Billy Lechtenberg and the Mountlake Terrace Hawks tried to spoil Shorecrest’s playoff party, but as it turned out Arlington filled that role.
Shorecrest needed a win and an Arlington loss to Marysville-Pilchuck to get in a playoff tie-breaker, but Arlington rallied to beat Marysville-Pilchuck 21-20 on the same night, to capture the last 3A quad-district playoff berth and end the Scots’ post-season hopes.
Against Mountlake Terrace, Shorecrest overcame a couple turnovers on fumbles to come from behind and beat the Hawks. Lars Swenson hooked up on touchdown passes of 16 and 37 yards to Michael Harris about two minutes apart in the second quarter to give the Scots the lead for good as the Scots won 21-13.
“That’s all we talked about this week, we can only control our game,” Shorecrest coach Mike Wollan said. “We still had the turnover problem, but the kids played their hearts out and did what they needed to do.”
Mountlake Terrace scored first on a seven-play, 88-yard drive capped by a 2-yard run by Lechtenberg in the first quarter after a Marek Domanksi fumble. Lechtenberg, who finished with a game-high 113 yards on 26 carries, was in on every play of the drive including a 34-yard catch and 47-yard run.
“Billy’s been a main cog in our offense all season long,” Mountlake Terrace coach Tony Umayam said. “That catch that he made that Tony had to improvise on was a real nice catch. He ran the ball hard all night. We started to realize how much we rely on him offensively.”
Shorecrest answered with a 13-play, 82-yard drive capped by a 16-yard touchdown pass from Swenson to Harris on fourth-and-seven.
Swenson made a big defensive play on the next series, intercepting a pass by Tony Ellersick that was tipped by the Scots’ Kevin Rechkoff. Swenson connected with Harris again, this time on a 37-yard touchdown pass on third down that gave the Scots the lead for good.
The Hawks’ Chaz Dalton added a 31-yard field goal with 33 seconds left in the half and cut the lead to 14-13 with a 22-yard field goal with 1:56 left in the third quarter.
But high snap on a punt in the fourth quarter gave Shorecrest the ball on the Terrace 29, and seven plays later, Domanski caught a 7-yard pass from Swenson.
“We competed real well and were in the game until late in the fourth quarter,” Umayam said. “Shorecrest did a good job taking advantage of our special team’s miscue. It was a pretty well-fought game.”
“We were real hungry for a win, the kids battled hard early on,” he added. “The offense put together a nice drive. Our defense did a nice job in the second half … but when you make that many mistakes you don’t win football games, You need to tackle better and do better up front.”
Mountlake Terrace hosted Stanwood from the Wesco North in a crossover game Nov. 1 at Edmonds Stadium. played after Enterprise deadlines,
The Hawks are 1-8 overall and finished 1-7 in the Western Conference South Division.
“It’s been a disappointing season overall,” Umayam said. “We’ve had a few bright spots, but our deficiencies have really been exposed. When we wrap up this season those are things that are going to have to be addressed, if we’re going to compete in this league.”
Injuries hurt the Hawks this year worse than Umayam has ever experienced as coach. The starting backfield of sophomore tailback Casey Ellersick and senior fullback Casey Finnicum both missed nearly the entire year.
Still successful programs are able to overcome that, Umayam said.
“Obviously we’re not at that point yet, ” he said. “Our offseason is going to be focused on getting to that point,”
Swenson threw three touchdowns and completed 7-of-15 passes for 110 yards. He rushed 16 times for 84 yards. Harris caught four passes for 84 yards and rushed 10 times for 55 yards. Shorecrest finished with 168 rushing yards and 278 yards of total offense.
Ellersick completed 3-of-11 passes for 101 yards and the Hawks had 108 yards rushing for 209 yards of total offense.
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