There will be plenty of new faces on the field when the Tualatin football team plays its first game after a heartbreaking loss in the state title game last season, but they’ll have one familiar face at the center of things.
That person is senior quarterback Nolan Keeney. Head Coach Dominic Ferraro said that Keeney is exactly the kind of player he wants to lead a younger team.
“You have an all-star returning quarterback, perhaps one of the best quarterbacks in the Northwest,” Ferraro said. “He has a skill set that not many people do. We’re going to have to rely on him being a leader and bringing all of those athletic abilities to the table.”
Keeney will be throwing to plenty of new targets this year. One of those new players who figures to play a big role in the offense is senior Zhaiel Smith, who is in his first year at the school. He played last year for Central Catholic, the team that beat Tualatin in the state title game.
Smith and Keeney have already played together a bit, as they’re both on Team Lillard outside of the school season. Team Lillard is a 7on7 team, which is a non-contact style of football.
“He’s an amazing player,” Keeney said of Smith. “It will be good to throw to another stud. We have a bunch of guys coming up.”
Smith said everyone has been welcoming coming over to Tualatin from Central Catholic. He also said he’s excited to get out on the field with Keeney.
“The chemistry is already there,” he said.
Another player who could see an increase in his role offensively is senior Calvin Evans, who played a bit of running back last year. He made more of his impact defensively, where he was named an honorable mention for the all-Three Rivers League team at inside linebacker.
Ferraro said he’s had Evans work a bit more at receiver this summer because of depth at running back.
“Calvin embodies that selflessness piece and just being a team-first guy,” Ferraro said. “He’ll do whatever the team needs him to do and he’s happy to do it.”
As of our press deadline, it’s still pretty early in the summer for the team, as they haven’t started practicing with pads on yet. Ferraro said the coaching staff is still moving players around, trying to figure out where they best fit in on the field.
Evans said he’s seen a lot of talent all over the field already.
“We’ve got the skill,” Evans said. “Now we’re building connections with each other. Once we get that down, we’ll be pretty good.”
Ferraro said the opportunities will be there for younger players to get on the field and show they deserve playing time. It’s not something that happened as much in recent years because of a senior-heavy roster full of future collegiate players.
“The last couple of years have been such a weird dynamic of having these Division I-type guys that you couldn’t take off the field,” Ferraro said.
Evans thinks it can end up being a strength for Tualatin this season.
“We have a lot more depth than last year,” he said. “We had a couple of solid studs on offense and defense, but this year, we have a lot more guys we can bring in and out.”
While there wasn’t always a ton of playing time for younger guys in recent years, Ferraro said they tried to work in players they thought they could contribute. Two of those players figure to be stalwarts on the offensive line: seniors Tanner Dunn and Aiden Keister.
Dunn was named to the all-league second team last year as an offensive tackle, and Keister was named an honorable mention for the all-league team as a center. They both joined the varsity team as sophomores and didn’t see too much playing time early. But eventually, they showed enough to earn some time on the field, and then both took off in their junior years.
“Tanner is just a tremendous athlete,” Ferraro said. “He and Aiden, we brought them to varsity because we were a little light on the o-line, and they weren’t playing much. They started to get better, and we rotated them in a bit, and they were awesome.”
Ferraro said the team did a similar thing last year with Connor LaGrow, and he’s hoping the junior lineman will make a similar jump this year.
Dunn said it really helped him improve to get on the field, especially in top talent in the state like Central Catholic.
“It’s always a good experience to go against high-caliber players like that,” he said.
Moving on from the state title loss and graduating seniors
Losing a championship game is never easy, but it especially stings when top players get hurt during a close title game. That’s what happened last year for Tualatin. With the score tied at 14 in the second quarter, the Timberwolves lost Keeney and star tight end and linebacker Jayden Fortier within three plays of each other.
Tualatin couldn’t keep pace after that, losing 49-21 to Central Catholic.
Dunn said it hurt for a while, but he knew he had to get over it to prepare for this upcoming season. Keeney said it hung over him for a long time, as he re-broke that collarbone.
“I didn’t have much else to do,” he said. “I rebroke the collarbone, so I was just dwelling on it for a while and thinking about what ifs. It was a tough loss.”
A few months after the state title game, Keeney healed up and rejoined the school’s basketball team. He said he didn’t have any issues with it during basketball season.
“I let it sit longer than I did when I first came back for football,” he said. “All it needed was just a little more time. Now that there’s been much more time to prepare, I shouldn’t have any issues with it.”
Ferraro said he was able to get over the loss by looking back on the season as a whole.
“I went home from the game, and I felt awful for about 24 hours,” Ferraro said. “Sometime on Saturday evening, getting on social media and reliving the season and looking at videos and photos from the season, you realize there were so many joyous occasions throughout those 13 weeks. There was just one game that made you want to throw up.”
One thing Ferraro said helped when he looked back on the season was the group of seniors who had just played their last game for Tualatin. Of those seniors, at least eight signed on to play collegiately.
Those included Jayden Fortier (Arizona State University), AJ Noland (Colorado State University), Kenen Elder (Portland State University), Tyson Hunt (Montana Tech), Reid Dobash (Western Oregon University), Thomas Ngure (Independence Community College), Matthew Eleweke (Independence Community College), and Carson Mullins (Linfield University).
“This is going to be my 19th season coaching, and I doubt I’ll ever see that again,” Ferraro said.
So far, two Timberwolves have announced their collegiate plans before the season starts. Keeney committed to BYU, and Smith committed to the University of Idaho.
Even if it’s a bit early to tell if this year’s team is full of college signees like last year, Ferraro said he has a talented and confident team.
“We’ll look different. We’ll be younger,” he said. “We’ll have some juniors stepping into key roles. We’ll have some senior step up. We’re going to be young, but that’s okay. When the first varsity game hits, you’re not young anymore. You’re experienced.”
Tualatin 2024 Schedule:
Sept. 6 vs. Jesuit
Sept. 13 at South Salem
Sept. 20 at Sherwood
Sept. 27 vs. Union (Wa.)
Oct. 4 at Lake Oswego
Oct. 11 vs. Oregon City
Oct. 18 at Lakeridge
Oct. 25 vs. West Linn
Nov. 1 vs. Tigard
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