TALK ABOUT A competitive advantage.
Sequim football coach Erik Wiker doesn’t just have the best quarterback on the North Olympic Peninsula in Drew Rickerson.
He may very well have No. 2 as well.
Frank Catelli — the Wolves’ starting tight end, defensive end and backup quarterback — has all the physical tools a coach would want in a QB.
He’s big and physical at 6-foot-4, 220 pounds, but quick and agile enough to move around in the pocket or tuck it and run.
Oh, and then there’s his rocket arm.
There probably isn’t a quarterback in the state that has a prettier deep ball than Catelli. And he throws it with incredible distance and (now) accuracy.
“Frank would start for 97.9 percent of the teams in the state,” Wiker said after the Wolves’ 58-7 win over Forks on Friday.
“He has gotten a lot better, I mean just tremendously better by spring.”
Catelli ran for two touchdowns and threw for another when he lined up at quarterback Friday.
He also caused an interception on defense when he leveled Forks signal caller Brian Santman just as he threw the football.
“He can play at the next level,” Wiker said, speculating that a school like Idaho or Montana could use him as a tight end, defensive end or, perhaps, quarterback.
Yet with Rickerson ahead of him on the Wolves’ depth chart, fans only get tiny glimpses of Catelli under center.
That’s with good reason, given the efficiency with which Rickerson runs Sequim’s spread pistol offense.
The 6-foot-1 junior completed nearly 60 percent of his passes (143-of-241) as a starter last fall.
He was even better on Friday, hooking up with receivers on 10-of-14 throws for 98 yards and two touchdowns.
“Our first team wasn’t in there real long, but when we were, we executed very well,” Rickerson said.
“The reads were working fine and the routes were good. Everything is clicking on all cylinders already.”
Wiker said he plans to use Catelli as a change-of-pace quarterback this fall.
(Yes, apparently such a thing exists.)
First comes the Porsche (slick and precise Rickerson), then the Hummer (bulldozing big-play man Catelli).
“He can huck it and run it, he’s got [the deep ball] and he can run it right down your throat,” Wiker said.
“He brings something different. When he comes in you’ve got to watch more quarterback runs and more deep balls. And he can throw the little ones, too.”
Sounds like a lot of fun for Wiker, who’s always fond of talking about his toys.
As for defenses, not so much.
Rider champions
Forgive me, 1985 Port Angeles girls tennis team.
After 25 years — heck, even 15 — your state title was forgotten.
In my massive retrospective on the 2000 Port Angeles boys soccer team last Sunday, I omitted the ’85 Roughrider girls tennis team as the lone team state champion in school history.
Unfortunately, sports like tennis, wrestling, golf, track and swimming tend to be remembered more for individual achievements than team ones.
In fact, in all of my research for the boys soccer articles, each of the PDN archives from 2000 never mentioned a AA girls tennis crown in 1985.
Even then, we reported that the best finish for a Port Angeles team at state was second (boys basketball in 1966, girls basketball in ’86 and boys soccer in ’00).
The ’85 Riders girls won the AA crown — equal to 3A now — after it put two doubles teams in the final: Mary Dill-Carolyn Crist and Leigh Morgan-Nicole Ostrowski.
Dill-Crist ended up winning the match 7-6, 6-2, and the Riders edged out Sedro Woolley in team points, 20-18.
A special thanks to Rider wrestling coach Erik Gonzalez for alerting me of the error.
Conference call
• The Class 2A/3A Olympic League went 3-5 in its first round of nonleague games, with two coming against 1A teams.
• The 1A Nisqually League was 4-4 in its nonleague slate. Flagship program Cascade Christian scored an impressive 34-21 win over Nooksack Valley.
• The SWL Evergreen Division was 3-4 (minus the Hoquiam-Aberdeen game).
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Matt Schubert is the outdoors and sports columnist for the Peninsula Daily News. His column regularly appears on Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at matt.schubert@peninsuladailynews.com.