Week 2: What we learned from high school football in Olympia area

The old, the new and the “welcome backs” are setting the stage in the earlier going of the 2021 Thurston County football season. Tumwater and Yelm continue to win. Recent also-rans Rochester and Tenino have potent offenses and Timberline, which won just a single game in the spring, is 2-0.

TORNADOS AND BLAZERS TAKE DIFFERENT ROUTES TO THEIR FRIDAY SHOWDOWN

Yelm got to 2-0 with a win over then ninth-ranked Class 3A school Lincoln and, Friday, an entertaining 41-20 road win over 4A power Mount Si. Timberline outscored its first two subpar foes, Cleveland and Kent-Meridian, by a combined score of 100-6. Neither team scored against the Blazers’ first string defense.

While Yelm, the defending 3A South Sound Conference champion, will be a clear favorite when it hosts Timberline on Friday night at 7 p.m., the Blazers have offensive firepower belying the 1-4 record they posted in the spring.

Both teams have quality running backs, speedy receivers and quality quarterbacks in Timberline’s Jackson Brown and Yelm’s Palaina Hooper, a transfer who formerly played for the Blazers.

It’s a given that teams able to overcome hardships are among the best. Yelm’s victory over Mount Si, its eighth win in a row going back to the 2019 state playoffs, was another brick in the Tornados’ solid reputation.

The game itself was born of misfortune, when both the Wildcats’ original Week Two foe, Lake Stevens, and Yelm’s, Spanaway Lake, had to cancel because of COVID-19 issues. Mount Si and Yelm agreed to play.

As of 3:30 p.m. on Friday, though, it looked like they might not. Yelm had buses, but no drivers. Charter bus companies didn’t return the school’s calls. When a driver was finally located who could make the run to Snoqualmie, the team had to travel in a single bus, forcing coach Jason Ronquillo to trim the evening’s squad to less than 30 players.

“With one bus, we wanted to keep the roster really tight,” he said.

The small group battled, working its way to a 34-20 lead over the Wildcats, with the ball on the Mount Si seven-yard line when the lights went out for 21 minutes. Yelm turned the ball over on downs when play resumed, but the delay gave the Tornados coaches time to strategize.

“I hate to say this, but the lights going out got us a chance to talk to our guys and our defense,” Yelm coach Jason Ronquillo said. “Put some things in on the fly. We literally ran the same call four plays in a row at the end and pinned them down there. They just couldn’t pick up the twist. It was kind of beneficial to us to have the lights go out, to be honest.”

It wasn’t the first time Ronquillo had experienced such an event.

The same thing happened to Yelm during a previous season, playing Stadium at Mount Tahoma, he said, with four minutes remaining in the first half. Both teams had to retire to their locker rooms and come back out once the lights came back on.

Friday night, Yelm’s Kyler Ronquillo, officially a slotback but really a man without a position because his versatility lets him play many, checked in on special teams to give the Tornados the lead for the first time.

Yelm trailed, 7-6, when the Wildcats punted from their own 33. Ronquillo retreated, picked the ball at his 29, and wove his way back down the field for 71 yards and the go-ahead touchdown with 40 seconds to play in the first quarter.

Ronquillo’s speed was complemented by another strong performance from the Tornados’ sophomore power back, Brayden Platt.

The 6-foot-1, 220-pound had scored the first Tornados touchdown to cut the score to 7-6 with 2:31 left in the first quarter. His finished with three touchdowns and 104 yards on 21 carries.

“We kind of wore them out up front,” coach Ronquillo said. “I think their game-plan going in was to stop our run game. We had to come out with some variety. We were taking what they gave us.”

Mount Si coach Charlie Kinnune wanted his young team to face a tough opponent and got what he wanted from the contest.

“This is a brand new team. We’ve got sophomores starting across the front. We need to find out right away how tough we are, and Yelm was by far tougher than us. They just took it to us,” he said.

Timberline hasn’t played a team as tough as Yelm yet this fall and knows it. But coach James Jones said his players are used to challenging opposition.

“It’s going to be more difficult, but the great thing is our guys will have a lot of confidence,” he said. “It’ll take us a couple of plays but it’s not going to take us a lot. These guys play loose. We’ve played a lot of the tough teams at camp, so we’re not unfamiliar with playing that level of competition.”

That Timberline can provide opposing defenses with a high level of competition was on display often against Kent-Meridian.

The Blazers led 30-0 by the end of the first quarter and 51-0 by halftime. The mercy rule had the game clock running the entire second half.

“When you play a team you think you should beat, you come out strong and don’t let them into the game,” Jones said.

Before the night was done, sophomore Ramar Reid had rushed for two touchdowns, while Kaleb McNeely, who led Timberline with 98 rushing yards on just four carries, and Martin Aunese scored once each on the ground.

But junior quarterback Jackson Brown and his favorite receiver, senior Franco Segura, offered the most efficient offensive combination, one that helped knock Kent-Meridian out before the end of the first quarter.

On the Blazers’ first possession, they took over at the Royals’ 19-yard line after a short punt. After Brown threw what would turn out to be his only incompletion, he hit Segura over the middle and the 5-foot-10, 165-pound speedster broke outside to the left pylon to give Timberline the lead for good just three minutes in.

The two weren’t done.

