NAPAVINE — With the score rapidly getting out of hand in a 56-0 rout, Thursday night’s crossover matchup against Wahkiakum turned into a sort of practice by exposure for the Napavine football team.
The Tigers had to deal with a wet ball for the first time, and will hope they got their fumbles out of the way. Now that they’ve tried to throw through the wind, maybe next time the passing attack will go a bit better. And now, all of them can learn the lesson from the one unfortunate backup who stood a bit too close to the propane heater on the sideline and accidentally burned a hole in his pants.
All important lessons, and ones learned in the comfort of yet another blowout that sees Napavine improve to 10-0 on the season, with all 10 games ending with the clock running.
“I thought we were okay,” Napavine coach Josh Fay said. “We’re going to have to be better dealing with these conditions. Obviously we won’t be on grass anymore, but it’s probably going to be gross and windy and raining, and we’re going to have to overcome those conditions.”
If there was any doubt beforehand, autumn had well and truly arrived, and Thursday’s weather battered both teams in Tiger Town. The precipitation swung from a sprinkle to showers and back, but the real killer was a northerly wind that gusted hard upfield all night long, taking a night in the low 40s down below freezing due to windchill.
Wahkiakum’s second pass of the night was an attempted screen that got caught up in the wind and blew back a good 10 yards before rolling out of bounds at the 2-yard line. A quarter later going the other way, the Mules’ Dominic Curl got a punt into the jetstream, and it went a good 70 yards.
While Napavine did have its fumble problems with the wet ball, its defense kept the Mules deep in the negatives in terms of yardage in the first half, and leaned on its run game early. After coming down with an interception to start the game, the Tigers gave the ball to Cael Stanley, who ran five straight times to get into the end zone for the first time, punching it in from 4 yards out.
From there, the Tigers opened up their playbook, mainly to get experience running their offense in the harsh conditions. But all night long, the best offense was to give it to No. 2, and let the line open things up for him. Stanley finished with 154 yards on 14 carries, and hit paydirt three times.
“We executed pretty well up front,” Fay said. “Guys were in the right spots, which is where we want to be. If you can be in the right spot, you’ve got a shot to move guys. Cael runs really hard. He knows where the holes are at, and he hits them hard, and then he kind of does the rest once he gets out there.”
Ashton Demarest took a pair of carries for touchdowns, and Franklin Pihl added a score of his own in the fourth quarter.
Demarest had a tougher time throwing the football, with a couple throws getting carried long when the wind was at his back. But a large part of his 2-for-11 line was due to drops, by a Napavine receiving corps that all chose to come out barehanded, and paid the price for it.
“We’re probably going to have to get the pouches out with the handwarmers in them,” Fay said.
The one Tiger with secure mitts on the night was Colin Shields. In the first quarter, Napavine dialed up a throw-back screen, which the sophomore caught at the line of scrimmage and took 45 yards to the end zone. Then in the second quarter, he caught just about the only downfield completion of the night, on a 20-yard touchdown up the seam.
“Colin’s got great hands,” Fay said. “He does a nice job all the time.”
Napavine (10-0, 5-0 league) is all but guaranteed a bye week next week as the 2B state tournament gets underway.
“We’re going to take some time to get rested up,” Fay said. “Probably take it easy at the start of next week. But we’ll practice every day. We’ll start looking at film of potential (opponents) Sunday when the brackets come out.
