Takeaways from Friday’s first-round state tournament high school football games in South Sound
Friday night’s first round of high school football state tournament games is in the books. Here’s what we learned from Friday night’s action, highlighted by The News Tribune’s featured game of the week, No. 2 Steilacoom’s 42-21 win over No. 15 Ridgefield in the opening round of the Class 2A state tournament.
Looking for a full list of statewide state tournament first-round high school football scores? Find them all at thenewstribune.com.
STEILACOOM CLOBBERS RIDGEFIELD
The final score isn’t indicative of how this game played out, with Steilacoom taking a 42-0 lead into halftime and sitting its starters for the entire second half.
On the opening play of the game, Steilacoom’s De’Andre Napier took the opening kickoff and returned it for a touchdown. Before Ridgefield could even blink, Steilacoom held a 7-0 lead.
“That was huge,” said Steilacoom coach Colby Davies. “That’s a big play from him. We know he has that type of big-play ability. For him to come out and start the game like that for us, that makes everything a lot easier. He did a great job, ran hard. … He’s got a lot of big-play ability. We picked up a few key blocks.”
Few teams in the state are as dangerous on special teams as Steilacoom. It’s a part of the game that is often overlooked, but for Steilacoom, winning the special teams battle is an important part of winning games.
“We rep special teams a lot,” said Steilacoom receiver Emeka Egbuka. “We believe it’s one of the key elements to winning a football game. You can have really big plays in there, onside kicks, returns, stuff like that. We rep it a lot and we really craft our technique.”
EMEKA EGBUKA IS SPECIAL
Of course, it helps on special teams, when you have one of the country’s top athletes. Egbuka, considered a 5-star prospect by 247sports.com, makes teams that choose to punt the football his way look foolish — which he did on Friday night, returning a punt for a touchdown in the first quarter.
“I just get really excited when I see that ball coming,” Egbuka said. “I saw a lot of green grass and I knew what I was able to do. I’m just really proud of my teammates.”
Egbuka, who didn’t play in the second half of the blowout win, also racked up six catches for 107 yards and a touchdown and rushed twice for 12 yards and a touchdown.
That rushing touchdown came out of the Wildcat formation when Egbuka took the direct snap and ran it in from nine yards out, dragging three or four defenders with him into the end zone.
A lot has been made about Egbuka’s explosiveness and playmaking ability, but his strength is perhaps an underrated part of his game and another component that makes him a total-package player and recruiting prospect.
“I don’t know if that Wildcat package is something we would’ve put in for him last year or the year before,” Davies said. “He just works so hard to get better in every aspect of the game, especially physically. He’s put on weight, he’s a lot stronger this year. He’s equipped for that.”
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that’s the case, consider the Hockinson football program flattered — Davies said Steilacoom was inspired by seeing Hockinson use the Wildcat last season with UW commit Sawyer Racanelli.
“We think we have a guy that’s that talented and can shoulder the load for us,” Davies said. “That’s a package that we ran it a little bit over the last few weeks, but you could see more of it. Teams have a tough time preparing for it. We know we’re already explosive on offense, so if we can get teams to prepare for something else each week, that’s good for us.”
And Egbuka certainly doesn’t mind taking the direct snap.
“We’ve been repping it a lot,” he said. “It’s definitely fun for me, fun for the guys to play downhill and grind out those yards.”
ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER BLOWOUT FOR NO. 1 TUMWATER
You might as well keep the clock running at Tumwater District Stadium when the T-Birds are playing.
Seven times in its 11 games, Tumwater High School has taken a big enough lead to force a running clock for most of the second half.
In their seven games against Class 2A opposition, the Thunderbirds have outscored the foe a combined 395-40. Only once has a 2A team scored twice in a game with Tumwater and that came after the T-Birds had taken a 66-0 lead.
Friday night provided more of the same as Tumwater crushed visiting Franklin Pierce, 56-7, at Tumwater District Stadium in the first round of the 2A state playoffs. The T-Birds will host Archbishop Murphy, 46-0 winners of its first-round game with North Kitsap, next weekend in the state quarterfinals.
“We’re constantly focused on us. I know it sounds cliche, but we concentrate on what we can do to get better and keep working towards that,” said Tumwater coach Bill Beattie of how his team can translate routs of average teams into wins over stronger opponents. “Our measuring stick is ourselves, not other people.”
Coming off a mediocre season for them – 8-2 and a fourth-place finish in the Wesco Sky division – the Wildcats are seeded eighth, but there is almost no chance Tumwater will take them lightly.
Six times since 2011 the T-Birds have met Murphy in the state tournament, winning four times but falling to the Wildcats once in the first round and being humbled 48-10 at TDS in Sid Otton’s final game as coach in 2016. Two years ago, Tumwater pulled a low-scoring upset, 10-6, in a semi-final.
“You’ve got to be ready for those guys, but we’re excited about the opportunity,” Beattie said.
COULD WE SEE A STEILACOOM VS. TUMWATER TITLE GAME?
It was nice to see the top two Class 2A teams from the South Sound on opposite sides of the bracket in this year’s state tournament, with Tumwater taking the top seed and Steilacoom taking the No. 2 seed.
