Football: Douglas looks to break .500 mark

The Douglas football team will be in search of its first winning record of the year tonight at Galena against a team look for the exact same thing.

Both the Tigers and Grizzlies have posted 2-2 records on the year so, with their wins and losses coming similar circumstances.

Both teams have nice wins over Reno to their credit (Galena won 34-20 in the season-opener and Douglas won 20-6 a week later). They each took big wins in their league openers last week with Douglas beating Fallon 35-0 and Galena beating Damonte Ranch 34-7.

Each team has a lopsided loss to its credit (Douglas 48-21 against Las Vegas to open the season and Galena a 42-20 loss to Spanish Springs two weeks ago) and each team has suffered a loss in the final seconds of the game (Douglas fell 35-32 on the road against McQueen and Galena lost 47-40 to North Valleys in week 2).

One more striking similarity between the two teams is that both possess mobile quarterbacks who also happen to throw a nice ball.

Galena senior Beau Bickel has completed 46 passes for 630 yards and eight touchdowns compared to four interceptions this year. He's run for 204 yards and five touchdowns as well.

Douglas junior Zack Williams has also completed 46 passes, totaling 413 yards and six touchdowns. He's run for 235 yards and four touchdowns.

Each team features a strong go-to running back as well as Galena's Eric Howsley has run for 423 yards and three touchdowns and Douglas' Johnny Pollack has run for 436 yards and three scores.

The similarities more or less end there. Douglas will depend on its punishing ground game (949 yards on 160 carries this year) and Galena has more of a balanced attack, passing for an average of 158 yards per game and running for an average of 171.

The big difference between the two running games appears to be that Douglas has more secondary options to carry the ball, including Ryen Ake, who has run for 139 yards so far. Jordan Cruz and Colton Hughes have each run for a little more than 65 yards on the year as well.

Galena's No. 3 rusher, behind Howsley and Bickel, is Dustin Granata, who has run for 55 yards on the year.

Garrett Shutt is the Grizzlies' top receiver this season with 18 catches for 333 yards. Austin Neddenriep leads the Tigers with 12 catches for 133 and Danny King has 11 for an even 100. Tight end Luis Pina-Duarte has seven catches for 114 yards as well.

Kickoff is at 7 p.m. The Record-Courier will be posting updates throughout the game at www.recordcourier.com.

Notes: Douglas leads the all-time series between the two teams 7-2 and won last year's matchup 42-21 in Minden.

The last time the two teams played in Reno was in 2003 and Douglas came away a 49-0 winner.

Douglas has since played at Galena's field, against Damonte Ranch in 2006 while artificial turf was being installed in Minden. The Tigers won that game 13-0.