South Whidbey knocks off Sultan

Published 11:11 pm Friday, October 7, 2011

SULTAN — All it took was one play for South Whidbey to suck all the emotion from the home team and secure its second Cascade Conference win of the season Friday night.

Falcons receiver Sam Lee turned a routine pass play into a 91-yard touchdown and South Whidbey defeated Sultan 23-6 on the Turks homecoming night.

After taking a pass from quarterback Avery Buechner, Lee shed a Jay Leverett tackle attempt and was gone.

“That was a big momentum changer, obviously,” Sultan head coach Ben Murphy said. “Our kids never gave up but we dug ourselves a hole we couldn’t climb out of.”

South Whidbey finished with 256 yards of total offense, a safety and two big touchdown runs by Buechner. Yet, for all the offensive numbers, it was a stout defensive front that created problems all night for a young Sultan offensive line and quarterback Sterling Shaw that yielded the Falcons their third win of the season and kept them in the hunt as the playoff push begins.

“We have a young line. Three of the five are in their first year of varsity football,” Murphy said. “South Whidbey took advantage. They sent pressure all night.”

That pressure yielded a meager 140 total yards of offense by the Turks and two field goals while also notching a safety.

“Their defense really stepped up tonight, gave us headaches all night,” Murphy added.

Sultan finds itself quickly falling out of the race with the season getting shorter. A big opportunity presents itself next week as they take on league-leading Lakewood.

“We’re going to go back at it, get better and we’ll get this ship righted,” Murphy professed. “We can’t put our heads down. We’ll get back to work on Monday and keep getting better.”

At Sultan H.S.

South Whidbey 16 0 0 7 — 23

Sultan 0 3 3 0 — 6

SW–Lee 91 pass from Buechner (Coupe kick)

SW–safety, snap through endzone

SW–Buechner 11 run (Coupe kick)

S–Ian Cooper 21 field goal

S–Ian Cooper 17 field goal

SW–Buechner 41 run (Coupe kick)

Records–South Whidbey 2-2 league, 3-3 overall. Sultan 1-3, 2-4.