No. 1 Tumwater claims 21st straight win with 56-6 rout of No. 10 Enumclaw

For a little more than four minutes it looked like Friday night’s season opener between visiting Enumclaw High School and Tumwater would be the type of battle you’d hope for in a game between two teams ranked statewide.

No. 10 Enumclaw put together an 11-play, 73-yard opening drive with a nice mix of rushing and passing to take a 6-0 lead over the top-ranked Thunderbirds on a quarterback sneak by Malcolm Harper. But when a bad snap deprived the Hornets of their extra point attempt, Tumwater was quick to seize the momentum.

In fact, T-Birds’ coach Bill Beattie wasn’t all that concerned when Enumclaw scored.

“We did what we wanted to on that drive, but we made a couple of mistakes. We had a penalty. We’ve got seven new starters on defense,” he said. “To see our defense play as well as it did with that many new starters was really fun.”

Indeed, when Harper threw incomplete for his favorite target, Dylan Watterson, on third and nine from his own 41-yard line, it appeared the drive would stall. But a pass interference call allowed the Hornets to keep moving toward the end zone.

Tumwater, with its offensive line blocking well and two running backs putting together 100-yard nights, quickly moved ahead, 7-6, after its first possession, then ran away at hid to claim a 56-6 victory over Enumclaw at Tumwater District Stadium for its 21st victory in a row.

With just under four minutes to play in the first quarter, Payton Hoyt, a transfer from Black Hills seeing his first action as a featured running back in the T-Birds’ wing-T offense, scored from 10 yards out to tie the game. The first of eight successful extra point kicks without a miss by Zach Schmidt gave the T-Birds the lead for good.

As the game went on, Tumwater copyrighted the phrase “wasting little time.”

Four times they scored on the first or second play of a possession.

Early in the second quarter after a blocked punt by Zander Hernandez, Hoyt, who would rush for 141 yards and four touchdowns, scored from 12 yards away to make it 14-6.

“This is Payton’s second year in the program, so he’s learned how to set up his blocks, plus he’s a gifted natural runner,” Beattie said.

Just before halftime, Enumclaw punted and Karson Schreiner ran 44 yards untouched up the middle on the T-Birds first play to give Tumwater a 22-point lead, 28-6.

After Tumwater received the second half kickoff, quarterback Brady Prothero deviated from Tumwater’s 86 percent rush offense for the night, hitting Seth Weller with an 82-yard touchdown bomb up the left sideline and it was 42-6.

“Coach (Rob) Hinkle saw that their corner was looking into the backfield on the play action,” said Beattie. “So we changed to a go route on that play.”

Finally, after Ashton Paine intercepted a Harper pass at the Enumclaw 43, backup quarterback Alex Overbay handed to Hoyt again and he dashed 42 yards to the one before carrying on the next play for the last of his four scores.

“I’ve never scored four touchdowns in a game before,” said Hoyt, who was a sophomore adjusting to the varsity level when at Black Hills in 2019 and a backup for Tumwater last spring. “Our offensive line, our tight ends were blocking amazing, the fakes from our fullbacks were coming together.”

Being at Tumwater has been a good fit, Hoyt said.

“The culture, the love they’ve shown me, they’ve supported me every way,” he said. “We work harder than any team out there.”

Hoyt was by no means the lone T-Bird running back to shine. Carlos Matheney carried 10 times for 101 yards and broke free for a 35-yard second quarter touchdown. Schreiner carried only three times but twice scored touchdowns.

Ten different Tumwater backs got at least one carry and three quarterbacks took snaps as junior Luke Reid played the final series

“Our offensive coaches did a great job of seeing what they were doing,” said Beattie. “They were putting our kids in the right position to get some blocks. Our whole line did a great job and (tight ends) Austin Terry and Ryan Otton opened things up on the edge for our sweeps.”

Enumclaw got a solid performance from senior running back Dawson Harding, who carried nine times for 56 yards and did not have a single carry for negative yardage. Quarterback Harper, harassed by a consistent Tumwater rush and looking for receivers well covered by the T-Birds, completed 10 of 18 passes for 61 yards.

Beattie didn’t argue with the scoreboard when evaluating his team’s opening night performance.

“I’m super impressed with our kids,” he said. “They spent the off-season working hard and I’m really happy with how far we’ve gotten with so many new guys.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified a player. It said Thomas Mettler threw an 82-yard touchdown pass. The quarterback was Brady Prothero.

This story was originally published September 4, 2021 at 12:10 AM with the headline "No. 1 Tumwater claims 21st straight win with 56-6 rout of No. 10 Enumclaw."