MONTESANO — Forks’ Hayden Baker scored four touchdowns as the Spartans romped over Pe Ell-Willapa Valley 49-0 in an easy road victory.
Coach Trevor Highfield said that while Baker had a record-breaking day for Forks with the four TDs, the offensive line deserves credit.
“The O-line played great, the receivers were blocking downfield,” he said. “The offensive line gave [quarterback Carter Windle] tremendous time.”
Baker ended up gaining 148 yards on 18 carries and also had nine tackles on defense. Carter Windle had 117 yards through the air on 11-for-16 passing and 35 yards rushing. He also had one touchdown passing, one rushing and a third touchdown on a 19-yard interception return.
Colton Duncan had an 18-yard run and five catches for 53 yards and a touchdown. Antonio Farias had three catches for 35 yards.
The Spartans’ defense held Pe Ell-Willapa Valley to negative yardage on offense (minus-50 yards total offense) as Forks totaled six quarterback sacks. Pe Ell-Willapa Valley had minus-60 yards rushing on 30 carries.
In addition to this huge win, Forks started its season by taking defending 2B champion Onalaska to overtime before losing 24-16.
“I think we’re ahead of schedule based on the time we’ve been allotted,” Highfield said. “It’s a testament to our 12 seniors.”
Highfield said the Spartans are doing a good job of coming together and picking each other up. He tries to send the message to them to back each other up, right or wrong, but to let people know when they’re wrong.
The Montesano game was a unique quadruple-header with eight southwestern Washington 2B teams all playing each other on the day.
Forks finally has its first home game at 6 p.m. Friday night against Napavine, a powerhouse from the Spartans’ new 2B classification. Napavine made it to the semifinals of the 2B championships in 2019 and was beaten soundly by Onalaska in its season-opener. Napavine bounced back to crush Rainier 55-12 last week.
“This is going to be a big challenge,” Highfield said.
Quilcene 41, Evergreen Lutheran 20
QUILCENE — Quilcene perhaps had reason to be worried about Evergreen Lutheran. The Lions are a strong small-school football team that earlier this season manhandled Charles Wright, which had been a 1A powerhouse prior to this season.
“We were concerned about them,” said coach Trey Beathard.
Evergreen Lutheran immediately scored in the first quarter and got up on Quilcene 6-0 in Saturday’s game. The Rangers also had two lost fumbles early in the game and only held an 8-6 lead after the first quarter.
Then, the Rangers erupted with 27 straight points to end the first half and went on to cruise for a 41-20 win.
“We got off to a little bit of a rough start. Then offensively we got on a roll,” Beathard said.
Bishop Budnek led the Rangers with 259 yards rushing on just 12 carries. One of his touchdowns was on an 80-yard run. Beathard said he would have had more than 300 yards rushing but had a couple of long runs called back on holding calls.
Nathan Kieffer had a 55-yard pass play to Zak Budnek. Kevin Alejo had two touchdown runs and Austin Hough had a 31-yard TD run and two interceptions on defense. Kieffer ended up throwing for 183 yards on 7-for-9 passing.
“He really threw the ball well. The offensive line did a tremendous job of protection,” Beathard said.
Cash Thacker had a total of 20 tackles for the Rangers, while Donovin Opulencia-Rogers, a freshman, also had an interception, five tackles and gained 40 yards rushing on seven carries.
Quilcene plays Tacoma Baptist at home at 1 p.m. Saturday.
