Week 1: Ridgefield’s perfect effort leads to perfect start

Spudders end eight-game skid with a shutout

The Ridgefield Spudders are on a winning streak.

It might only be one game, but it was one very special game.

For starters, the team’s victory over La Center ended a rough stretch for the program. Ridgefield lost its final eight games of 2017.

Plus, this was the first game for interim head coach Chris Abrams, who took over the program in August.

“I’ve never had that feeling before as a head coach,” Abrams said. “I was mostly just happy for the boys. I asked them to give a perfect effort. The effort was really good.”

It was a shutout, too. And it came against a powerful program. True, La Center is young this season, but La Center is still La Center. That team had made the 1A state semifinals the past two years.

Ridgefield just shut out the Wildcats.

“La Center has some great athletes running around out there,” Abrams said.

The Spudders stopped those guys enough.

Linebacker Simon Berkey was credited for using his intellect to help shut down a few plays.

“He sniffed out a couple of their screen plays really well,” Abrams said. “He’s been watching that for a couple years now. He did a great job of being prepared for that game.

On offense, Abrams said Brock Harrison set the tone, as a tight end, for the entire offensive line.

“I was pretty pleased with our offensive line,” the coach said. “They grasped the blocking schemes really well.”