Meadowdale 34, Peninsula 29: Seahawks’ rally falls short in the quarterfinals

At halftime of Friday’s 3A state quarterfinal game against Meadowdale at Edmonds Stadium in Edmonds, Peninsula head coach Ross Filkins told his team, which was trailing 27-7, that the game would be a tale of two halves.

Filkins was right, but his team still came up short. The Seahawks outscored the Mavericks by 15 points after halftime, but lost 34-29, ending their season with a record of 10-2.

“We had a long journey up here and we didn’t quite get off the ferry with everything that we are as a team,” Filkins said. “We got together at halftime and we made some corrections and started playing some Seahawk football.”

The Mavericks jumped all over the No. 9 ranked Seahawks in the first quarter. Two field goals by junior kicker Will Schafer gave the Mavs a 6-0 lead, and they extended that to 13-0 when senior running back Kela Marshall caught a 14-yard touchdown pass from senior Drew Tingstad.

Tingstad connected with senior tight end Zach Plummer for two touchdowns in the second quarter. The first, an 8-yarder, gave the Mavericks a 20-0 lead. The second, which came as time expired in the first half, gave Meadowdale a 27-7 lead at the break.

Tingstad was at the top of his game in the first half, completing 13 of 16 passes for 162 yards and three touchdowns. He completed his final 10 passes of the half.

“They’re a good team,” Filkins said. “There is a reason why they’re in the quarterfinals. First of all, credit to them. We did not execute or play with the kind of energy that we’re accustomed to. We picked a bad time to come out with a slow start.”

Peninsula got back into the game in the third quarter. The Seahawks used a 68-yard kickoff return by Evan Johnson to set up a 6-yard touchdown run by senior running back Kenny Easton to cut the deficit to 13 at 27-14.

Tingstad answered back with a 49-yard touchdown pass to Haelin Roberts to give the Mavericks a 34-14 lead, but Meadowdale wouldn’t score again.

Easton added a second touchdown and the Seahawks scored two points on a safety when they blocked a punt through the end zone.

Cameron Lewis added a 3-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter to pull within five at 34-29, but the Seahawks came up short on their final drive and the Mavericks were able to run out the clock.

“I could not be more proud of these guys,” Filkins said. “The scoreboard doesn’t reflect how much heart and how much love these guys left on the field tonight. The thing about this game is only one team is going to end the season on a win. …The things about these guys is that they learned a heck of a lesson about life tonight that when things aren’t going your way that you’ve got to create on your own and you can never get down on yourself and you’ve just got to keep playing.”

This story was originally published November 18, 2016 at 11:12 PM with the headline "Meadowdale 34, Peninsula 29: Seahawks’ rally falls short in the quarterfinals."