Meadowdale tops Oak Harbor
Published 11:29 pm Thursday, October 27, 2011
EDMONDS — With Josiah Miller serving as punter for Oak Harbor, Meadowdale figured that some kind of trickery might take place at some point. Miller is the Wildcats’ most explosive player and any time he has the ball, something big can happen.
So, when Miller took off on a fake punt late in t
he third quarter of Thursday’s Wesco 3A showdown, the Mavericks were ready.
Senior Corwin Perkins snuffed Miller’s run and three plays later Kyle Newsom ran in for a touchdown to give Meadowdale both an 11-point lead and momentum it never surrendered as the Mavericks defeated Oak Harbor 34-17 in front of a huge crowd at Edmonds Stadium.
The win earns Meadowdale (8-0 in the league, 9-0 overall) the Wesco 3A title and the league’s No. 1 seed heading into next week’s quad-districts, where it will play host to the Greater St. Helen’s League’s No. 3 seed, believed to be Prairie. Oak Harbor (7-1, 8-1) will be the second seed and plays host to the Metro League’s No. 5 seed, Eastside Catholic.
“(Miller) is a special talent and he can make plays,” Meadowdale coach Mark Stewart said. “So, we just played defense against their punt knowing that something like that could happen.”
Perkins, who transferred to Meadowdale last season from Alaska, said his open-field tackle of Miller was the biggest play of his career.
“My job is to stay at home until they kick it,” Perkins said. “They told me to stay outside and when I saw him start running I just ran at him and made the tackle.”
The play was the biggest momentum shift in a game that went back-and-forth for much of the first 35 minutes. Oak Harbor actually led 17-14 at the half when Ian Kolste lobbed a pass to Michael Washington for a 15-yard touchdown with four seconds remaining in the half.
But from that point the Maverick defense took over, shutting out the Wildcats in the second half as Meadowdale outscored Oak Harbor 20-0 after halftime.
“To play the kind of defense we do, we need everyone to make plays,” Stewart said. “That’s a team that was undefeated for a reason. They make plays. It was about how we responded.”
Meadowdale took the lead on its first possession of the second half when Brian Marty went deep to a wide-open Kyler Larsen on the right sideline for a 44-yard touchdown and a 21-17 advantage. Then on fourth-and-11 from its own 27, Oak Harbor went for the fake punt, with Miller running to his left before Perkins tracked him down, giving Meadowdale the ball at the 18. Three plays later, Newsom, who had four touchdown runs, ran in from a yard out for a 28-17 lead.
“We felt we needed to get a momentum change,” Oak Harbor coach Jay Turner said. “At that point, we weren’t moving the ball. They had moved the ball and we just decided to roll the dice. Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don’t.”
Meadowdale continued to build momentum when Josiah Evans picked off a Kolste pass on the next Oak Harbor drive, and the Wildcats never really recovered.
The game started well for Oak Harbor, as Casey Ferguson’s sack of Marty forced a fumble that teammate Josh McVey recovered on the opening drive. Miller then ran 21 yards untouched over right tackle for an early Oak Harbor lead.
The Mavericks responded right away with Newsome finishing an 80-yard drive with a 12-yard touchdown run to tie it. A 31-yard field goal by Peter Franssen gave Oak Harbor the lead back but Newsom scored again on a 5-yard run for a 14-10 lead before Oak Harbor seized the advantage just before the half.
“We just wanted to run right at them,” Newsom said. “Our offensive line just came out fired up and just pushed them off the line and we ran through the holes.”
The game was a rare close call for the Mavericks, who have outscored opponents 343-82 this season. But Meadowdale showed it could trail and come back and Stewart liked what he saw.
“We responded and that’s what I was looking for,” he said. “We had to execute and make plays and we had a lot of people do that.”
“We knew they were a good team,” Newsom added. “But we’re playing really well, everyone is doing their job and we’re just getting better and better.”
At Edmonds District Stadium
Oak Harbor 7 10 0 0 — 17
Meadowdale 7 7 14 6 — 34
O – Josiah Miller 21 run (Peter Franssen kick)
M – Kyle Newsom 12 run (Nils Odegaard kick)
O – Franssen 31 FG
M – Newsom 5 run (Odegaard kick)
O – Michael Washington 15 pass from Ian Kolste (Franssen kick)
M – Kyler Larsen 44 pass from Brian Marty (Odegaard kick)
M – Newsom 1 run (Odegaard kick)
M – Newsom 12 run (kick failed)
Records–Oak Harbor 7-1 league, 8-1 overall. Meadowdale 8-0, 9-0.
