Team that toppled De La Salle was best in state history

Q: In your opinion, what is the best football team in state history?

A: Bellevue, 2004. This was the team that ended the 151-game winning streak of Northern California power De La Salle with a 39-20 triumph at Qwest Field. The Wolverines went on to win the 3A state championship with an undefeated record.

My opinion isn't based on whether this was the best collection of talent in state history but on my belief that this was the most unbeatable team.

The Wolverines were superbly coached, had excellent speed and ran the wing-T offense to near-perfection. It was hard to follow the ball from the press box, so I have plenty of sympathy for all the opponents who tackled the wrong guy.

And yes, the team indeed had plenty of future Division I college players including E.J. Savannah (UW), J.R. Hasty (UW), Stephen Schilling (Michigan), Eric Block (WSU) and Keith Rosenberg (WSU).

Q: Did you hear about the incredible football stat that Zach Keene of 1A Cedar Park Christian of Bothell had this season?

A: Keene, a 5-foot-11, 151-pound senior, caught eight passes and each was for a touchdown. That is the football equivalent of batting a thousand.

Keene is a sprinter who has posted an 11.1-second clocking for 100 meters. His eight TD catches were for 474 yards (59 yards per catch). Cedar Park Christian was 6-3 in the regular season and lost to Lynden Christian in the play-in game for a round-of-16 berth.

Q: Did you see the Rick Reilly column in the current Sports Illustrated about Archbishop Murphy being disqualified from the state 2A football playoffs?

A: I did. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association has hit the big time for its decision to disqualify Murphy because a player had an expired physical. The oversight occurred because coach Terry Ennis, who handled all the details at Murphy, died of prostate cancer Sept. 12.

Reilly's column begins: "The smallest-brained crustaceans are water fleas. The smallest-brained parasites are flatworms. And the smallest-brained mammals are the men and women who run high school athletics in the state of Washington."

Q: I watched a lopsided Seamount League football game this year and the clock was allowed to run in the second half. Is this legal?

A: It's legal enough for me. You saw common sense on display. I've seen this sometimes in the Metro League, too, when a game is a total mismatch. The clock runs in the second half, the dominating team plays substitutes and everyone goes home early.

Q: I've heard that the state cross-country course in Pasco was about 200 meters longer than what it should have been. True?

A: Not according to the man who was in charge of the meet and measured the course.

John Crawford, who just finished his 20th and final year of being in charge of the meet, insists that the course was accurate and said it was measured three times.

"It was a full 5K [5,000 meters]," he said.

Crawford said the cross-country rule book says a course should be measured "where the average runner is going to run." To Crawford, that means one or two meters out from the shortest distance on turns.

Someone else with a measuring wheel can cut corners sharper and get a different figure.

Crawford said there were some major changes made in the course in 2006 but fewer changes this year. He said runners may have taken some extra seconds to get through a new boggy area about 1 ½ miles from the start. Construction of golf cart paths forced the routing through the mushy area.

Noting that some coaches said times were faster at qualifying meets around the state, Crawford replied, "Our course is a little tougher than people think it is." He added, "Who is to say that the courses they ran the previous week were a full 5K themselves?"

He said this year's times "were within what they've always been."

Have a question about high-school sports? Craig Smith will find the answer every Tuesday in The Times. Ask your question in one of the following ways: Voice mail (206-464-8279), snail mail (Craig Smith, Seattle Times Sports, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111) or e-mail csmith@seattletimes.com