After two close losses by the slimmest of margins, the Pe Ell-Willapa Valley got over the hump and had the scoreboard skewed in the right direction when the clock hit triple-zeroes, beating Wahkiakum 45-6 in a non-league blowout.
“I was proud of my boys to keep their heads up, come in, and play a damn good ballgame when they could have put them down because of the heartbreaking losses that we had,” coach Josh Fluke said. “But we played a good, solid game on offense and a good, solid game on defense, and it turned out to be a good football game for us. We needed to win to keep our heads up.”
The Titans turned in a first-half shutout, leading the Mules 28-0 at the break. Out of halftime the onslaught only continued.
“Once we got into the second half, the O-line was really grinding and we just pounded the football right up the middle,” Fluke said.
Blake Howard was the main beneficiary of the line’s work, going for 93 yards on 10 carries and hitting paydirt twice on the ground. He also added an 80-yard kick return for a touchdown and wrapped up his day with 242 total yards, combining rushes, returns, and catches.
Cody Strozyk added two scores of his own – PWV’s first two of the evening – and Kolton Fluke ran in a 15-yard touchdown in the second quarter.
On the flip side, the defensive breakdowns that doomed PWV the past two weeks never came. Wahkiakum mustered just 83 yards through the air, and the Titans picked the Mules off twice.
“We’ve been killed on the pass, and that’s what we worked on all week, was pass defense,” Fluke said. “It must’ve worked because we knocked down a few balls, kept them in front of us, and never gave up the big play.”
PWV will get its toughest test of the regular season next week, hosting No. 1 Napavine.
