High school football roundup: McGee, Sumner roll Curtis; G-K runs past Olympia
Results, recaps and more from Week 7 high school football contests around the South Sound will be posted on this page on Thursday night. Looking for more scores? Find them on our statewide scoreboard here.
SUMNER 49, CURTIS 3
Lance McGee found paydirt, spotted the camera behind Sunset Chev Stadium’s west end zone, and began counting on one hand.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
“They can’t stop me!” he yelled above the roaring crowd. Teammates swarmed.
“Is that five?” Sumner TE Ashton Pillard asked him nonchalantly.
“Are you seeing this?” WR Braylon Pope asked.
Yes and yes.
McGee made it look all too easy, erupting for his fifth touchdown on a clear Friday night in Sumner. The Spartans lead back was again unstoppable, a bulldozing force with a combination of size, speed, and balance catching the eyes of Division-I scouts. It’s easy to see why.
“It’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen,” Sumner head coach Keith Ross told The News Tribune. “He’s just big and fast. He can slide and go. He’s a big-time back.”
McGee posted a season-high five touchdowns with 188 rushing yards, and the Spartans rolled Curtis, 49-3, in a 4A SPSL clash-turned-blowout on Homecoming Night.
When McGee arrived on campus for offseason workouts, he wasn’t sure how much time he’d see at running back, considering the monster season he enjoyed at linebacker for Davis (Yakima) High School last fall. One conversation with Ross changed everything.
“(Ross) was like, ‘Lance. I saw your film at Davis. You could be a 2,000-yard back here,’” McGee recalled. “Just them having the trust in me to come out here and put on for a Friday night, it’s a blessing, for sure.”
Before Sumner could illuminate the valley sky with fireworks for its annual Homecoming halftime show, the Spartans led 35-3 — and their star running back had four touchdowns. The simple recipe of feeding McGee delivered like clockwork. Why stray from it?
“We know we can give him 20 to 30 carries,” Ross said. “He’s going to get north and south. He’s going to get positive yardage. He’s going to hold on to the ball.
“And when we can play defense like we did, that’s the key to having that running game.”
On 4th and 4 from Sumner’s own 39-yard line, Spartans RB Aaron Black ran a fake punt to perfection that set up McGee’s first touchdown on their opening drive — an untouched burst up the middle from 15 yards.
In hindsight, it’s all Sumner needed.
Curtis punted next, corralled by Sumner’s Wyatt Plyler and returned 65 yards to the house with a dash down the left sideline.
McGee’s best run followed minutes later: a 46-yard touchdown that flashed his breakaway speed through the Vikings secondary. Floodgates opened, fight song cued: Sumner led, 21-0, one play into the second quarter.
“I told my boys before the play: I was like, ‘Come on line, I need y’all,’” McGee said. “And they were like, ‘Lance, we got you.’
“Snapped the ball, made one cut, then I was off to the races.”
McGee added a pair of near-identical, 14-yard touchdown runs in the closing minutes of the first half. Curtis kicker Luca Niebergall drilled a 23-yard field goal in the second quarter, preventing a shutout.
What made Sumner’s dominance all the more impressive: Curtis entered Sunset Chev Stadium with momentum. In back-to-back wins over South Kitsap and Emerald Ridge, the Vikings ran wild for 300+ rushing yards, protected by one of the 4A SPSL’s strongest lines.
Friday night presented the polar opposite: RB Ryland Geldermann was routinely met by multiple Spartans at the line of scrimmage, and Curtis QB Samuel Patterson was forced into short, intermediate throws that moved the chains few and far between. It’s a far cry from Sumner’s 58-22 loss to Puyallup on Oct. 4, blanking Rogers and refusing a Curtis touchdown in the weeks since.
“This is the Sumner defense I thought we were going to have,” Ross said. “We just thought we were going to have it. We didn’t have it (before) because we just thought we were going to do it. And this week, we changed. We talked about starting from scratch, and we’ve got to play Sumner football.
“We practiced harder. And we coached harder. The kids now understand what it takes to win football games. I was really proud of them.”
McGee notched his fifth touchdown from nine yards on the final play of the third quarter, enjoying the remainder of Sumner’s Homecoming from the sideline. With 16 carries for 188 yards and five scores, his work for the night was done.
Sumner’s Pope triggered the running clock with an 81-yard, catch-and-run touchdown down the left side that lifted the Spartans ahead by more than 40 points in the fourth. He caught four passes for a team-high 104 receiving yards and a score. Pillard had seven catches for 97 yards.
Sumner QB Nate Donavan completed 14-of-19 passes for 234 yards and a touchdown. Linebacker Mika Petaia had a first-quarter interception on a tipped Curtis pass.
