PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Only West Linn, Sheldon, North Salem, and Westview remain.
The 6A football season will conclude on Friday with both the 6A Championship and the Columbia Cup taking place at Hillsboro Stadium. Both games will also be broadcast on Portland’s CW, your home for local sports.
6A State Championship
Thankfully, we don’t have to wonder too hard about how Sheldon and West Linn will match up against each other.
“I’ve been looking forward to this since week two,” said West Linn quarterback Sam Leavitt with a grin.
In that week, Sheldon and West Linn faced off with Sheldon winning, 35-31.
As you can tell, it’s a rematch the Lions are excited about.
“They really did us a favor,” said West Linn head coach Jon Eagle of Sheldon. “They exposed a lot of things that we needed to do better. We’re very thankful for Sheldon coming up to West Linn and beating us. We did say, you never know, we might play them again, so here we are.”
As for Sheldon, this opportunity is something the team has been working towards for quite some time.
Last season, the Irish were bounced from the playoffs in the second round to the tune of a 40-7 loss to Lakeridge.
“You can go back to January when we had our beginning of the season team meeting that the kids called for a lot earlier than we typically have it,” said Sheldon head coach Josh Line. “None of them were really happy with the way the season ended last year. They had a really strong desire to get back to work and fix the problems that we had.”
As for the play on the field?
This is bound to be a quarterback dual between the Lions’ Sam Leavitt and the Irish’s Brock Thomas.
Leavitt finished the regular season as the second most prolific passer in the state this year with 2,326 passing yards and Thomas right behind at 2,310 passing yards.
West Linn and Sheldon face off at 3 PM on Portland’s CW.
Columbia Cup
In years past, the OSAA has advanced 32 6A teams to the playoffs. This year, they decided to send the top 16 teams to the state championship bracket and the bottom 16 teams to a lower bracket, thus the invention of the Columbia Cup.
The result? Number 17-seeded Westview facing off against number 28-seeded North Salem on Friday.
“It’s a blessing, man. Mostly because it’s my senior year, and I got an extra four games when other teams weren’t able to play more. I’m super glad,” said North Salem wide receiver Erick Gonzalez.
Like the championship game, the Columbia Cup will most likely feature a battle between two of the best in the state at their positions.
North Salem running back Josiah Davis was injured last week against Liberty and will be a game time decision. He’s been on a tear though in the playoffs, averaging nearly 200 yards per playoff game in the two full games he’s played in. Meanwhile, Westview’s Jordan Fisher is one of only two kids ever in the Beaverton Public School District to rush for over 2,000 yards in a season, the other being Thomas Tyner.
“It’s amazing to see what he’s able to do. I’ve been playing with him since fifth grade, and he gets better and better every single year, and he’s so appreciative of everybody,” said Fisher’s teammate Kaden Huppin. “He never makes you feel like he’s too big. He never lets it go to his head. He’s just a great teammate.”
North Salem and Westview face off on Friday at 11 in the Columbia Cup on Portland’s CW.