After the clock ran out, the Centralia Tigers made their way to their own end zone.
As Centralia coach Jon Rooklidge began speaking to his team, he had to raise his voice to speak over the loud cheering from the Foster Bulldogs, who were celebrating on the new turf logo at midfield.
It was the final scene of a disappointing Homecoming game for the Tigers, who were soundly defeated 58-7.
“It’s a hard message when you get beat up pretty good,” Rooklidge said. “Our kids have come a long way. They’re making effort. I’m not blaming effort. We just got beat on the field.”
It didn’t start off that way, as the Tigers made a goal line stand and forced a turnover on downs on the first drive of the day. Foster was able to score on its next two possessions, but Terrell Sanders found Hudson Waterfield wide open for a 66-yard touchdown to get within a score.
Rooklidge said the Tigers had a perfect play call dialed up, one that would take advantage of the blitz the Bulldogs were sending.
“We saw that, and knew they would bite,” Rooklidge said. “Perfect route, perfect ball. Defense reacted exactly like we thought. We’re capable of that, so that was a positive. You build on that.”
After that, it quickly went downhill. The Bulldogs scored another touchdown, picked off Sanders inside the 10, and then executed a perfect two-minute drive before halftime to make it a 28-7 game.
It was big play after big play in the second half, as the Bulldogs rattled off three 40-plus yard touchdowns, including two of 60 or more.
“Their speed was unbelievable,” Rooklidge said. “And we struggled to adjust to that speed.”
All in all, the Bulldogs tallied 527 total yards, including 302 on the ground.
Centralia, on the other hand, tallied just 174 total yards, and 66 of them came on the touchdown pass from Sanders to Waterfield. Kellen Rooklidge led the Tigers on the ground with 41 yards on 11 carries.
Now at 0-3, the Tigers have one more non-league test at Tenino next Friday before going to Black Hills to open EvCo play on Oct. 4. They’ll return home Oct. 11 to face Aberdeen.
“We’ve had two games that we felt pretty good about the progress we made,” Rooklidge said. “Obviously, this was a step back today. This team had some skill players we just couldn’t deal with. You sleep on that, you try to get better, and you try to prepare for next week. That’s all you can do.”
