Lake Stevens football advances to state championship

LAKE STEVENS — Almost everyone on the field at Vikings Stadium thought the first half was over after Graham-Kapowsin blocked Lake Stevens’ 50-yard field goal attempt as time expired.

Almost.

As the linemen picked themselves up from the turf and the visitors’ sideline erupted, Lake Stevens junior Will Lynch looked around and spotted the ball on the ground. Out of disappointment and frustration, he kicked it. That’s when he realized he hadn’t heard a whistle blown yet.

Lynch picked up the ball and looked around, noticing no one else was running towards him. Then he heard a voice from his own sideline cutting through the noise.

“My coach yells, ‘Run it!’ And I’m like, ‘Alright.’” Lynch said. “So I just run and nobody caught me, so there we go.”

The junior lineman ran towards the end zone, too far gone by the time Graham-Kapowsin recognized its mistake. Lynch put his team ahead 21-13, following the extra point, entering halftime. It was just the play Lake Stevens needed.

The No. 2 seed Vikings (13-0) held off the No. 6 seed Eagles (11-2), who cut it back within single-digits multiple times down the stretch, for a 44-35 win to punch their ticket to the 4A State Championship game next week at Husky Stadium.

“Thirty-one years of high school football, and I’ve never seen a play like that,” Lake Stevens coach Tom Tri said of Lynch’s delayed scoop-and-score. “So again, weird plays happen in big games, and we’re just fortunate that one of our guys was smart enough to pick the ball up and run it in for a touchdown right before halftime, and ultimately it was kind of a difference-maker.”

Lake Stevens quarterback Blake Moser passed for 226 yards and rushed for 132, totaling four touchdowns. Junior running back Jayvian Ferrell added another 124 yards and a score on the ground, and junior receiver/defensive back Seth Price had 146 yards and two touchdowns on six receptions.

Defensively, the Vikings allowed Graham-Kapowsin sophomore AJ Tuivaiave to pass for 333 yards and four touchdowns — plus a fifth on the ground — but junior defensive lineman/tight end Ty Tautolo had a sack among four tackles for loss to help hold down the fort for Lake Stevens.

Tri labeled his defensive line’s ability to create pressure as one of the biggest X-factors going into the matchup, and while he ultimately wanted his team to create more pressure and get more sacks, he felt the line did enough to force Tuivaiave into early throws and incompletions in key moments.

“I think we did good,” Tautolo said. “I think (Tuivaiave) had barely any time (to throw). Sometimes he did, but I think as a unit, we did good.”

The Vikings had a prime opportunity to take control after receiving the second-half kick, and appeared poised to after rolling into Eagles territory. However, a holding penalty and an incompletion stalled the drive to set up 4th-and-12 at Graham-Kapowsin’s 41, where Tri decided to go for it.

Eagles junior Jeremiah Leumuava got to Moser for a strip sack, which junior Julius Hernandez-Avila recovered for the turnover, and Tuivaiave hit sophomore Jayce Halasz (six receptions, 167 yards) for a 40-yard touchdown a few plays later. The extra point was sent wide, but the Eagles were back in the game trailing 21-19.

“I just thought we’ve been aggressive all year long, that’s been our mentality,” said Tri, also citing field position and wanting to maintain control of possession among the factors for going for it. “Why change it in the state semifinal game? That’s who we are. We’ve done that all year, so why change it just because it’s a big game?”

The Vikings responded with a touchdown on the following drive, with Moser diving into the left pylon on a 19-yard keeper shortly after sophomore receiver Max Cook made a clutch sideline grab to convert on 3rd-and-9. After an Eagles fumble and punts by both sides, Ferrell extended the Lake Stevens lead to 35-19, rumbling through contact and dragging defenders into the end zone on a 16-yard touchdown rush with 33.7 seconds left in the third.

Graham-Kapowsin opened the fourth quarter with a 73-yard touchdown to Halasz, who got wide open over the middle on a Lake Stevens defensive breakdown, and junior Kase Betz caught the two-point conversion to cut it to 35-27. The Vikings jumped back ahead by two possessions when senior linebacker/tight end Kaiden Peck recovered the ensuing onside kick, and senior kicker/punter Lucas Mooring nailed a 21-yard field goal with 8:36 left.

