Graham-Kapowsin QB Joshua Wood is TNT’s All-Area player of the year
If anyone had the opportunity to knock off Graham-Kapowsin this year in the 4A South Puget Sound League, it was Sumner. The Spartans were senior heavy, talented, well coached, and physical.
Late in the first half in the mid-October meeting, neither team had scored. Then, Graham-Kapowsin senior quarterback Joshua Wood turned it on. He threw for a passing touchdown and rushed for two more in the final five minutes of the half. Just like that, the state’s top team led 20-0. The Eagles never looked back, cruising to a 41-14 win.
“You can’t get him rattled,” longtime Sumner coach Keith Ross said of Wood. “That would be the thing that sticks out the most. You just can’t get him rattled, he’s so calm. He’s such a playmaker. He just has an innate ability to make plays. He can run when he needs to, scramble when he needs to, make throws, he’s a super elusive runner, hard to bring down. He’s just a complete, dynamic player.”
Wood, an Eastern Washington commit, made plays all season long, leading Graham-Kapowsin to a perfect season, the Class 4A state championship and more recently, a win in the GEICO State Champions Bowl Series game in Las Vegas against Georgia 7A state champion Collins Hill, a nationally-ranked top-10 team which featured the nation’s No. 1 high school recruit.
Wood is The News Tribune’s 2021 All-Area player of the year. And get this: he never lost a game as a starter in his high school career. Graham-Kapowsin was flawless this year, and during last spring’s shortened season, went undefeated as well.
“I couldn’t have done it without my teammates helping me,” Wood said. “Nobody really does that, going undefeated as a starter.”
Graham-Kapowsin beat Lake Stevens in the state championship game, 44-7. The Eagles went virtually untouched, routing everyone in their path. Before the bowl game against Collins Hill, Graham-Kapowsin won its 14 games in Washington by an average margin of 41 points.
Wood passed for 2,495 yards and 35 touchdowns this fall, adding 621 yards and 10 touchdowns on the ground. That ability to beat opponents in both the passing and running game — not to mention the wealth of weapons around him with a dominant offensive line and talented receivers and running backs — made Wood a nightmare to gameplan against.
“It’s almost impossible,” Ross said. “When the runs are called for him, that’s not what hurts the most. It’s when he ad libs and scrambles. When he gets into the open field and takes off, you’re in big trouble. … Just his ability to do everything in a calm manner. I’m very impressed with his stature.
“He makes great reads. He’s special. He’s not just an athlete, not just a smart kid — he’s everything combined in one body.”
Wood saved his best for last, completing 15-of-24 passes for 273 yards and four touchdowns and rushing 12 times for 86 yards in the win against Collins Hill, which was televised nationally on ESPNU. He connected with receiver Stephen Mars for the game-winning touchdown, leaving just one second left on the clock. It capped off a drive that began with just 28 seconds left on the clock. Cooly, methodically, Wood led his team down the field for the game-winning touchdown. In the face of pressure, Wood always found a way to break outside the pocket, keeps his eyes downfield and find an open receiver.
“How calm he is,” said Graham-Kapowsin coach Eric Kurle. “That allows him to do that. A lot of people panic when they get that pressure. He tries to find that spot, find someone downfield.”
Now, the 2021 Graham-Kapowsin Eagles are being talked about as one of the best teams to ever come out of Washington, alongside the 2012 Bellevue Wolverines and others. Before the final drive against Collins Hill, Kurle huddled his team and asked them what they wanted their legacy to be.
“We all stuck to that,” Wood said. “We wanted to leave as the best team to come out of Washington, just to show what Washington football can do.”
This story was originally published December 22, 2021 at 6:40 AM.