“We’re back,” Ross said. “This is what we thought we would have.
“Curtis is a good football team. … The goal was to shut them down, and we had a lot of success tonight.”
GRAHAM-KAPOWSIN 34, OLYMPIA 20
Blake Pearson knows he isn’t the fastest running back around. He’s known that ever since he was a young kid. But he also knows there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Whatever he lacks in top-end speed, he makes up for with brute strength, bruising running and pure physicality. It was all on display in Graham-Kapowsin’s 34-20 win over Olympia at Art Crate Field on Friday night. Pearson kept coming at the Olympia defense, and the Bears had no answers.
“Get in the end zone, get as many yards as I can, put my head down and go,” Pearson said of his running mindset. “It’s been like that since I was little. I was not much of a speedy guy. Physical, I just like to be physical.”
Graham-Kapowsin coach Jeff Logan chuckled at Pearson’s self awareness.
“I’m glad he admits that (he’s not the fastest running back) because he’s not,” Logan said, laughing. “I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. But he runs really hard.”
Pearson rushed 15 times for 170 yards and a pair of touchdowns, averaging 11.3 yards per carry in the win. With Graham-Kapowsin pinned back near its own goal line late in the fourth quarter, facing a 3rd and 8, Pearson put his head down and carried several defenders with him for the game-icing first down. It felt like the story of the game, summarized in one play.
“Thanks to the o-line, blocking,” Pearson said. “This week, we came in with a different mindset of how we’re running and how the timing’s going. Tonight was the night to see how it worked and it worked really well.”
Graham-Kapowsin starting quarterback AJ Tuivaiave was out of action on Friday night, pacing the sideline of Art Crate Field in a walking boot after an ankle injury he suffered a week earlier. He should be back next week, per Logan, but in the meantime, backup Kolton Wadley filled in admirably and made plenty of plays of his own.
Wadler found Quinncey Ratteray on a 6-yard pass for the game’s opening score before connecting with budding sophomore star receiver Jayce Halasz for a 16-yard touchdown on 4th and long midway through the second quarter.
Olympia answered with a Tucker Downing 11-yard pass to Sam Rigg before half, but the Eagles struck back before halftime on a 39-yard touchdown run from Pearson. In the third quarter, Downing found Ibrahima Diallo for a 9-yard touchdown to pull the Bears within a touchdown, but Pearson answered again with a five-yard run.
Olympia made it interesting again with a touchdown on a blocked punt, but Graham-Kapowsin scored on a Wadley 15-yard flick pass to Davin Kirkwood to push the lead to 14 points with under nine minutes to play.
Graham-Kapowsin was missing several key starters on Friday, mostly due to various injuries. The Eagles, though, are 7-0 with a game left against Spanaway Lake before the 4A SPSL championship showdown with Puyallup in two weeks.
“We’re finding our groove, we’re practicing better, we’re locking in more with our film stuff,” Logan said. “So when we get healthier — we should get three to six different guys back next week — hopefully we really kind of hit our stride and play our best football moving forward.”
TUMWATER 55, ABERDEEN 20
Peyton Davis rushed for five touchdowns and 177 yards, the defense and special teams scored a touchdown, and the T-Birds blew open the game in the second half of a 2A Evergreen Conference victory against the visiting Bobcats (4-3, 1-2).
Davis, a senior running back, carried the ball 15 times on the night, while Gavin Varona had two carries for 62 yards and a touchdown – as eight different running backs carried the ball for Tumwater (6-1, 2-0). Quarterback Jaxon Budd was 5-of-9 for 108 yards.
“We played very well in the first and third quarters,” Tumwater coach William Garrow said. “ We put ourselves in a bad spot in the second quarter, fumbling on our own 1 with less than 90 seconds left in the half and giving them a chance to get back in the game.
“I was pleased with the way our kids responded coming back out of the half. Peyton Davis ran the ball really hard today and our offensive line blocked well in the run game. Defensively, scoring two touchdowns is a great accomplishment.”
Blake Heryford had a 95-yard fumble return for a touchdown, while Ethan Bello had a 69-yard punt return for a score. Heryford added nine tackles, while Grady Wall had 11 tackles and Wyatt Chase had 10, including one for a loss.
Tumwater now prepares for W.F. West in a matchup of that is the de facto league championship game.
“I’m excited for our kids to compete,” Garrow said. “It should be fun.”
This story was originally published October 17, 2025 at 11:18 PM with the headline "High school football roundup: McGee, Sumner roll Curtis; G-K runs past Olympia."
