{"id":933,"date":"2013-11-02T19:14:37","date_gmt":"2013-11-02T19:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=933"},"modified":"2013-11-02T19:14:37","modified_gmt":"2013-11-02T19:14:37","slug":"north-is-being-propelled-by-norths-uncanny-ability-to-make-people-miss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=933","title":{"rendered":"North is being propelled by North’s uncanny ability to make people miss"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Terry Mosher<\/p>\n

Editor, Sports Paper<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

North Kitsap got off to a rocky start to the 2013 football season when it dropped a one-pointer to Archbishop Murphy and then was blasted 58-0 by Bishop Blanchet, one of the state\u2019s top 3A schools.<\/p>\n

But the Vikings bounced back to win its next seven games and win the regular season Olympic League 2A championship and advance to the first round of the post-season where on Friday at 7 p.m. it will host Orting (6-3), the No 4 seeded team from the South Puget Sound 2A League.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason for that Viking roll is the play of junior running back Kyle North. The six-foot (and half-inch) and 185-pound North is one of West Sound\u2019s top rushers this season. He has run for 907 yards on 136 carries, for 6.7 yards per carry average.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been steady for us,\u201d says North Kitsap coach Jeff Weible. \u201cHe\u2019ll get up to 1,000 yards when everything is said and done.\u201d<\/p>\n

There have been 78 1,000-yard rushers in high school football in West Sound since 1948 when North Kitsap\u2019s Tom Mariner broke the century mark with 1,596 yards. South Kitsap\u2019s Ryan Cole leads the way with the 2,357 yards he scampered for in 2001 and Kingston\u2019s Travis Schriner sits at 78 with 1,000 yards on the button.<\/p>\n

So for North to zero in on 1,000 yards is quite an accomplishment, and one that sparked the Vikings to turn around their season.<\/p>\n

Followers of high school football, though, really should have foresaw North Kitsap\u2019s rise to the OL top and North\u2019s ability to help the Viking cause if they had known about the summer trip the team took to the Central Washington football camp. North Kitsap did so well among the 2A teams there that the Vikings were moved up to compete against the 4A schools and still they did well.<\/p>\n

All of his really started when Weible first saw North as an eight-grader at Poulsbo Middle School, and immediately liked what he saw.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing spectacular about him, but he ran hard,\u201d Weible said. \u201cHe was always falling forward and getting positive yards, and he made people miss.\u201d<\/p>\n

That ability to make people miss is one of North\u2019s best running attributes. It has enabled him to score 11 touchdowns this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very good at making people miss,\u201d says Weible. \u201cHe\u2019s got pretty good feet. He doesn\u2019t have great speed, but kind of has deceptive speed. When he gets going in the open field he\u2019s got a pretty good nose for the end zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

Kyle North<\/p>\n

North has an uncanny ability to spot holes, and uses his blocks well to spring into the open.<\/p>\n

\u201cI read my linemen\u2019s blocks, and my lead blocker and if I can get a good cut off their blocks then I get a successful run,\u201d says North. \u201cBeing able to read your blocks is very important. Then when I get into open space I take it as far as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

North, who has been playing football for six years and was on the PoulsboMiddle School team that went undefeated and won the West Sound Middle School League championship when he was in the eighth grade was nicknamed \u201cThe Workhorse\u201d by then coach Eric Milyard.<\/p>\n

Weible, though, says he has another name now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call him Justin Beiber,\u201d Weible says. \u201cHe kind of has that Justin Beiber hairdo and he kind of looks like him a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weible also says North is more of a doer than a talker.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very quiet,\u201d Weible says. \u201cIf you didn\u2019t ask him a question you would never hear from him.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be a pun intended if we said North mows over people, because he does mow. He and Alex Allbee, the Viking\u2019s backup quarterback, have a lawn mowing business called Albert\u2019s Lawn care. It started as a partnership with a third friend, George Calbert, who has since moved to Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started the lawn care business two years ago,\u201d says North, son of Ed and Bonnie North. \u201cWe wanted to find a way to make money over the summer and mowing lawns was a great business for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been such a good business that both Allbee and North have been able to purchase cars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 15 to 20 regular people we put on a calendar and come back every two or three weeks,\u201d says North.<\/p>\n

The two friends usually start up at the beginning of May and go until football season opens in mid-August. They have thought about doing some work during the winter, but haven\u2019t made a final decision on that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to do it again this (coming) summer for sure,\u201d says North, although that may be it.
\n\u201cI\u2019m definitely going to college,\u201d North says. \u201cI don\u2019t think I want to be mowing lawns all the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

North has a 3.15 grade-point average that he is intent on raising before graduation in 2015, and he hopes that will be good enough to get him into a college. Right now he leans toward WashingtonState and the University of Oregon.<\/p>\n

If there is a chance, he might walk-on and attempt to play football in college. But for now he is focused on helping the Vikings advance in the post-season.<\/p>\n

Just in case things go wrong for the Vikings and North in his postseason, there is another North waiting in the wings. Nolan is in the 7th<\/sup> grade at PoulsboMiddle School where he played on the junior varsity as a running back.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a little bit shorter than I was at that age, but he is faster,\u201d says big brother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Terry Mosher Editor, Sports Paper   North Kitsap got off to a rocky start to the 2013 football season…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":934,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-933","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\/933","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=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":935,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions\/935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}