Whatcom football teams keep rolling in possible prelude to state tournament berths
With the explosive way unbeaten Nooksack Valley performed in its past two games, the Pioneers may well prove to be classic young spoilers against either or both traditional Class 1A state qualifiers Lynden Christian and Mount Baker.
In the wake of Nooksack’s 48-15 win over visiting Meridian on Friday in a Northwest Conference 1A opener, fans of all three contenders can only hope that not just two but perhaps three NWC teams will be seeded in the state tournament.
“There’s a slim chance to get three, but it will depend if District 2 1A (mostly Snohomish County) combines with us (District 1),” said Nooksack coach Craig Bartl, who learned from local historian Tyler Anderson that the Pioneers are off to their first 5-0 overall start since 1975.
Drama? Nooksack next will play Friday, Oct. 7, at Lynden Christian (5-0), which capped the non-league portion of its season with a 51-7 rout at Renton on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Lynden coach Blake VanDalen confirmed Saturday the good news that the highly respected NWC 2A league will get three spots instead of two.
The Lions’ pulse-pounding 21-19 win over Sehome at Civic Stadium on Friday improved Lynden to 5-0 overall and 3-0 in the NWC with Archbishop Murphy, Burlington, Lakewood and unbeaten Anacortes to come.
Not only does Sehome (3-2, 1-2) still have a realistic shot at the top three, but so do Squalicum, Anacortes and Sedro-Woolley, in what many coaches consider quite possibly the state’s toughest 2A league.
And in the 3A Wesco North, Ferndale (3-2, 3-0) remained in title contention with a 35-21 over Marysville-Pilchuck, along with Stanwood (5-0, 4-0), a 37-6 winner over Arlington.
Think local fans aren’t buzzing?
Perhaps the most buzzing of all is at Nooksack Valley, which came into the weekend with a 62-20 win over Hoquiam (3-2). The Grizzlies beat Elma 33-30 Friday to make Nooksack’s explosion look all the more impressive.
Meridian (3-2, 0-1), which like Nooksack has only five seniors, received a pre-game tribute for bringing a bus full of football players to Nooksack’s attendance area to help cope with historic flooding late last year.
“They are really good people on and off the field,” said Nooksack quarterback Joey Brown of Meridian‘s players and coaches. Brown should know — he has the same reputation.
Brown, a junior in his third season as a starter, and sophomore running back/linebacker Colton Lentz helped to show why the Pioneers don’t look at all like last year’s exceptionally young 4-5 team.
Brown ran seven times for 100 yards including touchdown sprints of 7, 47 and 44 yards. The 6-foot-3, 195-pound three-sport athlete completed 7 of 12 passes for 127 yards with no interceptions, including a 57-yard touchdown pass to junior Jackson Bennett.
Lentz scored on a 98-yard fumble return and a 36-yard run and finished with 100 yards on five carries. Skyler Whittern, yet another junior, rushed five times for 49 yards, including a 10-yard touchdown to help build a 41-0 lead in the second quarter.
Meridian displayed spunk with an 11-play, 64-yard scoring drive capped by sophomore Landen Downey’s 1-yard touchdown with 10 seconds left in the first half. The big plays were sophomore quarterback Jaeger Fyfe’s passes of 11 and 10 yards to Hunter Jones, Marcus Castaneda’s 12-yard run and Fyfe’s passes of 7 and 13 yards to Josh Elmer, the second of which set up Downey’s score.
Jones scored on the game’s final play on a 75-yard pass-run from Fyfe, who completed 17 of 34 passes for 236 yards, including seven to Jones for 150 yards. Fyfe surpassed 900 yards for the season.
When someone mentioned to Meridian coach Patrick Ames — who has seen Jones already move close to 30 catches and 350 yards in the first half of the season — how proud he should be of how hard his young team competed, he said, “I am proud.”
“We had three possessions in the red zone in the first half,” Ames said. “We competed better against Nooksack than last year (a 54-6 Meridian loss).”
On Meridian’s first threat at the Nooksack 13, Bennett returned an interception 33 yards, setting up Brown’s 57-yarder to Bennett. The third of Jorgen Vigre’s six conversion kicks put the Pioneers up 21-0.
Lentz’s memorable fumble return spoiled a 65-yard Meridian drive and produced a 34-0 advantage. On the third red zone trip, set up by Jones’ 64-yard kickoff return, the Trojans ran out of downs at the 24.
