By Pierre LaBossiere
Peninsula Daily News
LUMMI — The Quilcene football team got off to a slow start, rallied in the second quarter, but in the end fell on the road in the Quad-District playoffs to No. 1-ranked Lummi 61-6.
Coach Trey Beathard said the team seemed nervous when the game began and fumbled its first couple of possessions. As a result, Lummi didn’t waste time jumping all over the Rangers and vaulting out to a quick 19-0 lead in the first quarter.
“It took us seven or eight minutes to figure out we could just go out and play. We fell behind immediately, they jumped all over us,” he said.
“We played a lot better after we settled down,” Beathard said.
The Rangers bounced back, scoring on a 22-yard run by Ben Bruner to make it 19-6. Then, after another Lummi score, the Rangers played Lummi dead-even through most of the second quarter and appeared poised to go into the half down by a reasonable score of 27-6, but then in the final play of the half, Lummi scored a 77-yard touchdown that involved a blind lateral as a Blackhawk runner was being tackled. That made the score 35-6 at the half.
Beathard said the Blackhawks like to employ a lot of laterals and it the high-risk tactic works for them.
“We played pretty good defense in that second quarter,” he said.
The Blackhawks’ Raven Borsey had 143 yards of offense from scrimmage while Travil Lake had 211 yards from scrimmage.
Andy Johnston led the Rangers with 65 yards rushing on 10 carries, while Ace Elkins had 58 yards rushing on 14 carries. Quilcene was able to generate some offense against the Blackhawks with 216 yards rushing, but several turnovers hurt the Rangers.
“They’re a much faster and more physical team than we’ve played before,” Beathard said. “They were a good team, they were just better than us.”
It was a successful season overall for Quilcene, which won a playoff game ended the season 7-3. The Rangers will only lose one offensive lineman to graduation and returns seven starters from its offense.
“We’ll see how hard kids work in the offseason,” he said.
Lummi 61, Quilcene 6
Quilcene 6 0 0 0 — 6
Lummi 27 8 20 6— 61
First Quarter
Lummi — Raven Borsey 19 run (Joseph Jefferson kick)
Lummi — Raven Borsey 19 pass from Dashawn Lawrence (run failed)
Lummi — Trazil Lane 34 pass from Lawrence (pass failed)
Quilcene — Ben Bruner 22 run (run failed)
Lummi — Lane 59 run (Lawrence run)
Second quarter
Lummi — Lane 30 run with pitch from Caleb Revey following Revey 47 pass from Lawrence (Raven Borsey run)
Third quarter
Lummi — Lawrence 29 run (run failed)
Lummi — Lane 55 pass from Lawrence (Free Borsey run)
Lummi — Raven Borsey 58 interception return (kick failed)
Fourth quarter
Lummi — Raven Borsey 63 pass from Val Jefferson (kick failed)
Individual statistics
Rushing — Quilcene: Such 6-22, Bruner 9-39, Elkins 14-58, Johnston 10-65, Reynolds 2-6, Gallagher 4-26. Lummi: Raven Borsey 6-61, Trazil Lane 2-82, Elder Roberts 1-8, Dashawn Lawrence 4-11, John Ballew 2-33.
Passing — Quilcene: Johnston 4-8-3-47. Lummi: Lawrence 14-19-0-231, Val Jefferson 1-1-0-63.
Receiving — Quilcene: Robert Comstock III 1-7, Reynolds 2-17, Such 1-23. Lummi: Raven Borsey 4-82, Trazil Lane 3-129, Free Borsey 4-19, Roberts 1-2, Caleb Revey 3-62.
