It’s not hard to imagine that Marlon and Opeti Tuipulotu may have spoken for the entire Central High football team when expressing their mind set prior to the school’s first 5A contest, a contest won by the Panthers 46-34.
The younger of the pair (Marlon) stated quite simply, “We just weren’t going to lose this game,” while the older shook his head in emphatic assent.
The Tongan brothers, who play both offensive and defensive line, have been touted as part of the Panthers hope in 2014 as Central is one of the smallest school in the 5A class and many are predicting a tough 2014 for the Monmouth School.
Apparently no one thought to tell Central that they were too small to compete and to the dismay of the visiting Bend Lava Bears, the Panthers offensive and defensive line threw themselves a bit of a coming out party.
While the people movers up front were certainly enjoying their first taste of 5A football, none could have enjoyed his evenings work more than running back Wes Riddle.
Riddle compiled an eye popping 317 yards rushing on 36 carries and six touchdowns. Fireworks from Riddle are nothing new to Central fans, but on opening night here in 2014 the senior tailback was simply electric breaking at least two 60+ yard touchdown runs and adding a long catch and run from a nice toss by new West Salem transfer quarterback Doug Clem.
Clem found himself in the unenviable position of playing alongside Cade Smith (the younger brother of Brett Smith, recently released by the Buccaneers) while at West Salem. The senior signal caller transferred to Central at a time when the program was looking for veteran quarterback leadership and his early reviews are encouraging. In his first outing as a Panther, Clem was not asked to extend himself too much but looked solid and competent while completing a little more than half of his passes for around 100 yards while throwing no interceptions nor touchdowns.
Riddle, who was unavailable for post-game comments due to a rather awkward bruise, certainly must have spent a reasonable amount of time thanking his offensive line, a group that continually blew open holes in the lava bear defensive front. In fact if there were an MVP to this game outside of Riddle, it would be the front five of the Panthers offense.
Doomsayers for this year’s Panthers team pointed to the lack of size and experience on this very unit. However, it seemed as though the Panthers were consistently off the ball faster than Bend and seemed to be moving the lava Bears back relatively easily. In fact, in addition to the Tuipulotu brothers, there could be a number of standouts this season on the Central line including the young and exceptionally strong Samuel Cole. Cole weighs in at 6’3″ 240lbs, giving the Panthers some consistency up front for the next couple of years.
While on defense, Marlon Tuipulotu also accounted for an unofficial 5 quarterback sacks; however the Panthers made some specific defensive mistakes that allowed Bend to retake the lead twice in the second half. Furthermore it seemed at times as if the defensive backfield needed some polish. All in all opening-night for Central High School was a rousing success. However, the 413 yards of total offense compiled by the Panthers (1-0) in their first 5A tilt cannot be assumed next week when they travel to Bend to face Mountain View, who went 8-2 last year.
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