Emerald Ridge’s Jake Schakel picks Sumner defense apart in 4A SPSL win
Jake Schakel was fired up after Friday night’s 28-18 road win against Sumner at Sunset Chev Stadium on Friday night. This one meant more to Emerald Ridge’s junior quarterback, clearly. Emerald Ridge has wanted to earn its spot in the Class 4A South Puget Sound League’s top tier. The past two years, they’ve been on the outside looking in at Graham-Kapowsin, Sumner and Puyallup.
No longer.
“It’s so big,” Schakel said. “Emerald Ridge has always been the fourth team out, right? We’ve been to the (state) playoffs not one time. We’re always a team that’s been thrown under the radar, behind Sumner, Puyallup, G-K. That is no more, because we just made a statement tonight and it means everything to us.”
Schakel was methodical picking apart Sumner’s zone coverage on Friday night, keeping Emerald Ridge’s (2-1 SPSL 4A) league title hopes alive. He completed 24-of-29 passes for 244 yards, three touchdowns and an interception in the win. Schakel connected with Washington commit and tight end Jacob Lane to open the scoring in the first half and connected with receiver Tony Harste twice for touchdowns in the second quarter to give the Jaguars a 21-3 lead going into the break.
“Me and (Harste) have been playing since fourth grade, and Gio (Kafentzis),” Schakel said. “We’ve just that bond. We’ve got that connection.”
But, similar to the past two weeks, Sumner rallied in the second half. Kayde Bodine connected with Jay Mentink for a 14-yard score late in the third, and a successful two-point try cut the Jaguars’ lead to 10.
The Spartans scored again just over a minute later. Mentink, a Princeton football and baseball commit, hauled in an interception on the second play of Emerald Ridge’s next possession, which led to another Sumner scoring drive. Bodine tossed the 12-yard touchdown to Garrett Farmer with 2:07 remaining in the quarter to make it 21-18.
The Spartans didn’t get closer, though. The Jaguars pushed the lead back to two possessions with 8:46 left, when Logan Lisherness capped a 12-play, 82-yard drive with a 1-yard rushing touchdown.
Emerald Ridge hadn’t had luck scoring in the second half so far this season. Against Puyallup in Week 1, the Jaguars led 26-8 at half, before watching Puyallup come back and losing, 29-28 to the Vikings.
The Jaguars’ players weren’t going to let that happen again.
“In this game, you have to learn from the lessons,” said Emerald Ridge coach Adam Schakel. “I just put the challenge out there to the guys. We played another good first half. We all know what we need to do. I thought our offense did a good job not panicking when a few things didn’t go right early on.”
PLAY OF THE GAME
Lisherness later intercepted a pass with less than five minutes to play after Sumner had advanced to the Jaguars 17-yard line, and Emerald Ridge closed out the win.
“I dropped back in my little zone,” he said. “I saw out of the corner of my eye, the tight end start to sit. I just creeped on over there and once the ball was in the air, I knew I was going to intercept it.”
The interception iced the game and Emerald Ridge’s players sprinted to their student section after the game to celebrate, before heading back to the field for postgame handshakes with their opponents.
“This is astronomical,” Lisherness said. “This means a lot. We should’ve come out and beat Puyallup. We couldn’t play all four quarters. Today, we played all four quarters and came out with the win.”
SUMNER SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS
On the flip side, while Emerald Ridge has been a first-half team early in this season, Sumner has been the polar opposite. In wins over Bellarmine and Curtis in the first two weeks, Sumner had to come back from halftime deficits. For whatever reason, the Spartans keep finding themselves in holes at halftime.
“I’m getting pretty tired of it,” said Sumner coach Keith Ross, unable to find an explanation. “I don’t know, I don’t know. I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I don’t know. I gave them a good pep talk. We had a plan, we were going to come out and run the ball at tempo and get them spun out because they haven’t scored in the second half and we thought we’d get them nervous. ... We can’t be a second-half team and win against good teams. We knew they were a great team.
“They’ve got a great quarterback, great skill kids. I don’t know what’s wrong, I don’t know why we’re — we’re not playing bad, we’re just not making plays. We’re playing an unspirited football, which is not Sumner’s style.”
Still, there were positives. Jay Mentink continues to show he’s one of the league’s top players, hauling in a touchdown reception and pulling in an interception on defense. And Matthew Spurbeck has rushed for 100 or more yards in all three games this season. On Friday, he rusehd 19 times for 100 yards.
“He’s a workhorse, he’s the hardest worker on our team and it shows,” Ross said. “Since the day he got here, he said he wanted to be the greatest football player he can be. He’s worked his tail off and we love him. He takes this game super serious. He’s a guy we love to coach and you know he’s going to give you everything he has every night.”
UP NEXT
- Emerald Ridge (2-1) takes on Curtis (2-1) at home at Sparks Stadium at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 22. The Vikings are coming off a 42-0 win over Bethel on Friday night.
- Sumner (2-1) will have to pick itself up quickly, as it hits the road to face Puyallup (2-0) in the valley battle rivalry game at Sparks Stadium at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 3. The Vikings already have wins over Emerald Ridge and Graham-Kapowsin.
This story was originally published September 16, 2022 at 10:00 PM.
