The Peninsula Seahawks thought they didn’t bring their best effort to the field in the first half of Thursday’s non-league football encounter with the Timberline Blazers.
But the Seahawks, the No. 6 team in Class 3A, made the necessary mental and physical adjustments in the second half and outlasted a stubborn Timberline team 36-25 at South Sound Stadium in Lacey.
Peninsula tailback Danny Welstad carried the load again, rushing for 172 yards and three touchdowns on 27 carries. Two of the scores came early in the third period after the Seahawks (4-0 overall) went into the break with a slim 15-13 lead.
Peninsula knew it couldn’t underestimate Timberline (0-4), which has fallen every week to a ranked team.
“They’re probably the best 0-3 team in the state,” said Welstad, who has scored 16 touchdowns this season. “We had some blocking issues, and we came into halftime, knew what we had to do, and made some adjustments.
“We just took it to them,” grinding out the win, he said.
The Seahawks got the ball first after halftime, and Welstad carried six straight times on the drive, finishing it with a 38-yard touchdown burst.
Peninsula’s Alex Weymiller returned a kickoff for an 85-yard score, capping a 44-second burst in which the teams combined for three touchdowns.
The first minute of the game couldn’t have gone much better for Peninsula, which pinned Timberline deep on the opening kickoff, recovered a fumble on the Blazers’ first offensive play, then got a 10-yard touchdown run from Welstad to forge a 6-0 lead.
Timberline’s offense eventually mixed in an effective passing attack to offset its stalled running game.
Jordan Thompson spearheaded the comeback. The 6-foot-3, 195-pound senior wideout burned Peninsula on two plays in the second quarter. Both came on third-down-and-long situations.
Early in the second quarter, quarterback Chris MacNeil hit Thompson on a short slant route, and Thompson eluded several tacklers for a 77-yard scoring play.
The Seahawks got a 33-yard field goal from Sam Shea to take a 15-6 lead, but Thompson came back on the next series to score on a 50-yard catch-and-run.
Peninsula’s Kory Vanderstaay thwarted an early threat from the Blazers, returning an interception for a 97-yard TD.
Timberline quarterback MacNeil, in his second consecutive varsity start, had his second 200-plus-yard game, completing 13-of-29 passes for 220 yards and two touchdowns, but was intercepted three times.
Having MacNeil at quarterback was an adjustment coach Nick Mullen made prior to last week’s nonleague game against Bonney Lake, which proved to be a smart move after MacNeil racked up 227 passing yards on 17-for-23 passing.
Staff writer Meg Wochnick contributed to this report
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