Offensive line key to Archbishop Murphy’s success

EVERETT — It takes a special player to play on the offensive line. As a rule, you need to be big, strong, agile and smart, and have a willingness to bash your body against other big brutes for four quarters of a football game.

And when you do your job right, someone else gets the credit.

As every offensive lineman knows, that’s just how it is. You throw a great block to open a hole for a running back to scamper through for a touchdown, and it’s the guy with the ball who gets his name called by the stadium announcer and then gets mentioned again in the next day’s newspaper.

But for all their anonymity, offensive linemen are to a football team like spark plugs to a car. If you don’t have good ones, you’re not going anywhere.

On Saturday, the Archbishop Murphy football team plays for a Class 2A state championship at the Tacoma Dome. The Wildcats are in the title game for a lot of reasons, and one of them is the steady play of the team’s senior-laden offensive line.

«A huge factor in our success has been that our offensive line has jelled and been so supportive of each other,» Archbishop Murphy head coach Dave Ward said. «They’re a very confident, kind of cerebral bunch. They think alike, they get along and they work together well … and that’s a tribute to the seniors.»

The funny thing is, a lot of offensive linemen love their jobs. Because even though it’s a lot less glamorous than being, say, the quarterback, it’s no less gratifying.

«You get to hit people really hard on every play, and I enjoy that a lot,» said Jordan Trinka, a 5-11, 230-pound senior offensive tackle. «Even if you don’t get any recognition, just seeing the running back get into the end zone is enough for me. That’s all I care about. «

«If we dominate week in and week out and do what we’re supposed to do, eventually we’ll get recognized,» agreed Riker Hale, a 6-foot, 215-pound senior offensive guard.

«We’re all one team and we’re all playing for one common goal,» added Kyle Mulvaney, a 6-2, 190-pound senior offensive guard and defensive tackle. «And if we win as a team, that’s enough for me.»

Archbishop Murphy reached the state championship game a year ago (the Wildcats lost to Tumwater 34-14 with a bevy of talented senior linemen, including Taniela Tupou, who was recruited to play at the University of Washington. But with those players graduated, «everybody said, ‘Oh, all your big studs are gone this year, you’re not going to be very good,’» recalled James Peckham, a 6-4, 270-pound offensive tackle. «So we wanted to prove them wrong.»

This season Peckham and Trinka are the starting offensive tackles, with Riker and Michael Pursley the starting guards. Ryan Kouchajki is the starting center and the only junior of the bunch.

Mulvaney and Sam Shober, another senior, play some on offense, but are full-time starters on the defensive line.

All of them remember the sting of losing last season’s title game to Tumwater. It was «extremely disappointing,» said the 5-10, 180-pound Pursley. «We never wanted to have that feeling again. It kind of resonated with us up until today.»

Having a lot of seniors on a playoff squad is an obvious benefit, Ward pointed out, «because if you don’t have senior leadership, it’s rare to go far in the playoffs. You can get (to the playoffs with a young team, but I think a young team needs to experience it once before they can really understand what it takes (to win a title.»

Against Tumwater last year, «they had some seniors that made us look bad,» he went on. But this year «we have some seniors that have been there, and they kind of have a strong sense of what they going to have to deal with.»

Archbishop Murphy has reached the state semifinals four years in a row, but the Wildcats have not won a championship since the 2002 and 2003 teams won back-to-back titles. The Wildcats lost in the semis in 2008 and 2009 and were beaten in the championship game by Tumwater last season.

A victory Saturday «would mean so much to me,» Peckham said. «All four years we’ve been here, all the workouts, everything we’ve done in the summer (training, all of it, and then as seniors to go out with a big bang, it would just mean so much.

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