Alex Shaw carried his team to
the Class 4A state title. So when Lewis and
Clark’s record-setting running back walked off
the Tacoma Dome turf on Saturday night with the
championship trophy held high above his burly
frame, well, it was fitting.
“He’s something special,” Tigers
coach Tom Yearout said of Shaw through tears.
Unranked Lewis and Clark toppled
top-ranked Bothell, 21-14, for the school’s
first championship. The title is the first for a
Greater Spokane League team since 1997. Bothell
lost last season’s final by the same score to
Oak Harbor.
“This is just incredible,” said
Shaw, a 6-foot-2, 216-pound senior who carried a
4A finals-record 37 times for 176 yards.
Shaw scored the tying touchdown
midway through the fourth quarter, but his
devastating block on the go-ahead score was just
as important.
With barely more than a minute
left, the score tied and the Tigers at their own
49-yard line, Lewis and Clark quarterback Taylor
Eglet scrambled to his left. The play broke down
and receiver Jordan Hanson, playing his first
season of football, got behind defensive back
Nate Proulx. Eglet saw Hanson, fired a strike on
the run and he raced into the end zone for the
game-winning touchdown with 1 minute, 1 second
remaining.
Eglet said once he saw Hanson
beat the defender, he knew what to do.
“Jordan had him and I knew it
was a touchdown if I made the throw,” he said.
Bothell’s comeback bid was
thwarted when defensive back Levi Taylor
intercepted quarterback Johnny Hekker’s pass
with eight seconds left.
“We weren’t going to give up,”
Hanson said. “We got down early, but we were
never out of this game.”
The Tigers (11-2) tied the score
when Shaw barreled into the end zone for a
9-yard touchdown with 6 minutes, 10 seconds left
to play. Shaw got the ball seven times on the
10-play, 74-yard drive, catching one pass for
seven yards and rushing for 43 yards.
“I try to run as hard as I can,”
said Shaw, who finished the season with 1,655
yards and 21 touchdowns. “But I’m nothing
without my offensive line. I think they’re the
best in the state.”
That scoring drive was a
response to Bothell’s on the previous
possession.
The Cougars (13-1) went ahead
14-7 when Hekker found running back Patrick
Otterbech underneath for a 53-yard touchdown
pass early in the fourth quarter. The speedy
5-foot-9, 180-pound junior caught the ball at
Tigers’ 40-yard line, broke through the middle
of the defense and outran the secondary to the
end zone.
The touchdown atoned for
Otterbech throwing an interception on a halfback
pass on Bothell’s previous possession.
Tigers’ cornerback D.J. McNeil
intercepted the pass on Bothell’s second
possession in the third quarter, but Lewis and
Clark couldn’t take advantage.
Doug Pacey: 253-597-8271
doug.pacey@thenewstribune.com
blogs.thenewstribune.com/preps
