NAPAVINE — Even after 20 years and winning state championships, Josh Fay is still evolving as the head football coach at Napavine High School.
Case in point: He has ditched the traditional coaching head set for… noise-canceling Beats headphones. And the assistants were donning some Airpods to communicate through an app.
“You have to have some sort of Bluetooth device,” Fay said. “The Beats were on sale; I have taken some heat for that. The noise-canceling part makes the sideline really enjoyable. I think my blood pressure is way down.
“The Beats are a thing until it rains.”
New way of communication. Same old Napavine.
An astonishing 47 points were scored in the second quarter plus the defense gave up just two total yards, which allowed the Tigers to skunk Toutle Lake 61-0 on Friday night at home to open the 2026 season.
It’s the first time in two years Napavine eclipsed the 60-point barrier. It did it three times in the ‘24 season en route to the Class 2B state championship game.
“We did the things we needed to do,” Fay said. “Our execution, our alignment was really good.”
All 38 guys that dressed played for multiple minute stretches. Fay pulled the starters in the second half and let some second and third string guys get reps. They pieced together a long drive in the third quarter before coming up just short of the endzone.
Napavine’s depth has been needed over the last few years with injuries. The Tigers got a glimpse of what the next wave of talent could be.
“For us in this situation, that depth was there,” Fay said. “We had some starters not even go for an extended period of time. What we saw in the second quarter, we made some substitutions and got better.”
Toutle Lake and Napavine met in a 2B crossover last season, a 47-24 Tigers win. The latest meeting was over in a hurry.
Beckett Landram and Dean Hamilton each found paydirt on the ground to make it 14-0 after the opening 12 minutes. And the lead kept growing.
And growing.
And growing.
And growing.
From Brody Mitchell’s 3-yard plunge with 11 minutes, 12 seconds left in the second frame to Kayden Simper’s 18-yard scamper with 23 seconds left, the Tigers scored five times.
Hamilton and Landram added one more rushing TD each, Travis Kirkpatrick hauled in a 34-yard catch for six and Carter Edmonds plus Grady Kirkpatrick registered back-to-back pick-sixes.
The second half featured a running clock and the final buzzer sounded before any thunderstorms rolled in.
“Our hope is they stay focused,” Fay said.
Landram went over the century mark on rushing yards in his first career varsity start at QB after taking a year off. Pono Moniz-Taitague added 71 yards on just three carries. The offensive line generated plenty of pushes to allow holes to form.
“He did a good job,” Fay said of his signal caller. “He threw some good balls, I think he was a little amped up. I don’t think we anticipated him being able to throw the ball the way he did and I don’t think we ran the routes as hard as we should have.”
Toutle Lake had four first downs and three of them came via penalties. It struggled to move the ball with any consistency, going three-and-out five times in the first half. The Ducks failed to complete a pass all day.
Napavine gets arch-rival Onalaska next week on the road. It’s a rematch from last year in the second week when the Loggers walked into the Tigers house and came away with a 22-12 victory.
“Our trajectory has to be up,” Fay said. “That doesn’t start in a game, that starts with how we practice. If we do a good job of that, then the chips will fall where they will.”
