Lake Stevens football runs over Woodinville in playoffs

LAKE STEVENS — Halfway through its 4A playoff matchup against Woodinville on Friday, Lake Stevens football was not where it wanted to be.

Sure, it held a 21-14 lead, but after turning the ball over on the final offensive drive before the break and allowing three straight red zone trips from Woodinville to close the half — capped by allowing a one-yard passing touchdown with 2.8 seconds left in the second quarter — the heavily favored Lake Stevens squad felt it was not playing up to standard.

Words were shared in the locker room. Some yelling, but the more encouraging kind. There was talk of tightening up defensively. Talk of playing less selfishly. Talk of simply having fun playing the game again. Once both teams returned to the sidelines, coach Tom Tri gathered his players in a huddle before they took the field to receive the second-half kickoff.

“Just trying to get us motivated,” Tri said. “Jump start us a little bit, because I felt like we only had stopped ourselves one time with a turnover in the first half. We had scored on every drive, but the problem was we just couldn’t get the ball back. So we were just talking about trying to get the ball, and once we did get the ball, to take care of it.”

Needing a restart, Lake Stevens got its jumper cables in the form of junior quarterback Blake Moser and senior Dylan Phinney.

Moser took the first play from scrimmage on a 64-yard keeper to the house, rolling down the right sideline before snaking up the middle, before Phinney secured an interception off a bobble on the ensuing Woodinville drive to open the third quarter.

The No. 2 seed Vikings (10-0) scored another touchdown after Phinney’s pick to go up by three scores before cruising to a 56-28 win against the No. 31 seed Falcons (3-7), who provided Lake Stevens with its toughest test since the first two games of the season against local powers Sumner and Bellevue.

“Our defense was completely locked in,” Phinney said. “We went over everything in the locker room, and when I got the pick that first drive, I mean, that was just the tone-setter for the half, and we just kept rolling after that.”

Moser and Phinney provided the big momentum plays, and senior Kekoa Okiyama snagged two interceptions down the stretch to bolster the defense, but it was junior Jayvian Ferrell and the Lake Stevens offensive line that carried the offense from start to finish.

Ferrell had 233 rushing yards and three touchdowns on 17 carries (13.7 yards per attempt), and added a fourth touchdown through the air, with the bulk of his production coming before the fourth quarter. The Vikings broke loose all game long, with Ferrell shaking off tacklers and juking through the Woodinville defense and Moser scrambling for 185 yards and three more touchdowns as well. In total, Lake Stevens rushed for 511 yards, only attempting six passes all game.

“We started making our own calls, and making— switching runs and stuff, and I think that really helped us,” said junior offensive/defensive lineman Will Lynch, who also forced a punt with a third-down sack in the first quarter. “We were making some mental mistakes during practice this week and just fixing those things and getting in the game and executing what we needed to do.

“And just dominating. That’s what we did. We just dominated, and that’s what we got to do.”

After a slow start on their first couple of drives, the Falcons offense started to put the Vikings defense on its heels, creating separation on dink-and-dunk plays while occasionally dazzling with tricky grabs along the sideline. Woodinville senior Cadan Van De Wege tossed for 337 yards and four touchdowns, while fellow senior Owen Milnes hauled in 10 catches for 147 yards and two scores.

“They had a nice scheme going,” Tri said. “They were throwing the ball around. We were struggling a little bit with just covering their receivers and getting enough pressure on the quarterback, and they had a hard time getting off the field on third down. … But give them credit, their receiver (Milnes) was good. Their quarterback (Van De Wege) was good, and they made some plays.”

After a pair of Ferrell touchdowns put Lake Stevens ahead 14-0 in the first quarter, the Falcons responded with a nine-play, 80-yard touchdown drive capped by a six-yard touchdown reception over the middle by senior Brayden Bartoletti just 18 seconds into the second quarter. Senior Greyson Eggers took the ensuing kick return all the way down to Woodinville’s 11 for the Vikings, and Moser walked in a one-yard score just four plays later.

The Falcons jumped back in for another long drive down the field, getting down to Lake Stevens’ 12 before Phinney played tight coverage on a third-down incompletion, and senior Kaiden Peck and sophomore Akio Yonesaka teamed up for a fourth-down stop to get the ball back, which ultimately prevented the score from being tied at halftime.

“It was big, but I mean, it wasn’t, like, praised upon because it should not be this close of a game,” Phinney said. “So we were just thinking about how we were going to get the defense off the field and get our offense rolling.”

After Moser’s long rushing score and Phinney’s interception opened the second half, the Vikings failed to complete a trick play before Ferrell took the ball 42 yards down the field across five rush attempts to extend the lead to 35-14, juking and cutting through tacklers on a 17-yard gain before plunging in for a three-yard score with 7:50 left in the third quarter.

The Falcons managed to pick up chunk plays into Lake Stevens territory before Okiyama secured his first interception on a deep shot inside the five, and Ferrell broke off a 50-yard rushing touchdown on the next drive to create even more distance.

“We needed our offense to execute, and we needed our defense to get off the field as fast as possible,” Ferrell said. “So going into second half, our coach gave us a good message in the locker room (about playing more as a team), and we came out and executed.”

Woodinville picked up a couple more touchdowns on 19- and 28-yard receptions, respectively, from Milnes to cut it to 42-28, but Moser turned on the jets once again to help stop the bleeding, churning out a 54-yard rushing score where he stumbled before managing to keep himself up en route to the end zone with 5:31 left in the game. Tri shook his head, then pumped his fist on the sideline.

Okiyama grabbed his second pick on the next drive, and junior Colten Fink burned time off the clock before trucking in a 10-yard rushing score to make it a 56-28 final.

The Vikings recovered from a first half that felt too close for comfort, and they plan to use it as a wake-up call entering the 16-team state bracket, where each opponent is expected to be tougher than the last.

“I think it’ll help us realize that we’re not as good as the record right now,” Lynch said. “We got put in a not very great league (Wesco 4A), so we’re high and we got to get brought back down, and this game really did it for us, because we’re not as good as we think we are. We just got to make sure that we got to play like we did the first two games (wins against Sumner and Bellevue), and do what we need to do.”