The picture-in-picture option offered on certain TV sets would have been woefully inadequate Sunday (Sept. 12) afternoon as, simultaneously, the Storm and Seahawks won home games while the Mariners and Ryan Moore lost their contests on the road. Those of us who wore down our channel-changers monitoring all of the above are still trying to figure out whether Moore lost the BMW Golf Championship by a field goal to Dustin Johnson or whether the Storm beat Atlanta by a safety to take a one-up lead in the WNBA finals.
What we know for sure, as the moribund M’s have proven all season, is that you can’t win if you don’t score. The club succumbed 3-0 to the Angels. The TV audience was thought to number about 27 viewers, most of them related to the players.
The region’s other major teams proved the advantage of scoring late. Sue Bird sank an open shot with seconds remaining as the Storm won 79-77.
As for football, the Huskies and Hawks each spotted their opponents to early leads before waking up and exploding for blowout scores. Syracuse led the UW Dawgs 10-0 five minutes into one of the most tedious first halves (penalties, reviewed plays, etc.) many of us among the 62,000 the Husky Stadium could remember.
Then the locals put the passing game in motion and quarterback Jake Locker wound up with one of his most impressive stat games: 22 for 33 for 289 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions, leading the team to a 41-20 victory. The 1-1 club’s other two all-America-caliber offensive stars also were impressive. Jermaine Kearse had nine grabs and Chris Polk ran 20 times for 117 yards.
Kearse, Polk and Locker are known entities.
The Seahawks, by contrast, came into the game with a league-high 27 (out of 53) new roster members. During much of the first half, a lot of Hawk starters looked as though they hadn’t been properly introduced to one another. Opponent San Francisco dominated in first-half possession of the ball but, seizing opportunities, Seattle players put up a pair of touchdowns late in the second quarter and led 14-6 at half.
That’s all the closer the 49ers would get, losing 31-6 and looking absolutely nothing like the class of the division.
But suddenly the Hawks do. New coach Pete Carroll, the ultra-successful former USC mentor, has instilled college-style sideline spirit that extends to the players on the field. Ironically, even with more than half of a new roster, the Hawks played most of the second half much more cohesively than they have since the Super Bowl season. Credit goes to plenty of Seattle veterans, too, including mended middle-linebacker Lofa Tatupu, Marcus (The Truth) Trufant (he had a 32-yard interception touchdown), and Matt Hasselbeck, obviously not having to battle for the quarterback job.
If the Seahawks can keep it up through a challenging schedule, they can have the NFC West championship, especially now that the ‘Niners and Cardinals (they struggled to beat St. Louis 17-13 Sunday) may be weaker than many predicted.
In any case, fans ought to be happy that they were 3-0 in major weekend home games, although, as observed here a few days ago, this really is more of a six-day weekend, with the Storm playing again Tuesday and the Red Sox coming Monday for three games.
And despite Puyallup’s Ryan Moore losing his third-day lead and finishing three strokes behind, a lot of local golf fans aren’t very worried about his future. I myself predict that next season he’ll win one of the major PGA tournaments, maybe by as much as a touchdown.