Brown seemed quicker than ever and credited joining the basketball and track and field teams as a sophomore. He qualified for state in the 100 meters and won a sixth-place medal n the long jump.
Lentz came off an effort of more than 150 yards rushing and Brown threw for nearly 150 yards against Hoquiam a week earlier as the Pioneers began a two-game stretch of 96 points in the first half alone. For the season, Brown has produced 13 touchdowns, with seven running and six passing.
SATURDAY’S GAMES
LYNDEN CHRISTIAN 51, RENTON 7: The Lyncs (5-0) continued to display the remarkable potential of their young team with all their points in yet another first-half explosion. With the starters playing relatively limited minutes, LC has outscored its opponents 215-39, including a 21-14 upset over top-ranked Royal in the previous game.
LC’s league opponents in October will be (in order): Nooksack Valley, Meridian, Blaine and Mount Baker.
The Lyncs threw five touchdown passes against Renton (2-3). Junior quarterback Jeremiah Wright scored the first touchdown on a 37-yard run, then found Tyler Sipma from 55 yards and Braden Kuik from 21. Griffin Dykstra fired consecutive scoring passes of 19 yards to Sipma and 19 and 75 yards to Kayden Stuit.
Isaac Paxton capped the scoring with a 20-yard run and Jude Decker got the chance to make the Lyncs seven-for-seven on conversions. Kuik kicked the first six.
Defensive coordinator Kent Bouma said defensive end Kade Eldridge “was all over their backfield” and also noted that Dykstra and junior Josh Hubbard had interceptions “on a day when the whole defense was solid.” Eldridge is so versatile that he came off a game-high 147 yards rushing against Royal.
NAPAVINE 71, BELLINGHAM 13: The Tigers (5-0), top-ranked in Class 2B, displayed the talent that gave them 217-6 scoring domination in their first full games. They amassed 394 total yards at Civic Stadium and scored their first two touchdowns on kickoff returns of 90 and 69 yards by Max O’Neill, sandwiched around a safety.
The Bayhawks (2-3) became the first team to score twice against Napavine on sophomore quarterback Gabriel Hofwegen’s passes of 42 yards to Kalani Utu and 55 yards to Lucas Cousins, both in the second quarter after falling behind 64-0.
Bellingham lost quarterback Max Rasset with a leg injury on the game-opening kickoff and lost defensive standout Liam Poulton Claypool with a leg injury in the second half.
DARRINGTON 46, LUMMI 36: The Blackhawks (1-3) played by far their best game against the visiting Loggers (5-0). Tony Abrams threw scoring passes of 55 and 20 yards to Mathias Johnson and 15 yards to Richie Wilson, who also ran for scores of 60 and 20 yards.
Desmond Bailey led Lummi with 15 tackles and Frank Solomon had 12.
“Our team did great,” said first-year coach Watiko Leighton. “Darrington is a big, physical team and our kids came to compete.”
FRIDAY’S GAMES
FERNDALE 35, MARYSVILLE-PILCHUCK 21: Defensive end Jake Mason had four sacks for the second consecutive game to lead another dominating effort by the front seven as the Golden Eagles raced to a 35-7 advantage in the first three quarters at Quil Ceda Stadium.
“Isaiah Carlson had close to 200 yards rushing,” said Ferndale coach Jamie Plenkovich, noting his senior standout had the first, third and fifth touchdowns on runs of 11, 4 and 47 yards to go with sophomore Zach Nielsen’s two scoring sprints of about 4 yards each, helping him surpass 100 yards rushing. Phoenyx Finkbonner booted the extra points.
Carlson, who increased his touchdown total to 9, saw his second score produce a 21-0 halftime lead. “It felt like we played pretty well, although we’re still looking to play four full quarters,” Plenkovich said.
Bishop Ootsie led the Golden Eagles well at quarterback and fellow junior Conner Walcker returned from an injury to play his usual solid game at safety. Sophomore linebacker Jacob Gandy had an outstanding defensive game including an interception.
Ferndale has Marysville-Getchell (1-4), Mount Vernon and Stanwood remaining before the seeding games in Week 9 matching 1 vs. 1 and 2 vs. 2 against the Wesco 3A South.
LYNDEN 21, SEHOME 19: Lane Heeringa’s second touchdown of the game, a 9-yard run, gave the Lions a 21-12 lead with 1:30 to play along with Troy Petz’s third conversion kick. Sehome’s defense conceded the score, hoping in vain to have enough time to play catch up.
