Day After Report: Week 6
Week 6 is the week before The Week. You know, the week before Camas takes on Union.
Of course, before The Week, Union had to get past Week 6. The Titans did, but it was not easy against Battle Ground.
For Camas, well, yeah, it was easy. The Papermakers cruised, scoring more than 60 points … again.
The 3A GSHL continues to look like Columbia River v. Mountain View. But there is plenty of football to be played before that matchup. And a couple other teams would love to spoil that scenario.
This Day After Report consists mostly of my notes from the Union v. Battle Ground game, plus some notes from Tim Martinez who was at the McKenzie Stadium doubleheader.
UNION 35, BATTLE GROUND 21
All offense in the first half. No scoring in second half.
Big and strange numbers:
The Union Titans averaged 9.8 yards per play. Yeah. That’s 539 yards on 55 plays (not including the two victory formation snaps at the end of the game).
The Battle Ground Tigers did not average that many yards per play but they did manage to get 73 snaps on offense, for 417 yards. That’s a pretty good 5.7 yards-per-play clip.
Of the 956 yards of offense in this game, 687 came in the first half. All the points, too.
Then everything changed. In the first half, the teams combined for 15 possessions. In the second half, each team had three possessions.
The offenses were still getting first downs — there were no three-and-outs in the game — but no scoring. The drives were long and time-consuming, and that worked in Union’s favor.
Battle Ground’s third possession of the second half started with 11:50 in the game. Some 18 plays and 7-plus minutes later, the Tigers lost the ball on downs at the Union 6-yard line.
Union would pick up three first downs to run out the clock, and that was that.
Fun to watch:
It is exciting to watch Battle Ground quarterback Colston Vukanovich. He kept a lot of plays alive, and he and his receivers worked well together.
Vukanovich ended up 24 of 38 for 321 yards and a touchdown pass. He also rushed for 59 yards and two touchdowns. Sure, he threw three interceptions, but one was just bad luck. It was a fourth-down play, and he had to throw the ball. It bounced off a few hands before a Titan picked it off in the end zone. Interception or incomplete pass there, and the Tigers were going to lose the ball.
His play-making ability kept the Tigers in this game.
Receiver Hayden Humphrey had 10 catches for 109 yards and Colby Cahoon hit the century mark, as well, catching four balls for 103 yards. Cahoon had a 67-yard reception to set up Battle Ground’s second touchdown.
Solid all-around performance:
The Titans spread the offense around with rushing and passing. Leon Siofele had another outstanding performance, rushing for 261 yards on 30 carries with three rushing TDs.
The Union passing game was solid, too. Nolan Henry threw for 187 of his 198 yards in the first half. He only had five attempts in the second half. Fewer possessions, fewer opportunities. But Henry did his damage when it mattered.
Former safety:
One of Henry’s few mistakes turned into an interception late in the first half. Battle Ground’s John Smarr picked off the pass and was heading the other way. Henry was there, though. Seriously there, in fact.
Henry later told me he was ticked he threw the interception.
Well, he took out his anger on Smarr.
Henry, a former defensive back, made a fantastic open field tackle with a big hit. In fact, I thought Smarr fumbled. So, too, did Henry and the rest of the Titans. Union recovered the ball. Instead, officials ruled Smarr was down before he fumbled.
Hook and ladder:
The Titans did the hook-and-ladder play on the final snap of the first half. It did not go for a touchdown, but whenever I see it, I like to point out the oddity of such a play in terms of statistics.
Here is how it went down. From Union’s 47-yard line, Henry passed the ball to Thomas Lampkin, who caught the ball at the Battle Ground 40-yard line, 13 yards downfield. Lampkin then lateraled the ball to Ethan Beniga, about three yards behind Lampkin to the 43-yard line. Beniga then ran another 17 yards* to the 26-yard line before he was tackled.
So anyone know how to stat that? (I do. I’m asking you.)
I will give you another paragraph or so to think about it.
Waiting.
Waiting.
OK, here’s the answer.
The quarterback gets a pass completion, a pass attempt and passing yards for the entire play. So for Henry, he is 1 for 1 for 27 yards on this play.
The player who catches the pass from the quarterback is given a reception and yards to where his lateral (backward pass) is caught. So for Lampkin, he gets 1 reception for 10 yards on this play.
This is where it gets tricky. The player who receives the lateral gets receiving yards plus or minus from where he caught the backward pass. But he does not get a reception. There can only be one reception on a pass play, but yes, there can be more than one player who gets receiving yards per pass play. So, for Beniga, he does not get a reception but he does get 17 receiving yards on this play.
Beniga ended up catching four other balls for 66 yards on Friday, but if you notice in the boxscore, it says four catches for 83 yards. I had to remember to add the 17 yards to his total. Also, if Beniga had not caught another ball all night, it would have looked weird in the boxcore under the receiving stats: 0 catches for 17 yards.
* By the way, a couple things about this particular play. Without video review, I was not exactly certain where Lampkin caught and passed the ball back to Beniga. It was an estimate. Also, I never saw the officials officially spot the ball after the play. It was the last play of the half, and usually the referee stands at the place where the ball is spotted to give the “halftime” signal. If it happened, I never saw it. So I estimated it was the 26-yard line. Forgive me if I was off.
Now it is time for Camas:
Union coach Cale Piland said no one was allowed to use the word “Camas” this past week in practice. The Titans had enough to worry about with Battle Ground.
