Written by: Lucas Gebhart
Meridian finally broke through last season. After years of playing second fiddle to Mountain View, the Warriors finally beat their cross-town rivals and the win could not have come at a better time.
After losing to the Mavs by only a point to open the season, Meridian embarrassed a senior-heavy Mountain View squad on its home turf in the state quarterfinals, 35-6. The Warriors forced six turnovers that night and ended Mountain View’s fairy tale season, one that many believed would end with a state championship.
But Meridian’s honeymoon didn’t last long as the Warriors lost a triple-overtime thriller the following week in Rigby and the Trojans marched on to the state championship for the third year in a row.
For Meridian though, the win over Mountain View sent a message to not only themselves, but the rest of the state. That message?
This group is a serious threat to win state and could be a sneaky pick to win the SIC.
Meridian went 8-4 last year and returns quite a bit of talent from last year’s team including Malakai Martinez, who figures to take over at quarterback this season.
Despite the strong record, there are still some areas to improve on this season, including how the Warrior play inside their own conference.
Meridian finished four games over .500, but still went 2-2 inside the SIC Foothills Division with losses to Rocky and Eagle. It’s something this year’s team will look to improve on as the pod looks much more winnable this season.
With Skyview moving down to 4A and Middleton and Nampa moving up to 5A, the SIC pods have been reshuffled a bit, landing Eagle in the SIC’s Foothills pod. The Warriors will still play Eagle this season, but the game won’t count toward their record within the pod since they play in separate ones now.
Perennial power Rocky Mountain still sits in the Foothills pod with Meridian, but the two figure to be front runners to win the pod with Eagle and Mountain View sitting in the other one. This all means that playing for a SIC championship come October is a very real possibility.
To do so, Meridian will likely have to get past Rocky Mountain.
The two will play each other on October 7 at Meridian. Not many are picking the Warriors to win that game as of now, but then again, not many said they would beat Mountain View last year either.