Jordan Fisher, Westview proud of Columbia Cup title: ‘We got an opportunity to continue playing longer than some of the top teams’

“Our community and players were very excited for the opportunity to compete in the playoffs ... whatever format it was.”

By René Ferrán | Photos by JJ Anderson 

Jordan Fisher had a chance to become the fourth running back in state 11-man football history to rush for 3,000 yards in a season. 

During a timeout in the waning seconds of the inaugural OSAA Columbia Cup, Westview coach Ryan Atkinson went over to his senior standout, who’d already gained a career-high 417 yards and was just 28 yards shy of joining Scio’s Anthony Johnson (3,609 yards in 2015), Aloha’s Thomas Tyner (3,415 in 2012) and Sisters’ Cory McCaffrey (3,335 in 2006) in the 3K Club.

Atkinson asked Fisher about the record. His response? No, let Irason take the final snap. 

Irason Kekaualua is a junior who sustained a season-ending knee injury in Week 1. He dressed for the Columbia Cup to serve as a captain but never expected to take the field.

Instead, he ended up taking a knee in the victory formation to close out the Wildcats’ 51-22 victory over North Salem — a fitting end to the first year of the Columbia Cup’s existence.

“This is one of many situations all year that Jordan never worried about records or stats, just his teammates,” Atkinson said. “He’s an absolutely special kid with the highest character I have seen, no doubt.”

Fisher finished with the second-most yards in an OSAA 11-person postseason game. Tyner rushed for 438 yards in a first-round playoff win over Glencoe in 2012. 

“Nah, no regrets when it comes to the yardage,” Fisher said. “You never know what could’ve happened had I stayed in the game and tried shooting for that number. My line played an incredible game and had a great season.”

The OSAA created the Columbia Cup last summer as part of a restructuring of the Class 6A football postseason. Instead of a 32-team state championship bracket, 6A broke into two tournaments — a 16-team state championship for the six league champions and next 10 highest-ranked teams, and the 16-team Columbia Cup for the remaining automatic league qualifiers and non-qualifiers ranked in the top 32.

One of the stated goals was to eliminate the number of first-round mismatches. Top-eight seeds were 84-4 from 2010-21, when the OSAA seeded the 32-team bracket, with an average margin of victory of 33 points — including 32-0 the previous four playoffs. 

This year’s eight first-round games in the state championship bracket, however, had an average margin of victory of 40 points. Compare that with 2021, when the average margin was 27.8, including two games (Lake Oswego-Newberg and Clackamas-Sunset) that were closer than this year’s smallest margin of victory — Lake Oswego’s 28-13 win over North Medford.

Another of the goals in splitting into two brackets was to allow programs that hadn’t experienced much recent playoff success a chance to do so. In that regard, the Columbia Cup was a smashing success — Westview’s Columbia Cup victory was its first OSAA football trophy; North Salem had not reached an OSAA final since 1963, when it won its only state championship.

“Our community and players were very excited for the opportunity to compete in the playoffs,” Atkinson said. “We had a special group that wanted to spend as much time as possible together. We approached it as, 'Control what we could control and win the next game,' whatever format it was.”

Fisher acknowledged that “we wanted to compete at the highest level possible, but they placed us in the Columbia Cup, with an opportunity to play extra games with this senior class, so I’m happy about that.

“We got an opportunity to continue playing longer than some of the top teams, so that’s all we cared about — spending as much time together as possible. And it feels great to be the first.” 

Fisher picked up another FCS offer recently, from UC Davis, but he has yet to decide on his college future with less than two weeks before the early signing day Dec. 21.

Instead, he continued to savor that final walk to the Hillsboro Stadium sideline, capping a season in which the Wildcats overcame a 1-5 start to win their final seven games and hoist a trophy. 

“Knowing that we accomplished the goal of playing every game possible and ending it the right way was an amazing feeling,” Fisher said. “We got an opportunity to continue playing longer than some of the top teams, so that’s all we cared about — spending as much time together as possible. We accomplished everything we wanted to and everything we said we would before the season.”