve already embraced and that every week is a championship week.”

This Week’s Breakdown: Friday Harbor does not appear to present much of a challenge for the Knights after finishing the season 3-5. Friday Harbor has recorded wins over respectable teams, but is coming off of a 36-35 loss to Lynden Christian, a team it beat by 20 earlier in the year. With King’s healthy and ready to avenge a big loss, the Knights should roll in this one.

King’s 35, Friday Harbor 17.