Besieged by miscues and Bellevue’s power running, Peninsula Seahawks fall in opener
At least on opening night, the Peninsula High School Seahawks had no answers.
The visiting Bellevue Wolverines scored on each of their first five possessions, and even threw in a touchdown on one of the Seahawks tries, en route to a 51-13 non-league victory at Roy Anderson Field on Friday night.
“Humbling,” Peninsula coach Ross Filkins said. “Hats off to Bellevue. They came out, they played their game. They did a really good job in their execution.”
The Wolverines game lies almost solely on the ground. In fact, 60 of 61 plays Bellevue ran on Friday were runs. All of the Wolverines 445 yards came via the rush.
Lucas Razore threw Bellevue’s only pass of the night, on a third-and-13 from the Peninsula 25-yard line. It was incomplete.
On the next play, Wiley Bryant missed a 46-yard field goal. It was one of only two times the Wolverines possessed the ball and failed to score.
The other came one possession earlier, when Bellevue managed just 28 yards before having to punt for the only time in the game.
“We certainly improved in the second half,” Filkins said. “I know that was not the team that we can be. Defensively, our execution was very poor. But we found out they had a punter, which is good. So we were able to get a couple of stops there in the second half.”
The Seahawks couldn’t get much of anything going offensively until the third quarter. While Bellevue ran for 294 yards and four touchdowns over the first 24 minutes, Peninsula managed only seven yards on nine carries in the first two quarters.
Quarterback Jake Bice had moderate success, completing seven of 12 passes for 82 yards. But half of that total came on three completions on a final possession in the final 30 seconds of the second quarter.
He ultimately finished with 205 yards through the air, going 14-for-26 with an interception.
“I thought we showed good sparks,” Bice. “A lot of times we had guys in the right places at the right times. We started to turn it around at the end, score a little bit. Bellevue was a great team tonight. They scored about every time.”
The Seahawks finally got on the scoreboard with 8:35 left to go in the third quarter, on their second possession of the half. Peninsula had received the kickoff to start the third quarter, but on the first play from scrimmage, Bellevue defensive back Chase Taylor broke on a ball Bice threw outside.
Taylor intercepted the pass at the Seahawk 24 and was alone as he returned it for a touchdown that extended Bellevue’s advantage to 35-0, just six seconds into the second half.
“We set that play up, and I really had one guy to go to,” Bice said. “I threw it outside shoulder, what I was told to do, and he made a great play. He broke so hard on that ball. Not much to do.”
Bice and the Seahawks responded, though, with a quick 73-yard drive culminated by Josh Hinkel’s six-yard touchdown run with 8:35 left in the quarter. That made it 35-6 after the extra point was blocked.
Just 100 seconds later, Bellevue added another touchdown. The game didn’t go to a running clock, though, until consecutive miscues deep in their own territory cost the Seahawks a quick nine points midway through the fourth quarter.
First, Bice was tackled in the end zone for a safety. Two plays later, the Peninsula quarterback couldn’t handle a low snap at his own 15.
Casper Rublowsky recovered the fumble for Bellevue, who took just two plays to score and extend the margin past the 40-point mercy barrier, 51-6, and invoking the running clock for the final 5:53 of the game.
Peninsula did rush down the field on the game’s final possession and scored with 18.9 seconds left when Ethan Hogan went around the left end for a 14-yard touchdown run.
“The growth potential here is huge,” Filkins said. “We’re just going to have to learn from that.”
This story was originally published September 3, 2021 at 11:16 PM.