High school football: Tokay fills bye week with Emmett High out of Idaho

Sep. 16—It's the 209 vs. the 208.

Next Friday, Tokay's Hubbard Field will host a group of out-of-towners when the football team of Emmett High in Idaho (the 208 area code) swings through for a rare interstate game against the Tigers.

Kickoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. to accommodate the nine-hour drive for the Huskies.

"I'm hoping this is a breaking-the-valve thing. A lot of our teams don't go out of state, and if they do they'll play right on the border," Emmett coach Rich Hargitt said on Friday morning. "We just got back from a neutral-site game in Baker City, Oregon. Then we're home tonight, then we'll have this long trip. Hopefully it's the beginning of Idaho schools playing regional games. It's a huge experience for the kids, and I think that's what we're supposed to be doing as coaches and teachers."

Both schools had last-minute openings, with just a few days this week to find an opponent. Tokay was scheduled to play West Park in Roseville on Sept. 9, but smoke from the Mosquito Fire drifted into the Sacramento area, causing a few games to be canceled due to air quality.

Emmett, meanwhile, had a scheduling conflict with a Pocatello-area school, which is about a four-hour bus ride from Emmett.

"Our kids have made playoffs last few years, but we've been lucky enough to win our district, and we've never had to travel in the playoffs," Hargitt said. "This is a young group, and we're deeply concerned with how they will handle a long bus ride."

However, Hargitt said somewhere along the line, no contract was signed between the schools, and the Huskies' scheduled opponent for Sept. 23 somehow got double booked, leaving Emmett without a dance partner.

"We've been calling schools in Nevada, Washington, Utah ad Oregon, and we've had several close calls," Hargitt said. "One of our coaches is from California, and he still has contacts. He found out that Tokay had a game they needed to fill, and it looks like it's going to work."

Emmett assistant coach Adam Perry used to coach at Lincoln High in Lincoln, northeast of Sacramento.

Hargitt said he had hoped for something in the four- to five-hour range, but the nine-hour drive to Lodi didn't stop him from jumping at the chance to play in California. He said the players on the team were excited when they found out about the game, especially the seniors, who faced the prospect of an eight-game season.

"Absolutely jacked," he said. "Obviously, we're a blue-collar, very rural, high-poverty area here, and a lot of our kids have never traveled out of state. Most of them have never been to California. I'm from Chicago, and I've coached in North and South Carolina. Going out of state there is not uncommon.

"...Tokay's good, they're undefeated, and we might go down there and lose by a hundred, but the experience is what we're looking for, to get our kids battle-hardened and get that experience."

Hargitt said the community has jumped on board as well, with a parent ponying up for the charter buses, which is half the cost of the trip. The rest has been covered by the Touchdown Club boosters, leaving no monetary commitment needed from the players other than snack money. He said the team is treating it like a business trip.

"We're wedged between two pretty darn important games for us, so we don't want to stay for too long," Hargitt said. "We'll leave here at 5:30 a.m. Mountain time, and do the whole experience. Get there, have dinner, have the kickoff. So some of our kids might be kind of jumpy in the first quarter. Then we'll spend the night up around Sacramento, have breakfast,and get on the bus and come back."

Hargitt, 41, said he'll probably feel 61 after 20 hours on a bus. He has heard from several groups of parents who plan to carpool to Lodi to support the team as well.

But after all the trip planning, there's still the game planning. Hargitt expects his Huskies (2-1 before Friday's game) to have its hands full against Tokay. The town loves its football team, but it's a one-high school county, and Emmett's enrollment is 725, roughly a third of Tokay's 2,075 listed by the Sac-Joaquin Section.

"We schedule up. We're the smallest 4A high school in Idaho," Hargitt said. "Everybody is close to double our enrollment, so playing someone bigger than us is every Friday. Triple is kind of crazy, though."

Emmett opened the season against Blackfoot, one of the top-ranked teams in the state, and came away with a 49-32 loss. Then came two straight wins, a 40-0 shutout over Fruitland, and the neutral-site game in Oregon, a 55-27 win over Lake City out of Coeur D'Alene. The neutral site helped Emmett avoid its own smoke-related cancellation with wildfires affecting games in the Treasure Valley area around Boise.

"It's where we thought we'd be. We graduated a big class, but the kids who have stepped up have done well," Hargitt said. "We're not a super athletic, fast group of kids. We play disciplined, physical football. It's a quintessential small town Idaho team with hardworking kids. Will be a lot of American flags at the game and a lot of hard hits."