Results, recaps and more from Week 3 high school football contests around the South Sound will be posted on this page Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Looking for local scores? Find them at the bottom of this story.
FRIDAY’S RESULTS (SEPT. 20)
LAKES 14, CURTIS 10
Lakes High School defensive end Tupu Saleaumua saw an open path to Curtis quarterback Sam Patterson and knew it was too good to be true. He froze, then leaped into the air when he saw the ball was going to be thrown, swatted it to himself and hauled it in for an interception.
A game-sealing interception, in fact, in a 14-10 Lakes road non-league win over the host Vikings. And a perfect diagnosis of an attempted screen pass.
“I felt the o-line, a little pressure off me and I felt the screen coming,” Saleaumua said. “Jumped up and then God’s glory, he gave me the pick, man. All thanks to God and my family and everyone else that’s here to support. My family and them all the way out here, we came deep.”
It was a sloppy, messy, turnover-filled game filled with special teams miscues. It was also a defensive battle. For long enough, it looked like Curtis would ultimately win that defensive battle, until Lakes quarterback Willie Nash Jr. threw a pair of touchdown passes in the fourth quarter to put Lakes in front. The first went to Tristan Baker in the back of the end zone and the second, a 59-yard go-ahead score to Exavier McChristian.
Lakes scored all 14 of its points on the two scores in the fourth quarter and that was enough.
“They have a really good defense, too,” Lakes coach Dave Miller said. “It might be the best defense we’re gonna see in the regular season. So we were just trying to get five here, six here, pound the ball.”
And his defense did the rest, shutting down Curtis’ running game and forcing the Vikings two underclassmen quarterbacks to try to beat them through the air. Star receivers Parker Mady and Xavier Ahrens were kept in check all night.
“I thank my coaching staff, I thank my defense,” Saleaumua said. “We all play as one family.”
Miller liked what he saw from his defense on the night.
“Our defense was causing problems all night with the run game,” Miller said. “Defensive battle, their defense is really good, too. We knew it was just going to come down to a four quarter game. We made a couple plays at the end that made the difference.”
Lakes moves to 3-0 with wins over Auburn Riverside, Bonney Lake and Curtis and will begin league play at home next week against North Thurston.
“We’ve got a lot of potential,” Saleaumua said. “More practices coming, you’ll see us in the playoffs and in state, man.”
ORTING 20, FIFE 19
Orting QB Zach Gemar made several stellar throws on the run, dynamic RB Carson McCall erupted for a 26-yard score before the half, and the Cardinals outlasted Fife, 20-19, with a defensive stand on the game’s final possession.
A battle between 2A SPSL favorites, Orting’s deceptive, ground-and-pound offense took its toll on Fife defenders and the Cardinals won a physical war of attrition — making them the way-too-early SPSL favorites following Friday night’s league opener.
“I said at the beginning, it’s going to come down to composure,” Orting head coach Cody Baskett said. “Make sure we believe in ourselves towards the end, and good things will happen.
“Fife’s always tough. Well-coached team. Just had to get the breaks when we got them.”
The 6-foot-2, 195-pound McCall was a bowling ball between the tackles and in the open field, one of three Cardinals backs to find the endzone at Fife High School. Orting’s do-it-all playmaker erupted for a 26-yard touchdown on a play-action catch-and-run in the second quarter and delivered a crucial five-yard carry on 4th and 3 to move the chains in the final minutes of regulation.
“He’s a horse,” Baskett said. “(Carson) just has a great demeanor. Never gets too high, never gets too low, and just always grinding and looking to get the ball forward.”
It’s still September – but the Cardinals control their destiny the rest of the way.
Chunk plays with McCall drove Orting into the redzone on their opening drive, and senior RB Brock Armstrong punched in a one-yard score for an early, 6-0 lead.
“This was definitely the toughest team we had to face for us to be league champs,” McCall said. “We haven’t been league champs for a while… It’s just big that we were able to come out and beat (Fife). It’s a heck of a good team.”