Well, the Battle Ground game is over, so the Titans can turn their focus to you know who.
“We know we’re getting better,” Henry said. “We have to work that much harder, though. As you know, Camas is awesome. I’m ready to get after it this week and get after them, as well.”
“They’re a great team,” Siofele said. “It just comes down to us competing. I think we’re capable.”
Don’t think it is any secret that the Titans will want Siofele to have another big night. Besides the yards, a strong running game also takes time off the clock and keeps the opposing offense off the field.
Siofele now has three 200-yard rushing games in six weeks.
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CAMAS 62, EVERGREEN 15
The Camas defense scored five touchdowns. Who does that?
Waste of time of possession:
If Evergreen was looking for a silver lining from the 62-15 loss to Camas — the Plainsmen dominated the time of possession.
Evergreen held the ball 38 minutes, 56 seconds, compared to 9:04 for Camas.
Of course, that will happen when you allow a team to score five defensive touchdowns.
Actually, Camas’ second-half possession time of 5:02 was inflated by the running clock. The Papermakers only ran nine offensive plays in the second half, compared to 28 for Evergreen.
The real silver lining:
The actual silver lining for Evergreen was the play of running back Justin Straup.
Straup battled for 142 yards on 19 carries and two touchdowns.
And it didn’t all come at the end of the game. He had eight carries for 49 by halftime, and 14 carries for 82 yards by the end of the third
quarter.
Zach Attack:
Camas defensive back Zach Eagle had two interceptions, including one he returned 38 yards for a touchdown.
Eagle nearly had three interceptions, but the referees ruled that the pass was incomplete.
(Paul Valencia chiming in here at the end of Tim’s notes: Zach Eagle might be the unluckiest high school football star I can recall. And yes, he is a star performer. Anyone who has seen him play for the last few years would know this. I swear, though, the guy has no luck. If it’s not a tough call going against him like this one on Friday night, it’s a penalty on a block during one of his long punt returns. Over the years, I would guess he has had hundreds of yards in returns called back by penalties.)
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SKYVIEW 42, HERITAGE 28
Storm rally to pick up 4A GSHL win.
Heritage defense:
Lost in a game in which Heritage gave up 42 points is how well the Timberwolves’ defense played in the first half.
Heritage limited Skyview to two first downs for most of the first half. The Storm converted two more first downs on their final two plays of the half. Heritage also intercepted a pass, blocked a punt and blocked a field goal.
That helped the Timberwolves take a 14-7 lead into halftime, and it could have been more. On its final drive of the half, the Timberwolves had
16-play, 76-yard drive that ended with a bad snap on Heritage’s 36-yard field goal attempt.
Calhoon is everywhere:
Sophomore Carson Calhoon was called upon to be Heritage’s third quarterback of the game after starter Loren Standiford left with an injury.
Before he took over in the offensive backfield, Calhoon intercepted two passes on defense.
At quarterback, he rushed five times for 42 yards and threw a 62-yard touchdown pass.
Catch of the night:
Heritage’s Nick Somboun made the catch of the night late in the game.
With less than a minute to play, Calhoon threw a long pass down the sideline. In stride and with a Skyview defender closing in, Somboun reached out with one hand, grabbed the ball and raced to the end zone for a 62-yard TD pass play. Somboun finished with three catches for 117 yards.
Arriola, all the time:
Not only did Nate Arriola rush for 167 of his 247 yards in the second half, it seemed Heritage could not do much to stop him.
Twenty of Skyview’s 29 second-half plays were rushes by Arriola.
The other nine plays included three runs by quarterback Zac Shomler, two incomplete passes, one interception, and three completions for 103 yards and two TDs.
(Paul Valencia chiming in again: Can’t see it online, but the editors went with Skyview on the front page of the sports section. Good game. Good comeback. …. At the beginning of the season, I wrote about the Big Three and the other three in the 4A GSHL. Would this be the year that someone from the other three (Battle Ground, Heritage, or Evergreen) would beat a Big Three team? Through two weeks of league play, nothing has changed. Union beat Heritage in Week 1. Union beat Battle Ground in Week 2. Camas beat Evergreen in Week 2. And Skyview beat Heritage in Week 2. Still a lot of season left, and Heritage and Battle Ground played tough this week.)
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3A GSHL
33-1056-21
63-14
Those were the scores Friday night. As written at the beginning of the season, this is likely a four-team race for the three playoff spots. The 33-10 was the close game of this night and the only one featuring two of those four teams. Prairie (1-1 in league) takes on Columbia River (2-0) next week in another top-four matchup.
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2A GSHL
Shout out to Washougal and Ridgefield on Friday night.
Washougal got the win with a big fourth quarter. Bobby Jacobs rushed for 230 yards and scored four touchdowns.
But well done Ridgefield for hanging in there. It’s been a tough season but the Spudders were within three points going into the fourth quarter.
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TRICO LEAGUE
Until otherwise noted, we’re just waiting for Week 9. La Center and Woodland look to be on a collision course. It’s quite possible those two are among the top five or six teams in all of Class 1A Washington football.
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That’s it for this week. The plan is to have a feature on Union running back Leon Siofele prior to the Union-Camas game. Game time for that contest is 7 p.m. I think I will get there by 4 p.m., to make sure I can find a place to park.
