Ricky Ostle didn't know anything about American football when he moved from England to Oregon in 2018.
He had watched his wife's brother play in a high school all-star game on a prior visit, but as someone with a rugby background, his knowledge of the game was limited to movies such as The Waterboy and The Longest Yard.
Six years later, Ostle has coached Powers into the 1A-6 football championship game. The unbeaten and top-seeded Cruisers (11-0) will go for their first title since 1998 when they meet No. 2 Harper Charter (10-0) on Saturday at Caldera High School in Bend.
Ostle's wife, Taylor, has called him “the reverse Ted Lasso,” referring to the American comedy-drama TV series in which an American college football coach takes over an English soccer team.
“She told me, 'If you pull off a win, you'll be on a Netflix documentary,'” Ostle said.
Ostle met Taylor, a Powers graduate, at a military base in Germany, where he was stationed and she was in a college study program. They married in 2015, and after living in England, Ostle fulfilled a promise to her father by moving to Oregon in 2018.
When Powers joined the six-man football pilot program in 2018, then-Cruisers coach Kayne Pedrick added Ostle to the staff as a strength and conditioning coach.
“I still didn't understand football, but after that, I did fall in love with it,” Ostle said.
Ostle wanted to help build the program's foundation, so he became an assistant coach for Powers' eight-man junior high school team in 2019. The head coach stepped down before the season started, and Ostle was elevated to head coach.
“It all happened so fast, I don't think the school really realized,” he said.
Fortunately for Ostle, he had a resource in his father-in-law, Tim Stallard, the Powers coach from 2012 to 2017, when the team played under eight-man rules.
“I asked him, because I didn't even know when to say yes or no to a penalty,” Ostle said. “I said, 'I don't know any plays, I don't know anything. I have not a clue. Can you please help?' He made sure I didn't look stupid.”
Ostle pored over grainy videos of when Powers won three consecutive state titles from 1996 to 1998.
“It hurts your eyes. It's hard to watch,” Ostle said. “I don't know how they watched film back then, because it's brutal. I'm watching all this stuff, trying to overload my brain.”
Ostle took over a junior high team that had struggled – “They hadn't won a game in like four years,” he said – and turned it around. The team won two games in his first year, then captured back-to-back league titles.
Ostle had grown close with the players, and said he was sad when they moved on to the high school program. He resigned as the junior high coach, but landed a spot as an assistant coach for the high school team in 2022, then became the head coach in 2023.
He admits that his accent sometimes catches opposing coaches and officials off guard.
“That's why sometimes I think they give me a flag,” he said. “And then when I meet new coaches, I'm like, 'Good game, mate,' and they're like, 'Wait a minute. Do you even know football?' I was like, 'I do not, but I'm learning every day.'”
The 33-year-old Ostle, who works as a realtor, said he has drawn on his military and rugby background in coaching football.
“In the military, if you do something a thousand times, you're going to figure it out pretty quickly,” he said. “And we use rugby tackle bags, because the tackling in rugby is really, really good.”
Powers has been highly successful in recent years, going 8-1 in 2021 and 9-1 in 2022 under Pedrick and 8-1 last season under Ostle. This season, with many of the same players that Ostle began coaching in junior high, the Cruisers have reached the state final for the first time since 2003.
Regardless of the outcome Saturday, the day will be bittersweet for Ostle.
“It's sad because I've had the seniors since they were in the seventh grade,” he said. “It's been great.”
Valenzuela rediscovers 'burst'
Mountain View's Angel Valenzuela broke out as a sophomore last year, rushing for 1,832 yards and 27 touchdowns.
But this season, due to a torn posterior cruciate ligament he suffered in late spring and an increased commitment to playing defensive end, he had more of a supporting role on offense.
That was until Friday, when the 5-11, 200-pound Valenzuela returned to form by rushing for a season-high 237 yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries as the No. 2 Cougars (12-0) rolled over No. 6 West Albany 40-17 to earn a return appearance in the 5A final.
“He looked like the Angel from last year in terms of his speed and explosiveness again,” coach Brian Crum said of Valenzuela, who has rushed for 1,139 yards and 17 touchdowns this season. “I think he just had to find that extra gear again, and he's got it now, which is kind of amazing. Here we are Week 13, and now he's got that burst.”
