Terrific Tigers
LC mixes
Shaw's rushing, late TD pass
|
Punishing running back
Alex Shaw, center, leads the
cheers as Lewis and Clark
lofts the State 4A
championship trophy.
Associated Press
(Associated Press) |
|
Mike Vlahovich
Staff writer
December 2, 2007
TACOMA – When two teams of
destiny squared off in the final football
game of Gridiron Classic XIII, something had
to give.
Destiny's Darling in this
case was Lewis and Clark as Taylor Eglet
found wide-open Jordan Hanson for a 51-yard
touchdown with 1 minute, 4 seconds remaining
in the State 4A championship Saturday in the
Tacoma Dome to rally the Tigers past Bothell
21-14 and become part of Greater Spokane
League and school lore.
It was the second score in
the final 6:10 of the game and the victory
produced Spokane's fourth State 4A champion
and was the first on the field in school
history. (LC won the mythical title in
1967.)
LC trailed 7-0 and again
14-7 with 9:40 left, but each time found a
way to get the job done.
"Back in August when I
predicted us to win the league it was the
wrong thing I was picking," coach Tom
Yearout said. "I knew we had good players,
but I didn't know they had that much heart."
The game began with
undertones of last week's Bothell game
against Ferris, when the Cougars took the
opening drive for a score and made it look
easy.
Johnny Hekker mixed passes,
including a 27-yarder outside to receiver
Ben Moschel, with the runs by Jonathan
Kirschner and Patrick Otterbech to cover 71
yards in 4:30 and the early 7-0 advantage.
It wasn't until late in the
quarter that LC's defense figured things
out. Michael Kody and DJ McNeil tossed
Kirschner for a 12-yard loss and Charles
Taylor stuffed Otterbech 4 yards behind the
scrimmage line.
Then, Bothell had only 13
more yards of its 103 halftime total
thereafter and Shaw, who was stifled early,
ran 16 times for 88 yards, spearheading a
second-quarter, 50-yard game-tying march.
"We couldn't duplicate their
speed and intensity in practice," LC
defensive coordinator Jeff Reyburn said.
"But I knew we'd be OK. We run one defense
the whole game and call but one play. We're
just tougher than everybody else."
The Tigers had the ball 11
of the final 14 minutes of the first half.
Eglet had a couple of
completions, 16 yards to Hanson and a 7-yard
TD to Alex Gauper, for the tie by
intermission. He just missed long over the
top to Chris Martin, or else the Tigers
would have had the go-ahead score 2 minutes
inside the second period.
That's how the score
remained until Otterbech took a wicked lick,
but he barely flinched and sprinted 53-yards
to put the Cougars ahead 14-7.
The Tigers covered 74 yards
in nine plays to tie with Alex Shaw, who
rushed for 176 yards on 37 carries,
scattering Cougars on a 10-yard run that
capped the drive.
Then, following an
interception by defensive tackle Steve
Johnson, the Tigers took just five plays for
Eglet and Hanson to produce the winner. The
TD came when Eglet sprinted left, elected to
run and changed his mind.
"Coach told me if nothing
was there to run 10 yards get out of bounds
and we'd do something else," he said. "The
corner came up and Jordan did a good job of
getting vertical."
There were plenty of
accolades to go around. Shaw laid a lick on
a defender to free Eglet in addition to his
fifth straight 30-carry effort.
"If you ask a high school
back to do that for five weeks in a row
against good teams, that's a good football
player," Yearout said.
There was Johnson, the
dominating lineman who got his pick at LC's
30 with Bothell driving, at the defining
moment of the game.
"How fitting for a young man
who all he does is work hard and is an
undersized interior linemen – to read a
screen delay rout and make a lifetime
memory," Yearout said.
There was Hanson, the
first-year football player, catching the
winning touchdown for a state championship
team. Yearout called him a gamer in LC's
most important contests.
"We've always been a team
that responds well," Hanson said. "Taylor
was scrambling, the line gave him great
protection and this is amazing."
There was the defense on
which LC hung its hat all season long,
denying Bothell for most of the game and the
offensive line that gave Shaw running room.
Shaw was asked what gave him
the greatest satisfaction, his rushing
performance or the key block. He answered
that it wasn't about individual honors, but
about playing with this team of resolve.
"It doesn't matter how many
losses you have during the year," he said
after ending Bothell's unbeaten season by
the identical score the Cougars (13-1) lost
by a year ago in this game. "This is what
you play for."
Eglet summed it up: "Alex
said we were not leaving here without the
Gold Ball."
Karma. Destiny. Call it what
you will, the LC Tigers (11-2) are taking
the state championship trophy home with them
back to Spokane.
