SEATTLE — For those teams fortunate enough to be playing in mid-November, every player is a little worse for wear.
King’s defensive end Edmund Sundquist takes it to a whole new level.
Sundquist was injured before the season even started. The Knights senior broke his elbow and hyperextended it prior to King’s season opener against Lynden. Sundquist opted to delay his surgery until after the season so he could play his senior year out with his teammates.
“The doctors told me, ‘You’re going to need to have surgery and you’ll be out for six-to-eight weeks. You could maybe come back for playoffs,’” Sundquist recalled. “As a senior, there’s no way I’m sitting out for that. … I’ve been playing football since I was in fourth grade. I played fall and then arena football, so I’ve played more than 10 seasons easily. I just love the game. Not playing was not an option for me.”
So Sundquist toughed it out and returned to be a force on the defensive line for King’s.
“I’m worried about him,” said King’s head coach Jim Shapiro. “He’s a great defensive end, great tight end, but you also need your warrior to be healthy Friday night. But yeah, I’m worried about him.”
But the injuries weren’t finished for Sundquist, who also plays tight end for the Knights. The senior strained two muscles in his hip in a mid-season game and injured his biceps soon after in a game against Granite Falls.
“The main thing that hurt was my hip,” Sundquist said. “I’d go in and after one drive it was hard to run to the sideline. Every time I land on my hip there’s an immediate pain. It’s hard to play through but it’s senior season. You’ve got to go hard.”
Sundquist said the padding and brace help minimize the pain in his elbow. His hip was what really caused him discomfort and kept him awake at night. Then the biceps injury happened and added a whole new cache of concerns.
“I got hit in my bicep and my entire bicep went dead and didn’t work for 10 minutes,” Sundquist said. “After the game, I woke up the next morning and my entire bicep was hard as stone. (The muscle was) forming scar tissue and my entire arm was starting to turn to bone. It was pretty ugly.”
“We were worried he’d have to have surgery now,” Shapiro said. “… The good thing is he can’t injure it anymore. I was worried early on but now it’s just been a matter of managing the injury.”
Despite the injuries, which doctors said could not get any worse by playing, Sundquist missed only one game in the regular season. All the while his goal for the season never changed.
“Just win,” he said. “Just win a state championship. There’s no other goal than to just win.
“I just love the team,” Sundquist continued. “I love the big hits. Everyone is all flashy with the touchdowns and the yards. I don’t care about any of that. It’s all about sacks and straight up going head-to-head with someone every play.”
Sundquist has suffered a few of the numerous injuries that have plagued King’s, the No. 3 team in the Associated Press 1A poll, this season. Starting quarterback, and last year’s Cascade Conference Most Valuable Player, Koa Wilkins broke his collarbone in the second quarter of the first game of the season against Lynden. All-conference tackle Jack McLeod injured his PCL soon after. Linebacker/running back Jackson Whitaker missed about six weeks with a broken knee and fellow running back Caleb Perry missed some time with an ankle injury.
“It’s all these injuries,” Shapiro said. “Around the Archbishop Murphy week we had eight guys who were out or playing with some sort of injury.”
The positive for King’s is that, late in the season, it’s getting healthier. The Knights are almost back to full strength at the best possible time.
“We’ve been getting healthier and healthier,” Shapiro said. “The wisest woman I’ve ever met is my wife and she keeps saying, ‘Jim, you’re going to peak at the right time.’ And I think last week was a good sign of that. … Thank goodness we’re winning enough to play long enough to get these kids back.”
Shapiro credits the Knights’ depth with helping King’s keep its winning ways. The Knights have played five different players at quarterback this season, and the loss to Archbishop Murphy, ranked No. 4 in the AP 2A poll, is the only defeat so far for King’s (10-1).
“We’re pretty blessed,” Shapiro said. “I think we have 70 kids on our roster. For us, which is really a rarity at the 1A level, we have depth. We have four legitimate varsity-level running backs: Jackson Whitaker, Cooper Wright, Andrew Cline and Caleb Perry, all studs. For a 1A program to have four, let alone one.”
The Knights, who have lost in the quarterfinals for six consecutive seasons, are hoping to top Hoquiam the seventh time around and finally advance to the elusive Tacoma Dome.
“It’s just another game,” Sundquist said. “It’s round three in the state playoffs and that’s what we’re going to treat it like. There’s nothing special. If you try to change anything you’re going to play different from what you have been doing all season. When you go 10-1 there’s no reason to switch anything up. If we play the football the way we know we can play there’s no reason we can’t win this round three game.”
“It’s a game,” Shapiro added. “Sure it’d be nice to get over it. Sure it’d be nice to play a game in the Tacoma Dome. I think good things come to those who wait. We’ve been waiting pretty long.”
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