A win’s a win, right? Spanaway Lake sneaks past Garfield, 7-0, to advance to state
Dempsy James was gutting out, unable to really throw the ball after he was thrown to the ground in the second quarter and injured his right shoulder. Spanaway Lake couldn’t move the ball on the ground, either.
But Eugene Camacho saved the day. The senior found himself in the right place at the right time, as Garfield quarterback EJ Caminong and running back Reylen Witherspoon had difficulty on an exchange late in the second quarter.
Witherspoon couldn’t control the ball, and it dropped to the turf at Art Crate Field in Spanaway and bounced up. Camacho had broken into the line and scooped the fumble up in stride. The Sentinel linebacker had nothing but green in front of him and he raced toward the end zone before getting stopped at the 1-yard line as he lunged for the goal line.
With only a single yard to gain, James kept the ball and shoved his way into the end zone for what turned out to be the game’s only touchdown in Spanaway Lake’s 7-0 district playoff victory.
“I just saw the hole and the ball bounced into my hands,” Camacho said of the recovery. “I was like, I gotta go make something.”
That play, literally, was the only one that Spanaway Lake managed to turn into offensive success. The Sentinels ran only 15 plays total in the first half and went to the locker room with minus-2 yards of total offense.
The second half didn’t get much better for Spanaway Lake, whose two kneel-downs to end the Bulldogs season in the final seconds left the Sentinels with 17 total yards for the second half. That computes to 15 yards of offense overall in the game, with all of three first downs.
“I didn’t want you to tell me that, either,” Spanaway Lake coach Cameron Robak said. “You’ve just got to have great defense, have some ball-players. A few things came our way, obviously. That fumble bounced right to Eugene and he took it down to the 1, and we did what we needed to do to get away. But that’s not how you want to win a football game.”
What the Spanaway Lake offense couldn’t do, the Sentinels defense did. They made plays when they needed them most.
Sure, Garfield helped out. The Bulldogs committed 14 penalties on offense, including nine false starts.
The last two false start errors came at the most inopportune time possible for Garfield (6-4). Both came on goal-to-go plays at the Spanaway Lake 1-yard line, on the Bulldogs final possession of the game with under two minutes to play.
The Bulldogs had gotten there by overcoming two previous false start penalties on a drive that began at the Sentinels 45 with 6:14 to play. Then, on a third-and-one from the 11, quarterback EJ Caminong rifled a pass to Yemoni Bradley-Howell for 10 yards and that first-and-goal situation.
As Reggie Witherspoon III went in motion, the offensive line moved, pushing Garfield back to the 6. Caminong then found Witherspoon for five yards, setting up second and goal back at the 1. And as the Bulldogs tried to run that play, the line moved again.
From there, Caminong’s last three chances each fell incomplete and the Sentinels took over with 1:12 left. One running play for no gain and two two-yard losses on kneel downs ended it and sent Spanaway Lake into the Round of 16 for the second straight season.
The Sentinels will find out who and where they play that game on Sunday. One thing seems certain, though. James will be behind the center calling plays.
“With another week, hopefully we can get him healed up,” Robak said.
“Got banged up a little bit,” James confirmed. “But we’ll be back next week. For sure.”