Philomath High football senior standouts Rocco De La Rosa and CD Nuño are both included on the latest all-state football team.
Released last week by OSAAtoday, De La Rosa appears on the first team at both wide receiver and kickoff returner. Nuño is on the second team at linebacker.
De La Rosa, who was named the Special District 3 Player of the Year and is an Oregon State commit, had 39 catches for 629 yards and 11 touchdowns at receiver.
Nuño, who will play collegiately at Boise State following a two-year church mission, was a force on Philomath’s defense in addition to his skills on offense.
De La Rosa, Nuño, AJ Altishin and Jamin Peters were honored earlier on the all-state team published by The Oregonian/OregonLive — a list voted upon by the state’s coaches.
State champion Cascade swept the individual honors with Bryce Kuenzi as Offensive Player of the Year, Matthew Hinkle as Defensive Player of the Year and Shane Hedrick as Coach of the Year.
Basketball rankings, tough schedules
The most-recent installments of the OSAAtoday coaches polls both have Philomath in the top 10.
Stayton and Philomath continue to be the top two girls basketball teams in the state. In the poll released at the beginning of this week, the Warriors were at No. 2 behind the unbeaten Eagles. Philomath has lost twice this season with those losses coming to the top two teams in 5A — No. 1 South Albany and No. 2 Crater (the Warriors have a win over 5A’s No. 5 team, West Albany).
In case you’re not aware, Stayton is the defending state champion, beating Philomath in last season’s championship game. And the Eagles and Warriors are both members of the Oregon West Conference. The two schools will meet for the first time this season on Jan. 30 at Stayton. The return game falls on Philomath’s Senior Night on Feb. 20.
Philomath’s girls will play two fewer conference games than expected with North Marion opting to not participate in Oregon West Conference matchups. The Huskies are 0-4 with their last loss coming to Scappoose, 79-2. North Marion has replaced Oregon West opponents with teams from smaller schools.
The Warriors should see top competition with their Dec. 26-30 appearance at a tournament in Huntington Beach, California.
In the boys’ rankings, the Warriors were ranked No. 10 heading into yesterday’s games. The team that Philomath defeated, Junction City, was tied at No. 3.
The road doesn’t get any easier for Blake Ecker’s ballclub. The Warriors are on a three-game winning streak but will be challenged with two games this weekend in Scappoose. First up will be a Saturday matchup with Marshfield, the other team tied for No. 3 in the rankings. Then on Sunday, the Warriors will go up against No. 1 Scappoose.
By the way, the Oregon West’s Newport is ranked No. 5 with a 4-1 record. As Ecker said during the preseason, the conference will be up for grabs this season with no one team standing out heads and shoulders above the rest.
Wrestling team’s upcoming tourney
Philomath High’s wrestlers are in the midst of a nine-day break from competition. After competing last weekend in the Grants Pass Winter Kickoff, the Warriors will next take to the mats on Dec. 29-30 at the Northwest Duals.
The tournament will take place at the Linn County Expo Center, which is located on Knox Butte Road East in Albany. The tournament director, incidentally, is Casey Horn, a former Oregon State wrestler who has been the coach at West Albany since 2009. His dad, John Horn, is well-known in the wrestling community.
According to a list of teams that appears at trackwrestling.com, the tournament will feature 40 schools. Philomath coach Troy Woosley said during a preseason interview that the Warriors will do better in tournament settings vs. head-to-head matchups because of a lack of entries in some weight classes.
“We will be really strong in a lot of the weights but with 14 weights, if you forfeit three of them, you’re already down three matches,” he said at the time. “We’ll be an all-right dual team but we’re not going to be great.”
Varsity regulars so far this season have been Braydon Williams (132), Lukas Hernandez (144), Odin Compton (138), Riley Barrett (150, 157), Rowan Jessen (165), Porter Compton (165), Liam Bennett (165, 175), Lake Mulberry (190) and Derick Kohn (215). A handful of other wrestlers have appeared in various meets and could impact Philomath’s dual lineup.
It was good to see Barrett back on the mat in Grants Pass. Barrett has an 8-0 record (a medical forfeit to an Alaska wrestler in the finals of the Perry Burlison Invitational does not count against him). He sat out the Warrior Classic but followed with a first-place showing at Grants Pass, winning in the championship match over the host school’s Zane Hill on a 5-3 decision.
Barrett is trying to make PHS wrestling history this season as the school’s first three-time state champion and four-time state placer.
By the way, the Benton County Championships, hosted by Philomath, are scheduled for Jan. 8. This meet had most often in the past been staged during the last week of December.
(Brad Fuqua is publisher/editor of the Philomath News. He can be reached at News@PhilomathNews.com).