ARLINGTON — It was a game for the ages.
After Stanwood football built up a 21-0 halftime lead against Arlington in the annual Stilly Cup at John C. Larson Field on Friday, Arlington stormed back to tie it 28-28 with 2:05 left. On the next drive, Stanwood got down into the red zone, on the cusp of converting the go-ahead score, when Arlington senior Aiden Jones nabbed a goal-line interception with 20 seconds left, preserving the tie and setting Arlington up on their own 1.
Just a couple yards forward and some seconds burnt off the clock, and the Eagles would send this thriller into a worthy overtime. If only it were that simple.
Arlington fumbled the snap, and there the ball sat, on the goal line for the taking with seconds ticking away on the clock. Amid a frenzy of bodies piling on top of each other to secure the pigskin, an Eagle landed on it.
Just not one wearing blue and gold.
Stanwood senior Michael Eagle jumped on top of the football in the end zone, giving the Spartans the go-ahead touchdown with 17 seconds left. Eagle said he was left hoping for a miracle following the Arlington interception, and he got one.
“I really was just blank-slated in my head,” Eagle said. “I saw it and I was like, ‘Well, what are you gonna do? It’s now or never.’ I barely— I just fell on it. … I might have thought for a second that we might not have had it (after the interception), but thank God we managed to pull something off. I couldn’t have done it without the help of my teammates, God and all my coaching staff and my family.”
Stanwood’s Michael Eagle look up after recovering the ball on a turnover by Arlington in the final seconds of the game on Oct. 10, 2025 in Arlington, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
After the extra point and an Arlington Hail Mary attempt that didn’t even get beyond the line-of-scrimmage, Stanwood (5-1) reclaimed the Stilly Cup with a 35-28 win against the Eagles (3-3). It was Stanwood’s first win in the rivalry since 2022, and just the third since 2009. In head coach Tony Slater’s first season leading the program, he delivered on a special promise he did not plan to break.
“In all honesty, I didn’t have much of a choice: My grandmother texted me and told me I need to bring the Cup home,” Slater said. “So I gotta do what she tells me to do. I don’t think I’ve ever said ‘no’ to Grandma Toni Slater. This would be the first time if I did.”
Just two days after his grandmother’s birthday, Slater pulled through with a special gift, with Eagle delivering the finishing touch. Slater and his fellow coaches didn’t even know who came up with the fumble after the game, just happy to leave it at “the Spartans fell on it.” In a landmark victory for Slater and the program, that was good enough.
“They always competed,” Slater said. “They always compete, they will always compete. They just play hard in the entire game. Arlington did a great job mounting a comeback, and we just need to do a better job finishing. … They’re a tough group, and I’m so proud to be and so blessed to be a part of this community and this team and this school. I love it. I love it here.”
The Spartans built up their lead on the ground, something Slater said the team is committed to getting better at. Senior Silas Turpin (135 yards, two touchdowns) and junior Eben Bland Jr. (103 yards, one touchdown) combined for 238 rushing yards and three touchdowns, including a 55-yard dash from Bland Jr. to give Stanwood a 14-0 lead less than a minute into the second quarter.
“I was just running through the hole, being patient,” Bland Jr. said. “Playing my game, just playing it my way. And I just saw an opening, just honestly felt a football instinct, and just took it outside and see where it took me, and it took me to the end zone.”
Both backs were quick to credit the offensive line for creating lanes and doing the dirty work to set them up for success, as well as the defense for coming up with big plays just when the Spartans needed it.
Arlington, meanwhile, struggled to move the ball in the first half. Until its final drive of the first half, the Eagles only had 13 passing yards. By halftime, Arlington had just 86 total yards of offense (58 passing, 28 rushing). Quarterback Kaleb Bartlett-Wood finally found a rhythm with his receivers at the end of the half, connecting on several intermediate passes to get down to the Stanwood 12 with three seconds left. The Eagles left their offense on the field, but a shot to the end zone to junior Linkin Currie (five receptions, 77 yards) fell just short to keep it 21-0 entering the break.
Arlington started the third quarter with a 10-play, 54-yard touchdown drive ending with a nine-yard pass to Dylan Durfee (six receptions, 76 yards, two touchdowns) to finally get on the board, and the offense kept clicking down the stretch for 194 second-half yards through the air. Bartlett-Wood ended the night with 252 passing yards and four touchdowns.