Fife equalized on the final play of the first quarter, when WR Slavik Shemedyuk raced to the outside and took a short pass down the right sideline for a 25-yard score. Both squads missed extra points; tie game, 6-6.
After McCall’s touchdown in the closing seconds of the first half, Orting RB Chase Brouhard cut inside and dashed 19 yards for another rushing score, pushing the Cardinals lead to two possessions in the third quarter, 20-6.
But it was far from over.
Fife’s Kaynen York secured two touchdowns in the second half — the first uncovered and untouched on a 52-yard catch and run — and again from 19 yards out in the fourth. The Trojans nearly tied the game at 20 with seven minutes remaining until another point after missed wide, preserving Orting’s one-point lead.
It’s what led to a thrilling defensive stand for the win.
“Our team’s just physical,” McCall said. “We don’t back down.”
With 1:02 remaining, Orting nearly converted a 4th and 10 from Fife’s 19 to virtually ice the game – but a pretty throw from Gemar grazed McCall’s fingertips in the endzone. Fife had life.
Without timeouts, Fife QB Mattson Ducharme took a lethal sack without enough time for another snap, and Orting stormed midfield as a celebration ensued from the visiting crowd.
“Definitely a big win for us,” McCall said. “We lost a lot of guys last year, but we have a young group that’s very capable of being league champions this year.
“And next year.”
BOX SCORE
F: 6-0-7-6—19
O: 6-8-6-0—20
CAMAS 33, LINCOLN 14
Was it a tough night at the office for the Lincoln Abes? No doubt.
Were there things Lincoln will be able to take out of its 33-14 loss to 4A Camas – along with the rest of a tough non-conference schedule over the first three weeks of the high school football season – as the Abes begin league play in the new 3A Puget Sound League next week at Gig Harbor? Most definitely.
“The kids on the sideline were positive,” Lincoln coach Masaki Matsumoto said. “No ‘Debbie Downers.’ And the guys on the field, they didn’t quit.”
Lincoln quarterback Sione Kaho punched the ball into the end zone on two tough runs, though he got credit for only one of them (more on that in a moment). Jadeon Scranton scored from four yards out with 3 minutes, 17 seconds to play to get the score to its final point.
Scranton ran hard all night, ending up with 67 yards on 12 carries to go with that touchdown.
“You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do for your team,” Scranton said. “It’s definitely tough. But I love these guys with all my heart, and I’ll do anything for this team. We’ve got a lot of time to develop.”
Scranton’s efforts weren’t enough to overcome five touchdown passes from Camas quarterback Jake Davidson, however. Davidson found four different receivers for those five throwing scores. Only Jack Macdonald got in the end zone twice, hauling in touchdown receptions of 40 and 26 yards as the Papermakers (3-0) built a 20-0 lead in the first half.
It’s a lead that really should have been 20-7 at halftime. Kaho, on second-and-seven from the Camas 13-yard line and just 3.4 seconds remaining in the first half, rolled to right as he initially looked for Messiah Ellick running a route toward the end zone.
Instead of throwing the ball, Kaho waved Ellick to keep going deeper into the end zone as he kept the ball and turned the corner. Kaho ran through two potential tackles and lunged into the end zone for an apparent touchdown with zeroes on the clock. Instead, the line judge on the field raised his hand and marked Kaho down inside the 1.
As they left the field, the ref was heard to say to a coach, “The ball came out.”
“That was a touchdown, by the way,” Matsumoto said. And two videos seen at halftime clearly showed Kaho’s entire upper body in the end zone with the ball before he went to the turf.
But, it’s just another lesson the Abes (1-2) will take into their 3A PSL opener against the Tides.
“But hey, we have to practice what we preach, and control what we can control,” Matsumoto said. “We believe it should be close, so let’s make it close.”
Had the Kaho touchdown counted, it would have been 20-7 instead of 20-0. Then, when the sophomore QB went for 27 yards on the second play of the third quarter to set Lincoln up with a first down at its own 47, the desperation of being down three scores may have changed the way the Abes approached the rest of that first drive of the second half.
