Lakes QB Brennan wins eligibility appeal, giving Lakes’ offense instant boost
It was supposed to be a secret, kept until football practice at Lakes High School on Thursday, Sept. 30. But a school security guard caught wind of the news that Justin Brennan won his appeal on a hardship waiver with the WIAA, granting Brennan a fifth year of high school eligibility. Brennan would be eligible to play immediately and the security guard couldn’t contain himself.
“The security guard came up and was like, ‘Oh, I’m so excited about the news, can’t wait to see you on Friday,’” Brennan said. “I was so shocked.”
It was a moment of pure joy, celebrated a few minutes later with Lakes coach Dave Miller and with his teammates in the locker room prior to practice.
“I’ve never seen a bigger smile on his face,” said teammate Leo Pulalasi, who had been playing quarterback until Brennan was reinstated.
Brennan declined to speak on the details of the hardship waiver. Suffice it to say, those close to him know he’s been through a difficult time recently. Despite that, he’s stayed ready, practicing with the scout team, clinging on to hope that he’d win his appeal and get a chance to wear a Lakes uniform one more time.
“To be honest, he’s been amazing as far as playing on the scout team, practicing every day, not knowing if he was going to play,” Miller said. “Not being late, not going through the motions. He’s just been doing everything he can to help the team. That says a lot about him. In the back of his mind, he probably thought he had a 5 or 10 percent chance and he still was out here.”
A couple weeks ago, Miller talked about Brennan with his team. How many of them would do the same, if they were in his position?
“Still being out here, helping your team, on the scout team. He’s a pretty high-profile guy to just stay on the scout team and make our secondary better by throwing against them every day. I think the team has been really good support for him through the tough times. They were just really excited when he got the chance to play.”
In his first start of the 2021 fall season in a 62-0 win against Stadium last Friday, Brennan looked like he never left. In just over a half, he completed 9-of-10 passes for 248 yards and five touchdowns. He rushed twice for nine yards and another score.
“I was practicing the whole time,” Brennan said. “The athletic director let me practice. So basically, coming back into it, we still had a connection from last year. Same receivers, same everything. So just coming into (the) Stadium (game), I had to go crazy.”
Devon Nofoa-Masoe started the season as the team’s quarterback, but went down with an injury in Lakes’ non-league game against Enumclaw on Sept. 9. That forced running back Leo Pulalasi into the quarterback role. He filled in admirably and Miller said he’s been improving, but Pulalasi isn’t a natural quarterback. Lakes ran a lot of Wildcat with Pulalasi in at quarterback and it was clear the playbook shrunk.
Brennan’s return allows Pulalasi to move back to his natural running back position and gives Lakes a QB who’s in full control of the offense.
“It just opens everything up,” Miller said. “We became multi-dimensional, dynamic. Justin is so knowledgeable in our offense. He has three years in our offense. Accuracy, timing, he’s got a connection with all the receivers. That takes time. Him and David (Wells), David can now do all the things that he wants to do. David’s a Division-I receiver (holds offers from Florida Atlantic and Portland State) that was making plays with the running back throwing it to him. Now with the quarterback putting it on the money, it’s scary.”
In the shortened 2021 spring season, Brennan completed 72-of-120 passes for 912 yards and nine touchdowns. There’s been an uptick in the team’s morale since Brennan’s return, too. The injury bug has hit Lakes especially hard this season, so some good news was a welcome change.
“The energy was amazing,” Miller said. “I think we went out and played like it on Friday night. The practices, everybody amped it up. I think the kids recognized that all of the sudden, we have our point guard back. Even Leo gets to move back to his strength.”
In the team’s season-opening loss against Enumclaw, Lakes was missing three members of its starting secondary in Elijah McChristain, Chayanne Fonti-Savea and Aslan Fraser. David Wells, who starts at corner opposite Fraser, had to move to safety for the game, while Miller was forced to start two JV players at corner against the Hornets.
Now, the secondary is back to full strength and while Lakes still is dealing with some injuries to its line, Brennan’s addition is coming at a time when Lakes is getting healthy again. Lakes hits the road to face Juanita this week, before a tuneup game against Silas the following week. In the final two weeks of the season, Lakes will play for the league championship with games against Lincoln on Oct. 23 and Spanaway Lake on Oct. 29.
“We try to go 1-0 every week, that’s always our mindset, so Juanita is our focus right now,” Brenann said. “Our main focus is a PCL championship and then a state championship.”
Frankly, a 3A PCL title seemed a longshot without Brennan in the fold. Now, Lakes has a legitimate shot.
“We’ll get our two games (against Lincoln and Spanaway Lake) to prove that later,” Miller said. “I think without Justin at quarterback, we’re a team that can plunk out two, three, four touchdowns a game. With Justin, I think we’re capable of putting 50 of 60 points up every week. We’re just so much more explosive and harder to defend. Our defense has gotten way better. We’re just a different team right now than we were two or three weeks ago.”
This story was originally published October 8, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