There are still games to win before a No. 1 vs. No. 2 state title showdown could become a reality, but both teams have the talent and experience to make that matchup a reality. It would be a fascinating matchup between two of 2A’s heavyweights, with two completely different offensive styles on display — Steilacoom, with its pass-heavy air-raid, and Tumwater, with its old school, Wing-T rushing attack.
We’ll see how it plays out, but if that’s the state championship matchup? Sign us up.
PUYALLUP WINS A THRILLER OVER EASTLAKE
No. 7 Puyallup held off a ferocious effort from No. 10 Eastlake, winning 40-34 in a game that went down to the final play, with Eastlake driving down the field with time running out. With seven seconds remaining, Eagles’ dual-threat quarterback Grady Robison tossed a pass to standout receiver Cooper Williams on the right sideline, who ran the ball out at the Puyallup 35-yard line to freeze the clock.
On the next and final play, Robison launched a shot to the end zone as the stadium held its breath. The ball deflected off a forest of hands and bounced to the turf with time expired.
“We talked about iron sharpening iron, and we felt like we got that today,” said Puyallup coach Gary Jeffers. “They sharpened us, and I think we’ll be better next week because we played them.”
Puyallup quarterback Luke Holcomb finished 16-of-24 for 257 yards and a pair of touchdowns for Puyallup, with Ziere Ford (79 yards rushing, 1 TD) and Isaiah Dickerson (72 yards rushing, 1 TD) leading the charge on the ground. Both Holcomb’s passing scores went to Isaac Clark, who finished with 112 yards receiving.
Puyallup advances to play the winner of No. 15 Eastmont-No. 2 Camas, with a berth in the semifinals – and more memories to make – hanging in the balance.
“We’re a bunch of dogs and we’re hungry,” Holcomb said. “We got a chip on our shoulder for sure.”
LINCOLN’S OFFENSE IS FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS
No. 3 Lincoln came away with a comfortable 49-28 win over No. 14 Seattle Prep on Friday night, and the offense has been hot as of late, averaging 45.5 points in the team’s last four contests.
Abner Sio-Fetaui, who has become the focal point of Lincoln’s offense in the run game, rushed 13 times for 168 yards and three touchdowns in the win. Quarterback Caden Filer completed 23-of-28 passes for 320 yards and four touchdowns and Julien Simon hauled in eight receptions for 124 yards and two touchdowns in the win.
Lincoln will face No. 6 Marysville-Pilchuck in the state quarterfinals.
LAKES, PENINSULA ELIMINATED IN 3A WITH FIRST-ROUND ROAD LOSSES
It’s no secret the Bellevue Wolverines have a potent rushing attack with their famous Wing-T offense, but the Wolverines showed off something else in Friday’s 31-14 victory over Lakes in the opening round of the 3A state tournament – a very efficient passing game.
The Wolverines jumped on the Lancers early with two touchdown passes to senior Joshua Goates to give Bellevue a 14-0 advantage at the end of the first quarter and force the Lancers to play from behind the entire game.
“I thought we did a good job against the run, early,” Lakes head coach Dave Miller said. “They caught us on a couple of those play-actions when the (defensive backs) fall asleep a little and think run, run, run. We coached it all week, and we just fell asleep a little bit on it. They put the ball on the money. The halfback pass is tough, you try to stop the run and the guy threw a perfect dime over there. Those first couple of passes hurt.”
The Lancers also had difficulty getting their own running game going. After rushing for 182 yards and three touchdowns a week ago in a win over Snohomish, sophomore running back Devon Nofoa-Masoe managed just three yards on two carries on Friday. The Lancers managed just 45 rushing yards, most of which came on scrambles by junior quarterback Justin Brennan late in the game.
3A South Sound Conference champion Peninsula lost 35-10 on the road to Mount Spokane, a game in which nothing seemed to work for the Seahawks.
Mount Spokane running back Kannon Katzer proved unstoppable, rushing 40 times for 302 yards and three touchdowns, also recording a 93-yard kickoff return to set up a touchdown.
3A SSC MVP Sean Skladany managed just 52 yards and a touchdown on nine carries and Peninsula — generally a strong running team — was held to 57 total net rushing yards on the night. Chase Wittmers led the receivers with nine catches for 54 yards.
NO. 1 KENNEDY CATHOLIC CRUISES PAST NO. 16 WENATCHEE
The Lancers started a bit slow but eventually came away with a comfortable 49-20 win over Wenatchee. Quarterback Sam Huard, a UW commit, completed 16-of-33 passes for 271 yards and four touchdowns in the win and rushed twice for 16 yards and a touchdown. Junior Alexander led the talented receiving corps with six catches for 96 yards and three touchdowns.
And five-star recruit and UW commit Sav’ell Smalls showed what he could do on offense, rushing five times for 32 yards and a pair of touchdowns in the win. Kennedy faces the winner of Skyview and Woodinville in the state quarterfinals.
Reporters Dave Weber, Thomas Kyle-Milward and Aaron Lommers contributed to this story.
This story was originally published November 16, 2019 at 11:41 AM.
