Fly, Eagles, fly — Graham-Kapowsin tilts field against Emerald Ridge in 14 key seconds

Though improbable, out of 48 minutes of game time it was 14 seconds of the fourth quarter on Saturday afternoon that significantly shuffled the deck for the Graham-Kapowsin and Emerald Ridge football teams going forward this season.

In those 14 seconds, Graham-Kapowsin wrested away control of a closely-fought, back-and-forth South Puget Sound League game with league title implications and turned it into a relatively convincing 35-25 victory over the Jaguars.

The Emerald Ridge loss ended the Jaguars’ quest for their first league championship (or share thereof) since 2014, barring Week Nine collapses by both Puyallup and Sumner, each of which entered this week tied at the top of the SPSL with Emerald Ridge. And while the Eagles win kept them in the hunt for a potential piece of the SPSL title, Graham-Kapowsin also needs that same collapse from the Vikings and Spartans to get a share, or its three-year streak of SPSL titles is likely over.

That didn’t mean the Eagles had nothing to play for.

“We really sold to our seniors, if you guys are able to pull this one out and take care of business against Bethel (next Thursday), we’re going to get another home game,” Logan said. “Most likely. If we don’t come out here and take care of business, we’re looking at having to travel most of the playoffs on the road.”

While the team bought into that motivation, it still took a little extra prompting at halftime on Saturday at Art Crate Field to push Graham-Kapowsin over the top.

“One of our coaches just gave us a good motivational talk in the locker room,” quarterback Daveon Superales said. “Said we have to fight back. We were down four at halftime. We knew we had to turn it up a notch.”

Though the Eagles actually led this game 14-8 with 9 minutes, 25 seconds left to play in the first half after Superales rambled 14 yards for the first of his two rushing touchdowns, Emerald Ridge scored the final 10 points of the half to take an 18-14 lead into the break.

Superales put Graham-Kapowsin back in front with his second rushing touchdown, capping a 66-yard drive to start the third quarter with an 11-yard run. That set things up for the decisive 14 seconds.

After forcing an Emerald Ridge punt, Graham-Kapowsin drove the ball again, finally extending the lead to 28-18 on Michael Toa’s three-yard run with 10:13 to go in the game. One play later, Caden Smith intercepted Jaguars quarterback Jake Schakel and returned the ball 37 yards for another touchdown.

“They’d been running those same routes, and we’d watched a lot of film,” Smith said. “It all comes down to work. Put it in. Read it.”

And return it.

The clock read 9:59 in the fourth quarter – and Graham Kapowsin had gone from a three-point lead to a three-possession lead in those short 14 seconds, essentially putting the victory away. With the win, the Eagles are tied with Emerald Ridge in third place in the SPSL at 6-2, one game behind Puyallup and Sumner.

However, with the head-to-head edge over the Jaguars, Graham-Kapowsin holds the tie-breaker and thus the No. 3 seed to the Week 10 district playoffs for the league. The post-season begins in two weeks, and all of the top four SPSL teams play opponents beneath them in the standings in Week 9.

“Honestly, we were dinged up a little bit at the beginning of the season,” Logan said. “But our kids believed. We told them this is where we wanted to be, and they went out there and they did it. We just told them, you’ve got to believe in each other.

“That was the best team defense I think we’ve played all year.”