DEMING — The Port Angeles Roughriders football team made too many mistakes early and allowed too many big plays in falling into a deep hole against the Mount Baker Mountaineers early Friday night. They rallied in the second half, but still fell 49-22 on a hazy night in Deming.
The young Riders, who graduated 14 seniors from last year’s 7-4 playoff team, had troubles early snapping the ball and gave up four turnovers in the first half, repeatedly giving the Mountaineers good field position, which Mount Baker quickly turned into points. The Mountaineers got touchdown runs of 64, 40 and 50 yards as the Riders had trouble containing big plays.
The Mountaineers went into the half up 42-0 and extended it to 49-0 early in the second half.
Mount Baker is a 1A team but went to the state championship game in 2022 and plays in a rugged Northwest 1A league that had two of the top eight 1A teams (Nooksack Valley and Lynden Christian) in the state last year.
“It was early-season nerves, I think,” coach Dustin Clark said of the early mistakes. “We weren’t quite as focused as we needed to be, and that’s on me. We have to be more attentive to details and more focused.”
Clark said some of the big plays the Riders gave up were some of the younger players not being in the right position.
“It’ll be cleaned up, you’ll see. We knew we had our work cut out for us in the first two or three games,” Clark said.
After the Mountaineers scored early in the second half, the Riders settled down, taking care of the ball, holding the Mountaineers on defense and ripping off some huge plays of their own, finishing the game with more than 200 yards rushing. Jude Wallace had touchdown runs of 53 and 69 yards, with his 69-yarder going from one sideline to the other as he probably ran close to 10o yards on the play.
Meanwhile, Ricky Peterson added his own 64-yard touchdown run.
Wallace finished with three carries for 116 yards and also had a 55-yard kick return. Peterson had two carries for 63 yards and an interception on defense. Dylan Mann rushed seven times for 22 yards and had a catch for eight yards.
Brandt Perry passed 5-for-15 for 50 yards and two interceptions. Blake Sohlberg caught four passes for 33 yards, while Kaiden Point had a 10-yard reception. Carson Waddell also ran for a two-point conversion.
Port Angeles (0-1) looks to regroup with another nonleague game on the road at 7 p.m. Friday at Forks (0-1), which narrowly lost to Sequim 35-26.
In other Olympic Peninsula games Friday night, Granite Falls beat East Jefferson 68-0 and Crescent won in a forfeit over Muckleshoot Tribal. Neah Bay’s Friday night game against Charles Wright was canceled, but the Red Devils scheduled a game Saturday against new 1B program Wahkiakum.
Mount Baker 49, Port Angeles 22
PA 0 0 7 15 — 22
MB 21 21 7 0 — 49
Scoring
First quarter
MB — Moa 12 run (kick good)
MB — Cooper 12 run (kick good)
MB — Moa 6 run (kick good)
Second quarter
MB — Duggar 6 run (kick good)
MB — Moa 64 run (kick good)
MB — Cooper 40 run (kick good)
Third quarter
MB — Bruland 50 run (kick good)
PA — Wallace 53 run (Sohlberg kick)
Fourth quarter
PA — Peterson 64 run (Sohlberg kick)
PA — Wallace 69 run (Waddell run)
Individual stats
Passing
PA — Wallace 1-3, 1 yard; Perry 5-15, 50 yards, 2 INTs.
Rushing
PA — Mann 7-22, Wallace 3-116, 2 TDs, Peterson 2-63, TD.
Receiving
PA —Sohlberg 4-33, Point 1-10, Mann 1-8.
