A number of Wilsonville football players competed in the 26th annual Les Schwab Bowl at Lewis and Clark College on Friday, as Team Columbia triumphed 39-26 over Team Willamette at the summertime all-star showcase.
The Wildcats had a total of five players selected for the game, including rising junior Roman Kealoha and rising seniors Carter Christianson, Nick Crowley, Emmitt Fee, and Lincoln Mason.
Additionally, Wilsonville head coach Adam Guenther was chosen as the head coach for Team Willamette, and while all six Wildcats were on the losing side on Friday, each of them made valuable contributions while gaining an offseason tune-up.
“I think the ultimate goal is to win it, but you get smaller goals too,” Crowley said. “You meet all these people and become friends with these people for life, so it’s not all about winning. It’s about getting better, finding out who you are in relation to everybody else, and kind of trying to separate yourself.”
Crowley had his name called the most times of any Wilsonville player on Friday, making a number of catches on the offensive side as one of Team Willamette’s top receivers of the night.
At one point, the rising senior made an impressive back-shoulder grab down the sideline for a 40-yard gain amid one of Team Willamette’s second-half scoring drives.
Later, as Team Willamette was continuing to claw back from a 33-7 halftime deficit, Crowley made another contested catch over the middle for an important fourth down conversion.
As Team Willamette scored 19 of its 26 points in the second half, Crowley played a key pass-catching role.
“I think I had a good game,” Crowley said. “I think we could’ve done a little bit better in the first half, but that was all just timing and stuff, it wasn’t anyone’s fault. I think once we got our timing right we were synced up.”
Also contributing several catches was Fee, who took the most snaps of any player at tight end for Team Willamette. Fee’s presence was felt in the short-yardage game, as he was found on a number of crossing patterns and sideline dump-offs as his team struggled to throw downfield.
“I feel like it went pretty well even though we didn’t get a win,” Fee said. “It’s been a lot of fun this whole week.”
And while a victory on Friday would have been nice, Fee says the festivities of the Les Schwab Bowl, which involve the players staying in the dorms at Lewis and Clark throughout the week, made for an enjoyable experience nonetheless.
“It’s just an awesome experience. That whole week, we just prepared and had fun with each other until today,” Fee said. “It’s just the experience and the bonding that makes it so cool. We stayed in the dorms together, and we were up playing pool until like 1 a.m. and playing cornhole during the day. We were all just chilling together.”
While Crowley and Fee made their presences felt on the offensive side of the ball, Christianson was the Wildcats’ most notable presence on the defensive side. Starting at linebacker for Team Willamette, the rising senior made a number of disruptive plays over the middle of the field, including a pair of hard-hitting tackles.
Meanwhile, Kealoha made a pair of brief touches on the offensive side while Mason took snaps along both the offensive and defensive line.
It was a productive showing all-around for the group of Wilsonville players, who not only used Friday as an opportunity to showcase their skills, but as an opportunity to work on their game as well.
“I just gotta keep doing what I’m doing. Keep working out daily and get my recovery right,” Crowley said. “Sophomore year, I got injured, and that’s because I didn’t take care of my body. If we do the right things when we’re supposed to, we’ll be okay.”
Coming off the Wildcats’ first football state championship since 2004, Fee, Crowley, Christianson, Kealoha and Mason figure to play large roles in the fall, where Wilsonville will look to go back-to-back for the first time in school history.
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