“Lane had an interception on Sehome’s 30 and Troy executed a fake field goal (called by the coaches) for an 8-yard gain to set up Lane‘s second score,” VanDalen said.
Sehome scored the game’s first touchdown on a 5-yard run by freshman quarterback Nolan Wright in the opening quarter after Tommy Funk set up the score with a run worth about 40 of his more than 100 yards. Sophomore quarterback Brant Heppner responded with a 5-yard score for his seventh touchdown produced this year while alternating with Kaedan Hermanutz, who ran five times for 50 yards.
Heeringa’s first score was a 1-yarder three minutes into the second half for a 14-6 lead. Sehome sophomore Andre Watson answered with a 50-yard punt return for Sehome’s second touchdown.
Sophomore Blake Holman forced a fumble and Javier Zavala recovered in the third quarter to help keep the Lions ahead. Linebackers Heeringa and Chris Elenbaas led the defense with more than 20 tackles combined.
With five seconds to play, Wright found Watson for a 20-yard touchdown.
Heeringa finished with 64 yards on 14 carries. Colin Anker’s 43-yard catch was Lynden’s only pass completion.
“I feel for Sehome,” VanDalen said after the Mariners‘ first on-the-field loss (they also forfeited to Sedro-Woolley). “They did everything they could to win. Coach (Kevin) Beason is doing a great job and they played as hard as they could. I have a lot of respect for Sehome. Their effort was just outstanding.”
Lynden’s 33-7 win at Chehalis W.F. West in Week 2 is looking even better. The Chehalis team stunned Tumwater 28-7.
MOUNT BAKER 68, BLAINE 16: The Mountaineers had 10 touchdowns and no turnovers. Marcques George rushed for more than 200 yards and scored four touchdowns from the Blaine 10 to the 40, with three scores in the first half for a 47-0 lead and the fourth early in the third quarter in their NWC 1A opener.
The Mountaineers (3-2, 1-0) also had rushing touchdowns from Brady West, Dylan Moa, Wilhelm Maloley and Bryson Moa. Landen Smith threw an 11-yard scoring pass to Hayden Rosse and Brady Bruland returned a kickoff 80 yards to score.
Tanyen Staton kicked six conversions and Bruland ran for a 2-pointer.
George had an interception and Dylan Moa forced a fumble recovered by Smith.
For Blaine (0-5), sophomore backup quarterback Colin Davis completed nine passes for more than 150 yards and threw scoring passes of 37 and 54 yards to Hunter Vezzetti, who also caught a 2-point conversion pass and finished with seven catches for more than 125 yards. Riley Ihde also caught a 2-point conversion toss from Davis.
Mount Baker plays a home non-league game Saturday at 2 p.m. against La Center (4-1), a 46-0 winner over King’s Way Christian.
SQUALICUM 28, BURLINGTON 21: Junior quarterback Josh Leonard threw for more than 150 yards for the Storm (3-2, 2-1), including second-half touchdowns of 68 and 62 yards to Jacob Sorenson, a dangerous long threat who has five scores this season. The second long score broke a 21-all tie with about seven minutes to play.
Running back Marcus Nixon scored on runs of 8 and 1 yards, producing a 14-0 halftime lead and giving the quick sophomore eight touchdowns in his first season as a starter. He had nearly 150 yards rushing as one of the county’s most productive young players.
Leonard now has 10 scoring passes in his first starting season and has surpassed 800 yards passing.
Storm coach Nick Lucey credited senior defenders Nick Watt, Dylan Jacobs and Jason Retz with outstanding efforts.
“If we play to our potential, I feel we have the chance to be a fantastic team,” said Sorenson.
In other NWC 2A games, much-improved Anacortes (5-0, 3-0) shocked Sedro-Woolley 42-7 and Lakewood beat Archbishop Murphy 19-14.
WEEK 6
Thursday, Oct. 6
Bellingham at Coupeville, 7 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 7
Marysville-Getchell vs. Ferndale at Blaine High School, 6 p.m.
Nooksack at Lynden Christian, 7 p.m.
Blaine at Meridian, 7 p.m.
Sehome at Anacortes, 7 p.m.
Lakewood vs. Squalicum at Civic Stadium, 7 p.m.
Archbishop Murphy at Lynden, 7 p.m.
Saturday, Oct 8
LaCenter at Mount Baker, 2 p.m.
Lummi at Quilcene, 1 p.m.
This story was originally published October 3, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
