LAKE STEVENS — It all comes down to Saturday.
Lake Stevens football has the opportunity to win its third state championship in four seasons, but it will have to go through the defending title-holders to do so.
In a rematch from the first week of the season (and the first week of last season), the No. 2 seed Vikings will take the field against No. 5 Sumner in the 4A State Championship at Husky Stadium on Saturday. If it’s anything like the previous two matchups, it should be a thriller.
After Sumner won 31-28 in overtime to kick off the 2024 season, Lake Stevens got its revenge on Sept. 5, winning on a last-second touchdown from quarterback Blake Moser to receiver Seth Price, flipping last year’s script for a 31-28 victory.
In the windup for Saturday’s game during Tuesday’s practice, Vikings coach Tom Tri put a large emphasis on having “laser-focus.” When the margin between winning and losing is expected to be slim, it will likely come down to which team makes the fewest mistakes.
So when the quarterbacks were airing out passes to different receivers running routes, and a couple of off-target balls were dropped by players attempting to reel them in with one hand, Tri paused the drill.
“How about we put two paws up to catch the ball?” Tri asked the group rhetorically before suggesting he could insert players into the lineup who would.
Moser patted his chest, looking towards his intended receiver as the players jogged back to the line.
“My bad,” Moser told him.
“It is your bad,” Tri said. “But we still have to catch the ball. It’s not always going to be a perfect throw.”
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Facing Sumner’s defense, the Vikings don’t expect to have the ideal time or space for easy gains.
“Their linebackers are really good run-stoppers,” Tri told The Herald. “They do a good job in the pass game, dropping and getting their depth and finding crossing routes. So we’re going to have to execute really well because we’re not going to have guys wide open. It’s going to be tight windows that the quarterback is going to throw the ball into. We may have to make those guys miss once or twice in our run game.”
While there’s some familiarity in the matchup now, both teams experienced drastic change since Week 1.
In Lake Stevens’ case, Tri believes the overall improvement that has stacked over each week has led to increased confidence, which has allowed the team to expand their playbook. For example, after designing just four or five run plays for Moser against Sumner in Week 1, they are utilizing him as a runner 10-12 times per game, according to Tri.
Between Moser’s mobility and running back Jayvian Ferrell’s ability to make plays on the ground, the Vikings believe their more dynamic run game has allowed them to open things up through the air as well.
Even outside of a tactical standpoint, the team feels itself operating at a much higher level.
“Week 1, I would be glad if I could say we ran maybe 10 plays correctly on offense,” senior lineman Ted Kuhrah said. “So I think we’ve changed a lot since then, hopefully. I feel like we are way more connected, and we’re not just nine guys on the field trying to run one play and the other two are doing something else. All 11 of us are going the same pace and all in the same mind.”
As for Sumner, Tri believes they’ve changed more than the Vikings have since Week 1, as he’s noticed they are under center a lot more and running more “heavy packages” with two or three tight ends, and leaning heavily on running back Lance McGee.
After rushing for 131 yards against the Vikings in Week 1, McGee exploded for 313 yards and five touchdowns in the Spartans’ 42-35 win against No. 1 Puyallup in the semifinals. For Lake Stevens’ defense, the planning starts at maintaining McGee.
“We got to play gap control defense, and then we have to make sure that we tackle well,” defensive coordinator Eric Dinwiddie said. “He’s a really good running back. Obviously, they feed him the ball a lot, and we just got to make sure that we bring energy and effort and get him down to the ground by one guy or 20 guys. Whatever it’s going to take.”
But McGee is not the only threat on Sumner’s offense. Wide receiver Braylon Pope torched the Vikings in Week 1 with 115 yards and four touchdowns, and Lake Stevens will look to keep him in check this time around.
At one point during Tuesday’s practice, Dinwiddie hammered home the point of avoiding hesitancy. Even if a defender makes a wrong read, he would rather him attack it with aggression rather than sit back like deer in headlights.
“That’s something we’re taught from Day 1,” senior linebacker Kaiden Peck said. “This defense is, ‘Hey, if you’re going to make a mistake, make it at 100 percent.’ … It’s something that we try to do on this defense, is give 100 percent every play, the entire play til the whistle blows.”
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After the brief lapse in execution between the quarterbacks and receivers that caused Tri to pause the drill, the two units went back into the swing of things. Just a couple reps later, Price hauled in a tough deep ball.
“Nice catch, Seth!” Tri yelled out to him.
At the crux of it, this week is all about sharpening up. The practice itinerary isn’t going to change dramatically from previous weeks. Why alter what got them here in the first place? But after the team committed 13 penalties in last week’s 44-35 win against Graham-Kapowsin in the semifinals, Lake Stevens knows it has to clean things up entering this Saturday.
Tri and the coaching staff won’t accept anything less.
“We got to dial it up this week,” Tri told his team during the opening stretches. “And celebrate on Saturday.”
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