KM Trophy in Naselle for first time since 1995

By KEVIN HEIMBIGNER

Observer sports writer

 

 NASELLE – Clinging to a 13-12 lead with less than five minutes to play Naselle mounted a 10-play, 68-yard touchdown drive to whip Wahkiakum 21-12 in the KM Trophy game Friday at Rueben Penttila Field. The Comets last defeated the football team from Cathlamet in 1995 when the present seniors were four years old and a few freshmen weren’t even born.

 

Coach Jeff Eaton remembers some of the players on that squad and Ilwaco coach Kevin McNulty, a Comets graduate, remembers how Naselle had been competitive with the Mules in the 1980s. “We beat them in overtime once when I was playing and we kicked them pretty good a few times in the mid-1980s,” McNulty states.

 Eaton says, “There were several times when we could have won, but barely lost.” In 1987 the Comets lost 20-19 in overtime when the Mules scored a touchdown and went for two and made the conversion after Naselle had taken a 19-12 lead. “We had several chances last year to beat (Wahkiakum), but fumbles stopped us and they took advantage of an injury late in the game to put it away 13-0,” Eaton says of 2008.

 So the life-size bronzed football sits atop the K-M trophy west of the mountain between Pacific and Wahkiakum Counties that it is named after and with Naselle’s name engraved on it for the first time in 14 seasons. McNulty remembers, “One year they were so confident that Cathlamet would win that they already had it engraved, but we beat them. That was nice.”

 And Sept. 18 a new rivalry, dubbed the Bear River Battle, will be staged in Naselle between the Comets and Ilwaco. The coaches are old friends and the Fishermen won in a landslide 43-14 last season, but this is a new year and anything could happen.

 In the meantime Naselle will visit Warrenton with the Columbia River at stake and Ilwaco will host South Bend with Willapa Bay as the prize. The weather is expected to be in the high 70s at the 7 p.m. kickoff time for both contests.