10/21/16
WF West 27, Centralia 0
The Bearcats were too strong for the Tigers and posted their 2nd straight shut out win and improved to 8-0 setting up a showdown with Tumwater next week in Chehalis. For a full story on the Bearcat win here’s the details in a story from The Chronicle’s Aaron VanTuyl. Click Here
Aberdeen 20, Rochester 0
The Bobcats get their 1st league win and improved to 1-3 in league play and 3-5 overall, Rochester remains winless.
Tumwater 31, Black Hills 6 Full story and picture gallery below our Play-off break-down.
Evco 2A Play-off Picture
This could not be more simple for the Evco 2A. Next week’s winner between Tumwater and WF West at Chehalis will be the Evco 2A League Champions and the number 1 seed in the crossovers with the GSHL. The winner will also host the #3 GSHL finisher. Right now that team would be Washougal who is 4-2 and has a non-league game next week.
The loser between the Bearcats and T-Birds will finish 2nd in the Evco 2A and take the #2 seed and will travel to the GSHL #2 which is Columbia River with 1 week to go. The Chieftains are 4-1 with their lone loss to Hockinson who would hold the tie-breaker if they both finish 5-1.
Black Hills despite losing the last 2 has already clinched 3rd place and the #3 seed and will travel likely to Hockinson in the crossover. The Wolves are 2-2 in league play with wins over Aberdeen and Centralia. The best either of those 2 teams can do is finish 2-3, which could only tie Black Hills if they lose to winless Rochester in the final league game. If the Warriors pull off the upset they would only have 1 league win and Black Hills would have the tie-breaker with both Centralia and Aberdeen.
The only question left is the GSHL with several scenarios that could play out. However, it will take upsets to kick in any of the other scenarios than listed above for it to change the likely crossover match-ups.
Tumwater 31, Black Hills 6
(Tumwater, WA) Anyone who thought this was going to be a walk in the park for the favored T-Birds were stunned to look at the halftime scoreboard seeing Tumwater 7, Black Hills 6. The Wolves used a bend but don’t break defense in the 1st half frustrating the Tumwater offense and took advantage of a rare mistake to keep it close.
It did look like the T-Bird offense would have an easy night when they took the opening kick-off 64 yards in 5 plays that included runs of 22 from Rico Speigner and 39 yards from Zane Murphy and the TD a typical high pass from Noah Andrews to Cade Otton, Nathan Seaman kicked the PAT and in less than 2 minutes it was 7-0 Tumwater.
Little did the T-Birds know that would be it for the next 22 minutes. Tumwater would use 6 different running backs and 2 Quarterbacks trying to find another successful combination and looked like they would at the end of the half. On their own 33 with 1:51 left to play Andrews and Otton would connect on 57-yards worth of passes and completions and they were inside the 10 with a 1st and goal. Then time management was a bit of an issue, with the clock running the T-Birds with no time-outs would kill the clock wasting 1st down despite having about 45-seconds to work with. On 2nd down a short gain to the 4 but in-bounds kept the clock running and they would kill it again with 22-seconds remaining but only 1 play left a 4th and goal from the 4.
Tumwater would go for a touchdown instead of the high percentage field goal with the consistent Seaman left on the sideline. Andrews would roll out trying to find his favorite target Otton who literally had 4 guys on him when Andrews took off for the endzone and was pushed out at the 2 and the Wolves held keeping the game a 1-point affair.
The Wolves got their only touchdown off of the opportunistic and revved up Wolves defense. Late in the 1st quarter the Wolves pressure got to Andrews who fumbled the ball and Black Hills recovered on the Tumwater 23. After 3 plays the Wolves were facing a 4th and 6 from the 19 but there was no chance for a field goal attempt because the Black Hills kicker Drew Kimmel was out with a separated shoulder and could not get cleared to even kick so there was no question they were in 4-down territory.
QB Christian Williams would scramble for 11 yards and a huge first down and that was followed by Jaden Toussaint’s plunge into the endzone and it was 7-6. The Wolves would attempt to kick the PAT but Jordan Claridge’s kick was low and blocked but the Wolves were neck-a-neck with the T-Birds.
At the half the numbers sure favored Tumwater with 198 total yards of offense to Black Hills’ 80 but those yards came mostly on the 1st and last drives for the T-Birds. In between there was never really a good opportunity for either team to score as both defenses were shut down. For Black Hills guys that stuck out to us were Austin Daisa and Jordan Claridge. Owen Onisky was a beast at his linebacking position and Kade Weitael made a tremendous pass defense of Otton stripping the ball out of his hands looking like it somewhat surprised Otton, like where this guy come from.
For Tumwater the usual suspects kept the Wolves QB Williams scrambling and on the night sacked him for losses totalling 51 yards. Otton, Laz Williams, Aiden Slater, Cy Hicks and a couple of guys returning from injury made big impacts Andrew May and Caleb Jelcick.
The T-Birds no doubt felt like they left points on the field in the 1st half and with the goal line stand to finish the half, plus receiving the 2nd half kick-off Black Hills suddenly had he momentum. The 1st drive would end up setting the tone for the entire 2nd half when Black Hills began on their own 25. Just a couple plays in and the Wolves would cough the ball up and Tolo Hafoka would scoop it up for the T-Birds and return it to the 5. This game changing play would ultimately earn our ProActive Physical Therapy Play of the Game.
The T-Birds also changed how they approached the 2nd half, 1st by inserting Trayten Rodriguez back into the running back position. Rodriguez had been out due to injury and had played some defense in the 1st half, he would become the workhorse for the final 24-minutes. The T-Birds also decided to en the revolving door at their other running back positions as well and left Jakob Holbrook in at the full back position and Raushaun Tate at Wingback.
From the 5 it would be Rodriguez who took it in with the extra point added it was 14-6. After the Wolves turn-over they would have possession of the ball only 5 more times and the 1st 4 resulted in 4-plays and turning it over on downs. The final possession was a punt.
Tumwater would use a huge running attack, in fact would only attempt 1 pass in the 2nd half that was ruled
incomplete, another high pass to Otton in the endzone, which he caught and no doubt got his feet down for the score and ended up sitting inside the end line but the officials waived it incomplete. (see pic and decide for yourself.)
But the 2nd half belonged to Rodriguez who would run the ball 13 times for 81 yards and scored all 3 2nd half touchdowns. Seaman would add an impressive 31-yard field goal that would have been good from 45 to finish the 2nd half scoring. Holbrook would also run 13 times and added 73 yards to the superior ground game in the 2nd half.
After such a brilliant 1st half for the Wolves all you need to know about the 2nd half was their total offense was -3 yards finishing with 77 for the game. The defense that played so well in the first were left on the field time and again and put in tough field positions and finally simply wore down. The best weapon the Wolves had was Kyler Nygren’s kick-off returns that would get to mid-field but in each case it was 4 plays and turn the ball over. Not 1 first down in the 2nd half for the Black Hills offense.
With the win Tumwater improves to 3-0 in league play and 6-1 overall while the Wolves drop to 2-2 and 4-4. Our Tommy Lowe of the Greene Realty Group Player’s of the Game were Tumwater’s Trayten Rodriguez and Black Hills’ Kyler Nygren.
Photo Gallery
www.elisportsnetwork.com
