{"id":861,"date":"2013-10-08T03:30:32","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T03:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=861"},"modified":"2013-10-08T04:04:52","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T04:04:52","slug":"the-king-is-wearing-the-rushing-crown-at-port-townsend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=861","title":{"rendered":"The King is loose in Port Townsend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jacob<\/a> \"King<\/a> \"King<\/a><\/p>\n

Jacob King (7)<\/p>\n

By George Edgar<\/span><\/p>\n

Special To The\u00a0 Sports Paper<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PORT TOWNSEND \u2011 Up on the Olympic Peninsula, tucked on the upper right corner of Jefferson County against the Quimper Sound, you can find one of the West Sound\u2019s most explosive all-around athletes.<\/p>\n

Jacob King is a three-sport athlete for Port Townsend High School. He\u2019s a guard for the basketball team, and an outfielder and pitcher for the baseball team. But it\u2019s on the football field as a quarterback at the venerable Jefferson County Memorial Stadium where he currently excels.<\/p>\n

Just ask any defender who has tried to tackle him. One second you have him, the next second you don\u2019t, and King is running downfield towards the end zone.<\/p>\n

As PT\u2019s quarterback, the 6-foot, 175 pound King is more Russell Wilson than Andrew Luck. King is the West Sound’s leading rusher at\u00a0834\u00a0yards and\u00a010\u00a0touchdowns,\u00a0and has passed for one more, and returned an interception for another.<\/p>\n

Even though he is a quarterback, his favorite player is actually defensive back Devin Hester of the Chicago Bears.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think of myself as a running back who hikes the ball,\u201d King said. \u201cHe (Hester) has got wicked speed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s definitely the kind of player who comes around once in a while,\u201d Port Townsend coach Nick Snyder said. \u201cAs our quarterback, he runs our option, but he can play running back or wide receiver.\u00a0\u00a0As an option team, you want to put your best athlete at the quarterback position. He fits the mold for the offense we\u2019re running.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the option offense, that\u2019s run first, run second, and run third. But there are those occasions where Port Townsend has to throw the ball, and King has shown that he can.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a very accurate passer,” Snyder said. “We don\u2019t throw that much, but when he does, he\u2019s on the money.\u201d<\/p>\n

King said of his passing, \u201cI can throw it when I need to, but I like to tuck it and run.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only down game King had as a passer was against Eatonville, where he was 2 of 14 for 13 yards in the rain.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I remember counting five dropped balls,\u201d Snyder said.<\/p>\n

And passing against King could be at your own risk when he is playing at the safety position on defense. Against Vashon this past Friday, he intercepted a Pirates pass in the end zone, and took off running. By the time he stopped, King had a 102-yard interception return for a touchdown.<\/p>\n

Port Townsend eventually won 48-14, as King, in addition to his\u00a0pick six,\u00a0rushed for 154 yards and passed for another 60.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were playing man up,\u201d recalled King, who is also one of the Redskins\u2019 leading tacklers on defense. \u201cThe receiver went one way, the ball went the other. It was a footrace from then on out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Port Townsend is currently 4-1 overall, 1-1 in Nisqually League play. This season has been part of a turnaround that saw Port Townsend end a 20-game losing streak during the 2012 season when they went 4-6. King was a sophomore during PT\u2019s 0-9 season in 2011.<\/p>\n

\"Jacob<\/a><\/p>\n

Jacob King<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt was rough during my freshman and sophomore seasons,\u201d King recalled. \u201cYou got to take those lumps get through it all. If anything, it brought the senior class closer together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Before Port Townsend\u2019s first practice of the 2012 season, Snyder, returning as PT\u2019s coach after a few years in Chelan, came out to the field to get the team lined up for warm ups. But King had seen the coaching staff approaching, and got the whole team lined up before Snyder said a word.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a tremendous leader, always has been,\u201d said Snyder. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to find a good team leader who is that vocal and back it up. He\u2019s a big leader by example.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a big week for Port Townsend, as they will play Cascade Christian, ranked No. 2 among Class 1A teams, on Friday at Jefferson Memorial. It\u2019s also their homecoming game, so a win would be big for the whole school and community. Last year, the Cougars throttled PT 55-19 at Sunset Chev Stadium in Sumner and knocked the Redskins out of post-season contention.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be a championship game for us,\u201d said Snyder.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also their third and final home game of the season, so if you want to see Port Townsend play, Friday night would be perfect for a trip across the Hood Canal Bridge, and a bite at the Highway 20 Roadhouse just as you enter town or at Nifty Fifty\u2019s a couple of blocks from the stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year we had a bunch of home games,\u201d King said. \u201cIt looks like we\u2019re alternating. I\u2019d like to see it more evened out.\u201d<\/p>\n

This season, the top three teams from each Nisqually League division will advance to the post season. The division leaders will play each other for seeding, while the second and third teams cross over and play loser out games. The winners will advance to the Class 1A qualifying playoffs against teams from the Northwest Conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t put our best offense and defense teams out at the same time,\u201d Snyder said. \u201cOnce we do that we can compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

A winning season would be great for King and his PT teammates like Tim Russell, Matt Cain, Skylar Coppenrath, and Alex Reiersen, in the senior class and culminate a journey that began in the Port Townsend youth program, through middle school, and the trials and tribulations of that 20 game losing streak.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it boils down to, I want to remember having a great time on the field,\u201d King said. \u201cThe senior class has been through thick and thin. It\u2019s good to be able see it all out on the field. It\u2019s good to be the hammer not the nail.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jacob King (7) By George Edgar Special To The\u00a0 Sports Paper   PORT TOWNSEND \u2011 Up on the Olympic Peninsula,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=861"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":868,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions\/868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}