Day After Report: Week 5
Southwest Washington became the place where blowouts happen in Week 5 of the high school football season. I will have a few notes from the Camas-Skyview game, I will set the record straight (I hope) on a story I wrote about Heritage football, and a couple of my colleagues found time to send me notes from the Hockinson game and the wild game featuring King’s Way. At the end of this report, I’ll be inviting you to follow me on Twitter for a special trip I will be making to the Promised Land on Sunday.
But this won’t be as in depth as other Day After Reports. Sorry. But just look at these scores:
47-12
48-15
41-0
42-12
41-20
35-7
35-14
56-14
Those are the scores from the 4A, 3A, and 2A GSHLs in games featuring Clark County teams. Yikes! That pretty much says it all.
But here are a few notes and clarifications:
Correcting the record at Heritage:
High school records can be a difficult thing to track. When we hear about a school record from a coach or other official from a school, we often have to take their word on it. This is not the NFL, where every stat is archived. Still, we do make an effort to confirm, but even that can be a tough process.
Take what happened to us this past week.
I wrote about the fantastic receiver E’Lon Mack of Heritage, how he has the school record for touchdown receptions with 15. We were told he topped Ashton Clark’s record. So we looked it up. Sure enough, we have Clark with 14 touchdown receptions. If he was, indeed, the record-holder, then Mack topped it. Without another name to look up, without an “official” record book maintained at the school, there is little else we could do.
Not so fast my friends.
Yesterday, I received an email from a former assistant coach with Heritage who believed Ron Howard had 15 touchdown receptions in one season, back in Heritage’s glorious 2000 season. That was the second year of the program, and the Timberwolves won the league title.
Hmmmmm.
So I looked it up. The Columbian has Howard with 13 touchdown receptions that season. But he had two the previous year, giving him 15.
The good news: E’Lon Mack, we believe, is the record-holder at Heritage. The bad news: We failed to recognize that Mack is tied with Howard.
With high school sports, with turnover in coaches, and with no one person detailing each program’s record books, these things have a way of being forgotten. Heritage has had three head coaches since Pat King left after the 2003 season.
It turns out, we believe Clark does hold the all-time touchdown record at Heritage with 17. He had 14 TD receptions and three rushing TDs. One theory is someone saw that Clark had the total touchdown record, looked up his TD receptions, and figured he had that record as well.
Nobody at Heritage did this intentionally. I guarantee you I did not mean for this to happen. Trust me, journalists hate getting anything wrong. It happens, but we hate it.
So a correction should be in Sunday’s paper. And I used this space for a longer explanation. E’Lon Mack and Ron Howard are tied with 15 TD receptions.
From what we know.
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CAMAS 47, SKYVIEW 12
The only real drama in this one was whether the lights would come back on after they went out in the third quarter.
The look:
Now that I’ve seen Camas’ road uniforms up close and personal, I get it. They look awesome. If you are on the field. If you are just on the sideline. But not from the stands and certainly not from the press row. You cannot see the numbers from more than 50 feet away! So if we got numbers wrong, and if some players were credited with touchdowns and yards who shouldn’t have been, well, sorry. But if teams want to wear stealth uniforms, they run that risk.
(Actually, I think I got most of the names right. The Camas coaches in the booth atop Kiggins Bowl helped us out. Thanks!)
Making a name for himself:
The first player I quoted in my game story was sophomore James Bentley. Even James would have to admit that was strange. For all I know, Bentley might become the greatest football player in Camas history. But he isn’t a big name just yet.
Still, there he was in The Columbian because he was involved in the strangest play of the night. With Camas cruising to a 47-0 lead, Bentley received a punt and started heading upfield. The lights went out and, and, and, well, he said he just dropped to the ground because he didn’t know what was happening.
“It was pitch black. I couldn’t see a thing,” Bentley said.
Fortunately no one was hurt. The players did the right thing. They just stopped.
Bentley does know how to take advantage of a moment, though.
“I was going to score. All the way,” he said with a smile.
As far as we could see, yes, it was a touchdown for sure!
Hit or miss:
Hope you liked my lead to the game story. But, you know, I understand if you did not.
I tried to have a little fun with the song “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.” Remember, we do not have much time to write those reports before deadline. And even after I wrote it, I asked our copy editors if they wanted me to re-write the lead. One really liked it. The other was indifferent. We kept it.
Sometimes as writers we hit. Sometimes we miss. We hope to hit a lot more than we miss.
