Royals battle to the very end in final game

EDMONDS — Max Cook expects to catch some flak in the halls at Lynnwood High School, because the Royals lost again.

“Everybody’s trying to diss on you if you’re a football player,” said Cook, a senior lineman.

Football hasn’t been fashionable for some time now at Lynnwood, where the Royals have gone winless since 1999. They had their last chance for victory Nov. 13 in a specially arranged final game against another winless team, 0-9 Squalicum High School of Bellingham.

Squalicum won 35-31 despite a dramatic fourth-quarter comeback by Lynnwood that fell short. The Royals walked off the Edmonds Stadium turf with another defeat, their 28th in a row, and a third straight winless season.

The dozen Lynnwood seniors who played their last game never experienced a varsity victory, but those close to the program are cautious how this team should be labeled.

Don’t call them losers.

“It’s unfair that this is a group that’s going to go down having not won a varsity football game,” coach Kris Kriskovich said. “I think the way this game wound up summarized the kind of kids they are. They didn’t quit.”

Squalicum led 35-7 midway through the third quarter, but Lynnwood came back to score four consecutive touchdowns, including a blocked punt by Cook that he recovered in the end zone for the only touchdown he has ever scored.

“They just refuse to quit,” Kriskovich said. “It frustrates me that they’ve been under such extreme odds all year long. But these kids just keep after it. This is a little band of brothers.”

What this team accomplished may be more a tribute to persistence and loyalty than an exercise in frustration.

Lynnwood started the season with 42 varsity players, but several quit, others were kicked off and a few others got hurt. Only 27 suited up last week, but what remained was a tight group of teenagers who have learned that the bond of a team helps them all endure adversity.

Cook, the senior lineman, said that’s what he’ll remember more than all the defeats.

“What this means is that we stuck with it,” he said. “We didn’t get to taste a W, but we didn’t give up. We’re all friends in here.”

Fittingly, the seniors scored all the touchdowns for Lynnwood. Running back Scotty Olson scored twice, including a 43-yard run in the third quarter that began the Lynnwood comeback; Cook pounced on the blocked punt for a touchdown; Matt Suthern recovered a fumble and returned it 56 yards for a touchdown; and Mario Holland scored on a 9-yard run with about two minutes remaining.

“I thought the tide had turned,” Cook said.

It didn’t, and when the scoreboard showed that Lynnwood had lost again, nobody seemed more heartbroken than the coach.

“I would cut my arm off to get these guys a W,” Kriskovich said.

It took some special efforts just to give the Royals a final chance to win.

Kriskovich and Edmonds School District athletic director Terry McMahan started talking two weeks ago about adding a 10th game to the schedule. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, which governs high school sports in the state, allows up to 10 regular-season games, although most schools schedule nine.

“For me, I don’t care who wins,” McMahan said. “What I like is giving the kids an opportunity where both teams can come in thinking they can win. You want to teach kids that they can go into games as potential winners instead of certain losers.”

What transpired after last week’s game made it apparent that high school sports mean more than winning and losing.

As Squalicum celebrated its first victory since the final game last season, Kriskovich brought his seniors back onto the field, where he gave each of them a hug. In the grandstand, parents, relatives and friends applauded, some with tears in their eyes.

Later, both teams and their supporters gathered at Edmonds-Woodway High School — adjacent to the stadium — for a spaghetti dinner and words of praise from Kevin Griffin, the assistant executive director for the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association.

Years from now, Kriskovich hopes, the players will hold onto the lessons they learned more than the dark memory of losing games and getting harassed in the halls at school.

“We stress some things in our program: Go full speed, do the right thing,” he said. “I am hopeful that the boys who are in this locker room tonight will turn out to do great things.”

Kirby Arnold is a writer for the (Everett) Herald.