KIRKLAND — Through one half of football at Juanita High School on Friday, not much separated Granite Falls football from Cedar Park Christian.
After a slow start, each offense scored on its final drive of the half, with Cedar Park Christian tying it 7-7 with seven seconds left before the break. Granite Falls entered the locker room with their heads low, according to junior lineman Joshua Earnheart, but they had an opportunity to bring back momentum after receiving the second-half kickoff.
It didn’t take long for them to seize it.
On just the second play of the third quarter, junior running back/linebacker Beau Everson broke a tackle and chugged down the right sideline for a 47-yard touchdown, and a successful two-point conversion gave Granite Falls a 15-7 lead.
“We really wanted to come out of the half and really bring it to ‘em, and we did,” Everson said. “It was great because it really set the tone, and it was like momentum.”
The Tigers (7-1 overall, 2-0 league) carried that momentum into a 29-13 win against the Eagles (3-5, 0-2), generating 250 rushing yards on offense behind the line of Zaiden Dinwiddie, Ashton Adamson-Jenkins, Earnheart, Taylor Hernandez and Logan Pederson.
Everson led the way with 179 yards and a touchdown, while senior receiver/linebacker/quarterback Drake Smith added 56 yards and two scores on just five carries. The Tigers only attempted six passes, but quarterback Jaxx Goldsmith connected with senior receiver/linebacker Parker Kern for a diving 20-yard touchdown pass with 8:54 left in the game to set up the 29-13 final.
Granite Falls’ Beau Everson sticks his arm out to block a tackle by Cedar Park Christian’s Lyal Viers during the game on Oct. 24, 2025 in Kirkland, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
“We made a little bit of (an) adjustment (at halftime),” Granite Falls coach Brandon Davis said. “(Cedar Park Christian is) a well-coached team, we knew they would make adjustments too. So we changed a little bit of stuff up, but realistically, it came down to our kids that, I think, they just showed a lot of heart. They came out and made plays.”
After Everson’s long run put Granite Falls back in the lead, the defense stalled Cedar Park Christian’s next drive when Earnheart charged in for a third-down sack, not falling for a pump fake and catching the quarterback on a rollout to set the Eagles back at 4th-and-20 on their own 29. The fourth-down snap went over the punter’s head all the way down to the four-yard line, and while the Tigers were backed up 10 yards due to a penalty on the next play, Smith walked in a touchdown two plays later, displaying patience behind the offensive line before finding the right hole for a six-yard rushing score, making it 22-7 with 4:56 left in the third.
“I think it was just a spark-plug type thing, because my reps are kind of limited on defense,” Earnheart said. “So I had the ability to get out there, and make a play.”
Cedar Park Christian responded with a 77-yard touchdown drive, completed with a 32-yard touchdown pass to senior Andy Penrod down the right hash, but a missed extra point kept it a two-possession game at 22-13.
The Tigers pushed right back, with Everson picking up chunk plays down the field before Goldsmith found Kern for the 20-yard touchdown pass to make it 29-13 with 8:54 to go.
From there, the Tigers defense stood tall. The Eagles moved the ball inside the Granite Falls 10-yard line on three consecutive drives in the fourth quarter, but failed to score points on any of them. Kern and senior lineman Aaron Umanzor each broke up a fourth-down pass to the end zone on consecutive Eagles drives, and the defensive line stuffed a final push from Cedar Park Christian, who lost two yards on a 4th-and-1 from Granite Falls’ two-yard line with 23 seconds left.
“Bend, don’t break,” Everson said. “They gained little yards, chunked us, but we just bend, don’t break, and we keep coming. We keep going and we don’t give up.”
After each of the first five drives of the game between both teams ended with a punt or turnover on downs, the Tigers opened the scoring with 5:46 left in the first half on a 28-yard rushing touchdown from Smith. It took the Tigers three plays to get into Cedar Park Christian territory after starting the drive on their own 30. They picked up two straight double-digit gains before Smith finished it off with the longest play of the drive.
“I think it was a matter of us just doing our jobs,” Davis said. “I think that first play where we chunked them a little bit, I think it just built our confidence, where we knew we could compete like we had prepared and had practiced, and I think that showed.”
Granite Falls’ Gino Howard runs the ball during the game against Cedar Park Christian on Oct. 24, 2025 in Kirkland, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
The Eagles responded with a 12-play, 72-yard touchdown drive that drained almost all the clock left before the break, highlighted by a 23-yard reception from senior receiver/defensive back Lincoln Meyers, cutting across the middle of the field on 3rd-and-9, and a 22-yard rush from freshman running back/receiver/linebacker Trace Defoor (77 rushing yards) to put the offense into the red zone. Getting down to the one, quarterback Tre Samuelu (101 passing yards, 52 rushing yards) plunged across the goal line with seven seconds left in the frame to tie it 7-7.
The Tigers defense had only allowed 23 yards of offense from Cedar Park Christian prior to that touchdown drive to end the half, but they tightened back up in the fourth quarter after the offense padded the lead.
With Friday’s victory, Granite Falls put itself in position to secure the Emerald Sound 1A title at home against King’s next week. Davis called the performance “a microcosm of what we’ve seen since camp,” and that the preparation in practice combined with the heart and resilience shown on the field is translating into positive results. The players echoed that they’ve witnessed their own growth week-to-week, and that they have trust in their teammates up and down the depth chart, which has built good chemistry throughout the roster.
“Everyone was all happy, all energized. We had a great game after (Everson’s touchdown to open the second half),” Earnheart said. “Great game to the other team, but now we’re on to King’s.”
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