Instead, Kaho tried three straight passes. All fell incomplete. After the punt, Camas went 86 yards in 13 plays to extend the lead to 27-0 with 7:42 left in the third and essentially put this one away.
Nikko Speer, who caught the 8-yard scoring pass on the decisive third-quarter drive for the Papermakers, added two interceptions on defense the rest of the way as Lincoln tried to come back through the air. Davidson completed an efficient 16 of 22 passes for 196 yards, those five TDs and an interception himself.
THURSDAY’S RESULTS (SEPT. 19)
TUMWATER 38, EASTLAKE 27
Five Tumwater running backs scored touchdowns, senior linebacker Beckett Wall tackled 14, and the T-Birds ran over 4A-Eastlake, 38-27, for another impressive victory in non-league play Thursday night.
Tyler Briscoe’s one-yard touchdown run gave Tumwater a 7-6 lead late in the first quarter and the T-Birds piled 247 rushing yards (368 total) despite an oversized Eastlake front in Sammamish.
“We talk about ‘answer the bell.’ That’s kind of a theme to us,” Tumwater head coach William Garrow said. “They did that.
“Every time Eastlake threw a punch, our kids rallied and punched back. So it was a great team win.”
A complete win, too. As promised, Tumwater’s Wing-T offense allows for production from six tailbacks; five of them hit paydirt. Leading rusher Peyton Davis handled a team-high 10 carries for 70 yards and a score.
“I was really impressed with the way that (Eastlake’s) defensive front played,” Garrow said. “Their linebackers fly to the ball, so it was a war for our kids.”
QB Jaxon Budd completed 8-of-9 passes for 112 yards with crucial, accurate throws that moved the chains and extended drives.
Tumwater’s Derek Thompson (five yards) and Jaylin Nixon (40) scampered for touchdowns in the second quarter, Cash Short scored from 24 yards in the third, and Davis erupted for a 36-yard touchdown on Budd’s perfectly-sold fake handoff late in the fourth.
A referee approached Garrow: “’Coach, I didn’t know he had the ball until he was 20 yards downfield,’” he recalled. “That’s really cool to hear.”
Of Wall’s 14 tackles, two went for loss. DL Malijah Tucker tackled five (1 TFL) and forced an Eastlake fumble. Mehki Richardson tackled nine (2 TFL) with a sack.
Tumwater (3-0) adds to a strong non-league resume after routing 4A-Puyallup (56-6) and Bainbridge (56-6) by identical scores in the opening weeks.
BOX SCORE
T: 7-14-7-10—38
E: 6-7-0-14—27
SOUTH SOUND SCOREBOARD
SATURDAY (SEPT. 21)
NON-LEAGUE
Federal Way 53, Spanaway Lake 10
Skyview 38, Puyallup 8
FRIDAY (SEPT. 20)
NON-LEAGUE
Lakes 14, Curtis 10
Camas 33, Lincoln 14
West Linn 34, Sumner 27
Yelm 52, Kamiakin 48
Rogers 76, Silas 27
Montesano 56, Black Hills 7
W.F. West 36, Timberline 8
South Kitsap 36, Central Kitsap 35
River Ridge 41, Heritage 3
Olympia 28, Hazen 26
Lake City 35, Gig Harbor 16
Evergreen (Vancouver) 49, North Thurston 0
Mount Tahoma 21, Mount Si 17
4A SPSL
Graham-Kapowsin 20, Emerald Ridge 13
4A NPSL
Kennedy Catholic 42, Tahoma 0
Stadium 21, Mount Rainier 7
Auburn 63, Kentridge 40
3A NPSL
Decatur 61, Thomas Jefferson 0
Enumclaw 68, Kentlake 0
2A SPSL
Orting 20, Fife 19
Eatonville 48, Clover Park 33
THURSDAY (SEPT. 19)
4A NPSL
Kentwood 36, Auburn Riverside 20
3A NPSL
Todd Beamer 36, Kent Meridian 6
2A SPSL
Steilacoom 42, Washington 35
Franklin Pierce 68, Foss 0
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