Whitworth Looking For Three-Peat, Playoff Trip
SPOKANE — The Whitworth Pirates have a chance to do something this year they’ve only done one other time in the school’s history. That’s to win their third straight conference championship.
“A title would definitely be the plan,” says Whitworth quarterback Kory Kemp. “Our ultimate goal is, I think, the national playoffs. We want to get there and make some noise, and since we get that automatic bid this year, winning the conference in the key to that.”
Surprisingly, last year the Pirates did not receive a bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs, and even though they have a chance to pick up an automatic bid this year, no one on the team is looking too far ahead.
“We aren’t going to get ahead of ourselves, and we don’t,” says Pirates head coach John Tully. “I mean we’re going to focus on that for the next three weeks. Each day we are going to try to get better in practice and if our guys do that and buy into it, I think we have the chance of being a pretty good football team.”
“We just need to do what we did last year,” says running back Adam Anderson. “Go game by game, play team by team, don’t underestimate any team. I mean, even if it is the worst team in our league, we still have to play them like they’re the best.”
The Pirates are ranked second in this year’s Northwest Conference coaches poll, but that doesn’t even phase these guys. In fact, it pushes even harder to want to be in that number one spot.
