Eagles have a tough act to follow

Talk about leaving yourself a tough act to follow.It's not like the 2000-edition Klahowya Secondary School football team won twice as many games as any team in school history. Or three times as many, or even four.Try seven times as many in a 7-2 season that saw the Eagles fall one minigame playoff short of a spot in the state Class 2A tournament.Pretty heady stuff. Storybook, indeed, for a program which had won just once in 27 previous starts.For the first time, expectations are high for the little football team from the Big Green Barn on Newberry Hill.Four years of building - the first two by now-Shorewood head coach Jeff Weible, the most recent two (including that 7-2 doozy) by Brad Hamblet - have resulted in a monster that Hamblet now must contend with.Success at Klahowya was unprecedented until the 2000 Eagles set the precedent in a big way. The Eags had their way last year with all comers except state-ranked Orting and Eatonville and, in a fateful 18-0 district playoff loss, Port Townsend.Hamblet has something to shoot for now, something that goes way beyond mere respectability. His problem is that the 2001 Klahowya team is a very different one than last year's star-studded bunch.It's true, we lost a lot, Hamblet understated of a graduation-day tsunami that washed away most of his starters on both sides of the ball, including all-everything quarterback Ryan Williams, starting running backs Eric Mischenko, Aaron Killoran and Brad Sprout and defensive standouts Josh Rost, Brett Palmer and Gabe Stephens.Among others. Many, many others.The players on this year's Klahowya roster have taken precious few varsity snaps. But they have a year or two of tutelage in Hamblet's system, they practiced daily against their elders all last season, and they've basked alongside them in the spotlights' glow.They want to carry on the legacy that (last year's) seniors left behind, Hamblet says of his young group. They understand what we're out here to do. They experienced that success, and they're itching to experience it again on their own.For his part, Hamblet recites the same sermon he gave his 2000 team before it started its season with a four-game winning streak and went undefeated at Silverdale Stadium:If we do what we're supposed to do, things will work for us.So, Hamblet doesn't have the blazing speed of Mischenko, the bruising inside attack of Killoran, the versatility of Sprout or the plain ol' hard-nosed, get-it-done attitude of the superbly talented Williams. He doesn't have a lot of the three-year veterans on the line who made a routine of knocking opponents on their backsides.But he thinks he might have some players who can do what they're supposed to do. And that, he says, might be enough.One offensive dimension this year's Eagles will have that last year's lacked is an aerial attack. Williams, for all his gifts, didn't throw the ball that Jared Ottmar throws.Being able to throw this year allows us to do a whole lot more, says Hamblet, whose 2000 team was so good on the ground it almost never had to pass, even though opposing teams stacked the line of scrimmage like Wal-Mart shelves. There's no way they'll be able to put eight or nine guys in the box against us this year. If they do, they'll pay a price.Ottmar will have newcomer Charlie Merry to throw to, and two-year veteran Rory Lee to hand to. Hamblet says Lee isn't as fast as Mischenko (who was?) or as strong as Killoran (ditto), but has many of the attributes of both.He's a little different runner (than Mischenko) from the tailback spot, Hamblet says. Mischenko was fast, but Rory's a little bigger, a little stronger.Up front, junior Dusty Rasmussen (who started late and will be ineligible for Friday's season opener against Foster) has the most varsity experience. He'll play tackle and possibly move over to tight end. Kyle Whitehead and Scott Brougher both came on strong at the end of last year, when they were needed because of injuries, and 240-pound Thomas Pearle - who's got 20 pounds on anybody who played for the Eagles last year - could become a prized lead blocker.He's a load, Hamblet says of the junior tackle. We're going to rely on him quite a bit.With all that newness, could another winning season be in the offing? Hamblet isn't ruling it out.After all, the precedent has been set.

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