Valenzuela showed his speed on touchdown runs of 61 and 96 yards. His contribution was critical considering standout senior receiver Jack Foley was ejected for two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in the first half.
“When Jack got ejected, Angel basically just said, 'Get on my shoulders, guys, and I'm just going to go,'” Crum said. “He decided he was going to take the game over.”
Valenzuela also had two sacks on defense.
“He was a man who took over on both sides of the ball,” Crum said. “He was in their backfield the whole time. He played like he was possessed.”
Like last year, Mountain View takes a perfect record into the state final. And like last year, the Cougars will face No. 5 Wilsonville (10-2), which defeated them in the championship game 29-23.
Considering Mountain View has new starters at 18 positions this season, making it back to the final speaks volumes about its program. In 2023, all three levels of the program went undefeated in the regular season. This year, the JV and varsity went unbeaten.
“Our kids' motto coming out of the spring was 'reload,'” Crum said. “They didn't want to talk about rebuilding. It might be different names in the program, but they still had the talent. It's been really fun to see the depth come through.”
'Gritty' Henley
Playing without star junior quarterback Joe Janney, who was out with a knee injury, reigning 4A champion Henley found a way to rally from a 14-0, fourth-quarter deficit and beat Cascade 21-14 in overtime in a Saturday semifinal.
“Just gritty. Our guys are just gritty competitors,” Hornets coach Matt Green said. “Just a will not to lose. Our defense just stood up and played a heck of a game.”
Janney, the starter for last year's title team, has been dealing with a sore knee since early in the season. He suited up Saturday but didn't see action until holding for the extra point in overtime.
Green said that Janney's sore knee “just keeps nagging. We warmed him up and it just didn't look right, so we sat him out. He honestly was our best leader on the sideline, just cheering our guys on, being a great teammate. That's just Joe, that's who he is.”
Will Janney be available to play quarterback Saturday when No. 3 Henley (11-1) meets No. 1 Marist Catholic (11-1) in a rematch of last year's state final?
“We don't know. It's going to be another game-time decision,” Green said. “I think he's waiting until after the season to go get it looked at. It's not an ACL. He's still got stability. It's just nagging.”
Senior Mark Carpenter, who has played receiver and running back this season, filled in for Janney at quarterback. The Hornets managed only 174 total yards, but Carpenter repeatedly came through in the clutch, rushing for 100 yards and two touchdowns on 30 carries and passing for a score.
Carpenter threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to senior Bryson Montag to make it 14-6 with 6:01 remaining. He ran for a one-yard touchdown with 19 seconds left, then threw to junior Conner Shively for a two-point conversion to force overtime. Carpenter's four-yard scoring run on the first series of overtime was the difference.
Green praised Carpenter, who also has excelled at defensive back and linebacker this season.
“He's just a utility guy,” Green said. “When you're missing one of your key players, to step up like that is pretty huge. He's one of our best athletes, and we just had to get him the ball.”
Black & Blue redux
In the 39-year history of the North Medford-South Medford rivalry, the loser of the Black & Blue Bowl always has had to wait a full year to get redemption.
That changes this year. The Black Tornado and the Panthers will play in the postseason for the first time ever Saturday when they meet in the final of the 6A Championship bracket at Spiegelberg Stadium in Medford.
For North Medford, which lost to South Medford 33-30 in a Special District 1 game on Nov. 1, it's a welcome opportunity.
“When the bracket came out, I'd be lying if I said not everyone in our area thought, 'There's our second chance,” North Medford coach Nathan Chin said. “You get an opportunity to switch the flag for the rest of the year. They got it for the last four weeks.”
North Medford holds a 20-19 edge in the series. The No. 14-seeded Black Tornado and No. 13 Panthers both enter the game with 8-4 records.
The teams are hopeful of a large crowd at Spiegelberg Stadium.
“I think having it on Thanksgiving weekend, you have a different element with more people in town because of family here,” Chin said. “It could be awesome. You could fill the place like it used to fill in the old SOC days.”
jerryu@osaa.org
Subscribe