Just over three minutes later, Brown hit Segura in stride streaking downfield for a 46-yard touchdown. Before the first quarter ended, they struck again when Brown threw crossfield to Segura for a score that put the Blazers up 30-0.

“Me and Franco have lot of chemistry from having played youth ball together,” said Brown. “I know where he’s going to be. I trust him. I throw the ball out there and I know he’s going to go get it.”

Segura agreed.

“I know he’s going to put the ball in the right place and I can make a play,” he said.

Before giving way to backup quarterbacks Adam Ahlf and Jacob Nadeau, Brown threw a fourth touchdown pass, a 72-yarder to 6-3, 215-pound sophomore Darrell Gipson up the right sideline. He finished with six completions on seven passes for 153 yards.

“We try to play to a standard. We’ll go to the film and find things we still need to clean up,” Jones said. “We can only play who’s on the schedule. You go out and handle business and I feel like we did that tonight.”

In other games involving larger Thurston County schools, Olympia lost to the state’s top-ranked 4A school, Graham-Kapowsin, 56-0, on the road. In 3A, River Ridge lost 34-12 to North Creek in Bothell and North Thurston was shut out on the road at Kelso, 46-0.

2A IS DEEPER BEHIND SEEMINGLY UNBEATABLE THUNDERBIRDS

When you talk about the 2A Evergreen Conference, you can never say there’s a new sheriff in town because, well, Tumwater.

But Rochester, with versatile running back Talon Betts the centerpiece, has become a load for defenses to contend with. On opening day, Betts, who won the 200 meters and finished second in the 100 at the Southwest District track meet during the spring, carried 14 times for 154 yards and two touchdowns in a 42-20 road win over R.A. Long. He also caught a touchdown pass and ran a Lumberjacks’ kickoff back 89 yards for another score.

Friday night, as the Warriors dusted visiting Seton Catholic, 49-8, Betts rushed for 107 yards and three touchdowns.

“He wants the football in his hands, but we talked to him at the half. Teams are gearing up to stop him and other guys are taking advantage,” Rochester coach AJ Easley said. “It opens up a lot of things in our offense.”

The Warriors top four rushers totaled 264 yards, with Tate Quarnstrom (82 yards, two touchdowns), Connor Morris (53 yards, one touchdown) and Palmer Watt (22 yards, one touchdown) each finding the end zone.

On defense, Rochester suffocated the Cougar offense, allowing just one touchdown and taking the ball away five times from the Seton Catholic offense. The Warriors had four different players register interceptions: freshman Carson Rotter, junior Brady Baird, junior lineman Owen Gillaspie, and senior Garren Smith.

Meanwhile the aforementioned Tumwater make quick work – literally – of another opponent, once again getting the game clock to run via the mercy rule in a 42-0 home victory over 3A Capital on Thursday.

The top-ranked Thunderbirds got three rushing touchdowns from Payton Hoyt – who added to the four he scored on Week One vs. Enumclaw – and one each from Carlos Matheney and Karson Schreiner. Ryan Otton had a receiving touchdown.

In other action involving local 2A EvCo teams, Centralia lost a hastily scheduled matchup with a strong 3A school, Prairie, 52-14; Jaxsen Beck, Johnnie Stallings, Max Johnson and Luke Ellison all scored touchdowns, but Black Hills was defeated by visiting Washington, 42-24; W.F. West quarterback Gavin Fugate rushed for 105 yards and two touchdowns while passing for another as the Bearcats thrashed Heritage, 48-7, on the road Saturday; Shelton dropped a 21-14 decision to White River.

COVID-19 STILL AFFECTING LOCAL SCHEDULES, TENINO STAYS THE COURSE

That the COVID-19 pandemic is still affecting local football teams was apparent at the start of this roundup: Yelm, playing a rescheduled game, almost couldn’t go because school bus drivers have been in short supply since the outset of the pandemic.

Dozens of games throughout Washington and hundreds nationwide have been cancelled or delayed by direct and indirect effects of the coronavirus. Some teams, as Black Hills did in its 19-0 opening day loss to Franklin, have had to play short-handed as athletes were sidelined with infection or by contact tracing.

This past week’s 2B showdown between top-ranked Kalama and No. 4 Forks was cancelled. It wasn’t the only game involving a Central League team to be lost as Rainier, which showed signs of strength in its opening night loss to Toledo, was forced to bow out of its Route 507 Rivalry game with Tenino.

North Beach, the 2B school out of Ocean Shores that had seen its opener cancelled, volunteered to take the Mountaineers’ place and took a 64-0 shellacking from the now 2-0 Beavers.

The Hyaks were no match for a much larger and more physical Tenino squad. By the time Toby Suess broke free for a 45-yard touchdown run to put the Beavers up 52-0 just two minutes before the half, the game was long over.

“North Beach battled really hard,” Tenino coach Cary Nagel said. “We were just firing on all cylinders again. It was a good night for us. The defense really stepped up and played well. Our young guys played phenomenal.”

The Beavers pulled their starters early in the second quarter and cruised the rest of the way with underclassmen running the offense and defense.

Brody Noonan and Kysen Knox, entrenched in a battle for the starting quarterback spot, both played well. Nagel expects another week of evaluation before he names the starter heading into league play.

“They both executed exactly what we wanted them to do,” Nagel said. “Overall, it was really good. You give our backs space and they can make things happen.”

The area’s other 1A school, Elma, did not play this week. Why? You guessed it. COVID protocols.