Hawks take on Hawks at 'Keg Bowl'

Budweiser outguns Silver Bullets

The game drew a crowd of only about 35 spectators, but the players on both sides played like it was the most important game of the season.

It was the "Keg Bowl" in Thompson Falls and it was the only game of the season. The 19 men from age 20 to 51, all raring to show they still had it in them, took to Ainsworth Field Saturday afternoon for the 27th Annual Keg Bowl.

The event that began in 1980 in a resident's backyard near Prospect Creek was initially for Thompson Falls alumni only, but eventually it was open to anyone not still in high school, said Mike Allen, one of the coordinators of this year's football game, who also officiated with Doug Willhite and Bob Brown.

After two hours of pounding it out in a foot of snow, the Budweiser team, quarterbacked by Rod Beitz, claimed a 42-28 victory over the Silver Bullets, who was headed by Roger Willhite in the quarterback slot.

One of the purposes of the Keg Bowl was to raise money for the Bluehawks Scholarship Fund, said Allen. Each participant paid $5 to play. Doug Willhite said they collected almost $400, which came from the football pool, player fees, and donations from local businesses. Brett Damaskos and Richard Cork, former Bluehawk players, were recipients of the scholarship fund and both took part in Saturday's game. Damaskos, 21, a Bluehawks quarterback, graduated in 2004. The 20-year-old Cork, who finished with the Bluehawks as a fullback, graduated in 2006.

Cork and Nate Bache, also a Bluehawks player and a 2006 graduate, were the youngest players at the Keg Bowl. The 51-year-old Roger Willhite, the oldest player, had been a running back with the Thompson Falls High School team before graduating in 1975.

The Keg Bowl was a combination of tackle and flag football. Once the ball was snapped, the defense could tackle the quarterback, who had to hand it off or pass the ball, but he couldn't go beyond the line of scrimmage. Once he got rid of the ball, the game switched to flag football. The field, marked in a fluorescent paint on the snow, was 90 yards long and 30 yards wide.

Quarters were 30 minutes long with a running clock, except for the final minute of each quarter, which stopped unless the ball was in play, said Allen, 51, who played fullback and defensive tackle for the Hawks from 1970 to 1974. In his senior year, Thompson Falls won the state championship 60-22.

All but one player — Shane Barnes — was a Thompson Falls resident. Barnes graduated from T-Falls in 1988, but was a wrestler. Barnes said he's played in all but four Keg Bowls. Jared Koskela, who played for Thompson Falls from 1998 to 2002, returned home from Arizona to visit family and to take part in the Keg Bowl.

1990 Thompson Falls graduate Chadd Laws was the only Bluehawks coach to take part in Saturday's game. Laws has served as an assistant coach for the Hawks football team since 1999 and was a receiver for the team during his high school days.

The temperature Saturday hovered around 42 degrees at the start of the game at 1 p.m., but by the time the clock ran out shortly after 4 p.m., the temperature had dropped 10 degrees. Doug Willhite said they've played in every kind of weather from rain storms to blizzards and from sub-zero temperatures to a warm day.

Once, they played in 15 degrees below zero and in 1996, the field was buried beneath about three feet of snow. The entire game was tackle that year. "The ground was hard and frozen last year," said James Cork, a 1996 Thompson Falls graduate and a former tackle with the Bluehawks. "But it was loads of fun."

The Budweiser team started out in the lead with a long bomb from Beitz to Nate Harms, followed soon by a pass to Sydney Wade for a 12-0 lead. Both Budweiser attempts for the two-point conversion failed. The Budweisers began the second quarter with another touchdown pass to Wade, but this time James Cork caught the conversion pass for a 20-0 lead over the Silver Bullets.

Laws caught a touchdown pass from Willhite to put the Silver Bullets on the board. The team made the two-point conversion, but a false start call by Brown made them do the play over. In the second attempt, they failed.

Early in the third quarter, Bache caught a long pass to put the Bullets inside the 10-yard line, but the next pass was intercepted by Wade. Two plays later, Bache intercepted a Beitz pass for another Silver Bullets score. The conversion pass was knocked down by James Cork and Budweiser led 20-12. A few minutes later, Cork caught a touchdown pass, followed soon by a Bache touchdown and at the end of the third quarter, Budweiser led 26-20.

A touchdown by Silver Bullet Justus Johnson and a conversion pass caught by Bache then gave the Bullets a two-point lead. With 16 minutes in the game, Damaskos shot a long pass to Wade for a touchdown, followed by a two-point conversion pass caught by Damaskos to put Budweiser ahead 34-28.

With under a minute left in the game, Damaskos tipped a Willhite pass to Bache in the end zone to deprive the Bullets of a touchdown. Wade then grabbed another touchdown pass with Harms taking the two-point conversion to give Budweiser a 14-point lead and the game.