Arlington’s Kaleb Bartlett-Wood is tackled by Stanwood’s Michael Eagle during the game on Oct. 10, 2025 in Arlington, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Eagles coach Greg Dailer said they started to block Stanwood’s front differently and made adjustments to open up the passing game, which worked just enough to close the gap. The ending left a bitter taste in his mouth, but he was proud of his team for rallying down the stretch.
“It’s difficult to overcome a loss like this, after we spent so much energy coming back and then came up short,” Dailer said. “So it would just be a lot of rebuilding confidence, I think, and just refocusing on our conference schedule all still in front of us right now.”
After the Eagles scored, Stanwood responded with their own long touchdown drive to take up the rest of the quarter, draining 8:29 off the clock relying on their two running backs and a few timely throws from quarterback Alex Maldonado (108 passing yards, 31 rushing yards, one passing touchdown). Turpin cleared the final 29 yards of the 65-yard drive himself on four carries, plunging into the end zone from the 1 after picking up gains of 10 and 17. With nine seconds left in the third, Stanwood led 28-7.
Stanwood’s Silas Turpin reacts to scoring a touchdown during the game against Arlington on Oct. 10, 2025 in Arlington, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
With their backs against the wall on their home turf, the Eagles locked in. They quickly moved down the field to open the fourth with two rushes and three straight completions before a sack and incompletion stalled their progress. On third-and-23, Bartlett-Wood found senior Eli Rae between two defenders for a 30-yard touchdown pass to cut it to 28-14. After a failed onside kick, Arlington stalled the next Stanwood drive to give the Spartans 4th-and-12 at the Eagles’ 39. A botched snap on the punt sent the ball back all the way to Stanwood’s 29, and the Eagles capitalized with a 15-yard touchdown pass to Durfee to make it 28-21 with 4:49 left.
“Just trying to keep that energy up,” Bland Jr. said about Stanwood’s efforts to stop Arlington’s comeback. “I mean, trying to get everyone to not play flat, go full-throttle. Game’s not over, and play ’til the whistle every single play.”
To keep the momentum going, Arlington recovered the ensuing onside kick attempt, but in perhaps a foreshadowing sequence, that window was quickly shut after the Spartans forced a fumble on the next snap. As he would at the end of the game, Eagle recovered the ball for Stanwood with 4:35 left.
Arlington players react to recovering a turnover by Stanwood during the game on Oct. 10, 2025 in Arlington, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
“It takes a lot of perseverance to watch it all happen and unfold,” Eagle said. “Watching your team just going through hardships, you have to try and power through it. You have to have really good mental strength in order to do it. Every football player does, and Arlington had a really great game, too. They played really hard and they really came back and really gave us a run for our money.”
Arlington recovered from that blow, stopping the Spartans once again while burning their timeouts to keep time on the clock. After a great punt return from Rae set the Eagles up on their 41 with 3:18 left, it took just five plays to reach the end zone, with Bartlett-Wood arcing a 30-yard touchdown pass to sophomore Shane Wohlleben down the right sideline to tie it 28-28 with 2:05 left.
Then, the final two minutes of madness. It ended with Stanwood pulling out the result, somehow, some way. In a rivalry game that had to be paused multiple times, with officials bringing captains and coaches to midfield to settle unrest between the two sides, the Spartans staked their claim on this recent chapter of the heated Stilly Cup, and they did so quite literally.
Stanwood brought their flag out and planted it at the 50-yard line after the clock hit 0:00, which the Arlington side did not take kindly to, but the huddle was dispersed and the handshake line went about without any more escalation.
At the end of the day, both teams hope this game winds up as a footnote in the story of their season. Arlington has matchups with Glacier Peak and Lake Stevens ahead, looking to surprise with a Wesco 4A title. Meanwhile, Stanwood does not want to peak at the Stilly Cup, chasing greatness in Wesco 3A North and beyond.
That being said, this win for Stanwood — against this opponent, in this fashion — was incredibly meaningful.
“For me, just finally getting this and winning this with this team of people that I’ve been playing football with, through my freshman year to my senior year, it’s sentimental that we won together and got this ‘dub,’” Turpin said. “Because that means so much to our team, and it showed our grit as Stanwood Spartans.”
Stanwood’s Memphys Ellis yells while holding the Stilly Cup after beating Arlington on Oct. 10, 2025 in Arlington, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
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