The Lake Stevens defense forced another turnover on downs, but the Eagles got new life when senior Gavin Deaton forced a fumble and returned it to midfield, only stopped when Moser laid out to force him out of bounds. A few plays later, Betz caught a 22-yard touchdown and Tuivaiave scrambled to convert the two-point try to put Graham-Kapowsin within three points with 4:28 left.

“Just keep playing,” Tri said as the message to his team. “Good teams are going to make good plays, and they’re obviously a dang good team or they wouldn’t be here. And so we just had to try and get the momentum back a little bit.”

Keeping a steady hand, Moser scrambled for 21 yards on the first play, and gains from junior running back/defensive back Colten Fink and Ferrell helped move the ball inside the five, where Moser pushed behind sophomore lineman Ryder Gobin-Tolentino and stretched his arm out over the line on 3rd-and-goal to score a touchdown with 1:47 remaining. The extra point was blocked, but the Vikings had more breathing room protecting a 44-35 lead.

“At all costs, I needed to get in the end zone,” Moser said. “Whether it was, I bounced it out (or) went up the middle. So I went right a little bit, and I stalled for a minute because I was waiting for my block to develop. (Gobin-Tolentino) ended up getting his guy, and then I just had a 1-on-1 with (Deaton), and I won that 1-on-1.”

Faced with one last stand, the Vikings defense stalled Graham-Kapowsin after allowing a couple of long gains, forcing four straight incompletions to take the ball back and run out the clock for the win.

In the seventh matchup between the two sides this decade, Lake Stevens won for the fifth time, but it was Graham-Kapowsin that set the tone early, burning 6:14 off the clock on their opening drive.

Starting from their own 20, the Eagles made gains on each of their first six plays (three completions, three rushes) to move the ball into Vikings territory, then into the red zone just two plays later. Price secured an interception in the end zone, but that was quickly overturned due to pass interference. With the ball moved inside the 10, Lake Stevens held off Graham-Kapowsin until Tuivaiave found senior Quinncey Ratteray in the back of the end zone on 4th-and-goal from the one-yard line.

After getting on the board, the Eagles turned around to force a punt on Lake Stevens’ first offensive drive, putting the Vikings into a precarious situation early. Needing a stop to get back in the game, Lake Stevens senior defensive back/receiver Dylan Phinney laid out to get under a deep ball over the middle, securing it with a diving interception on just the fourth play of the drive.

“It really helped us because, as you see, it shifted the movement of our game,” Tautolo said. “We should have came out firing, but for some reason, we came off cold. But that really helped us.”

Lake Stevens followed up by moving the ball just past midfield on a couple of runs from Ferrell before Moser was sacked after facing immediate pressure off the line. Facing 2nd-and-20, Moser scrambled for 24 yards on the next play before dumping off a short pass to Price, who weaved his way around defenders for a 33-yard touchdown to tie it 7-7 with 10.3 seconds left in the first quarter.

The Vikings defense forced a turnover on downs on the Eagles’ next drive, but the offense fell behind the eight-ball once again when Moser got sacked on the first play of the drive. Once again, the Moser-Price connection responded, as the quarterback shook his way out of danger before hitting Price in stride down the left sideline for a 75-yard touchdown, and taking a 14-7 lead.

“Even after negative plays, I feel like it’s the exact same scenario,” Price said. “No scenario is too hard for us. I feel like we have the ability to do some crazy things even when we’re (facing) 1st-and-20.”

Lake Stevens will face the No. 5 seed Sumner, the defending 4A champions, in a rematch from Week 1, when the Vikings won 31-28 on a last-second touchdown from Moser to Price. Sumner took down top-seed Puyallup 42-35 in the other semifinal matchup earlier Saturday afternoon.

After losing to Sumner by the same score to kick off the 2024 season, Lake Stevens is looking forward to the rubber match, which will be taking place on the biggest stage.

“I feel like it’s going to be a completely different game,” Moser said. “Week 1, you know, it’s a little bit (of) sloppy football. But going into the state championship, both teams are well-oiled. This is the best football we’re going to be playing. So I just feel like it’s going to be a dog fight, and I’m really excited to see Sumner in the state championship. It’s beginning to be a rivalry, and it’s going to be fun.”