In this case, I was just trying to do something different regarding a football game that turned into a rout.
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KING’S WAY 78, WISHKAW VALLEY 70, OT
Always bet the “over” on eight-man football.
Wild:
Eight man football can be a wild game. Just throw in 148 points, a blackout, an overtime session, and oh yeah, a neighborhood curfew, and you have King’s Way Christian vs. Wishkaw Valley.
The Knights kicked off at 6 p.m. and didn’t finish until close to 10 p.m., which, as reported to The Columbian, is the neighborhood curfew for the lights at King’s Way’s field. One problem for pushing curfew was the lights went out at about 9:30 p.m. School officials had to make a call to get the lights back on as there was still football to be played.
It was quite the rally for King’s Way. The Knights trailed 24-8 after one, 40-32 at the half, 62-52 after three. In the fourth, quarterback Jay Becker connected with Josiah Tully for an 8-yard touchdown and later added his own 20-yard TD run and an 80-yard kickoff return for a TD to tie the game at 70 with about four minutes to play.
Just as curfew was approaching, the overtime session began with King’s Way scoring on its first possession: An 18-yard TD pass from Becker to Tully. King’s Way then recovered a Wishkah Valley fumble to end the game.
Becker threw for 244 yards, 215 to Tulley, and ran for 187 yards.
Phew.
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HOCKINSON 35, RIDGEFIELD 14
Hawks open up league play with a win.
Offense gets going a little at a time:
Thirteen skill players touched the ball when the Hockinson first-string offense was on the field.
The Hawks didn’t take many shots down the field, although senior quarterback Jess Krahn showed off his arm on a 35-yard completion to Taylor Guzman late in the first half.
Instead, the Hawks carved up Ridgefield 5, 10 yards at a time. Krahn averaged 7.6 yards per pass attempt, and Hockinson had just three plays of 20 or more yards in the game.
Hockinson coach Brian Schott came into the game a bit concerned about how his offense had performed in a 3-1 start to the season.
“We’ve been working on taking what the defense gives us, and not winning game in one play,” Schott said. “We want to try to avoid a sack, a big loss, and just move the chains. With our athletes, the big plays will eventually take care of themselves.”
The Hawks racked up 361 yards and 20 first downs.
Krahn credited the offensive line.
“They have been fantastic all year,” he said. “Every time they brought pressure, they stepped up to the plate.”
Defense, too:
Just as the Hawks offense does not revolve around one playmaker, the defense nearly pitched a shutout thanks to a solid group effort.
Hockinson gave up less than 80 yards of offense over the first three quarters, and until a cosmetic touchdown with 1:17 to play, the Spudders only points were scored by their defense on a pick-six by Josh Mason and a safety.
“The kids work hard, and they’re starting to believe they’re a good defensive team,” Schott said. “That belief, that’s the biggest component.”
Senior linebacker Louden Seekins (6 tackles) and Dominic Fisher (2 tackles, 2 fumble recoveries) led the defensive charge.
Getting healthy:
Hawks junior Austen Johnson is rounding into form after breaking a foot during the summer. After easing back into the lineup the past two weeks, he saw more playing time Friday and had a fourth-quarter interception. He also started at running back, gaining 25 yards on seven carries.
Ridgefield highlights:
Mason was a bright spot for the Spudders, cathcing four passes for 70 yards, running for 16 yards and a touchdown, and leading the defense from his safety position.
Sophomore linebacker Nick Thomas had a game-high nine tackles, while junior Noah Couch had eight tackles, two for loss, including a sack.
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Thanks to Jeff Klein for the King’s Way notes, and to Rene Ferran for his work at the Hockinson-Ridgefield game.
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To the Promised Land:
I’m posting this Saturday night, and I must get to bed early. Doing something a little crazy on Sunday: Driving to Oakland to watch my Raiders play the Chargers. I could not resist being there in person when the Raiders play an 8:30 p.m. start against a division rival. I will be safely tweeting my adventure. I plan on making a lot of quick stops to give updates. Certainly some pics. And if all goes to plan, I’ll find a spot in The Black Hole.
I also might put a blog together and detail the outing.
Raider Nation, follow me along on my twitter @360paulv. Those who are not in Raider Nation, you, too, can follow my adventure, even if you just aren’t as cool as the rest of us in Silver and Black. Some of you will have fun with me. Some of you will make fun of me. That’s OK. I’m going to the Promised Land, the capital of Raider Nation!
