Steffin Church felt the jitters more than a day in advance of his varsity debut at quarterback.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Those jitters, however, quickly disappeared for the Kentlake High junior Friday night at French Field. Church, who was filling in for the ill Caleb Saulo, completed 8 of 9 passes for 203 yards and a touchdown \u2014 all in the first 18 minutes of play \u2014 sparking the Falcons past Kentridge 30-22 in a South Puget Sound League North Division game.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“I always have my jitters,” admitted Church. “I was worrying about it all day long and last night (Thursday).”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Church got the start for Saulo, a second-team all-leaguer a year ago and one of the league’s top-returning quarterbacks. Church dazzled well into the second quarter, when he was drilled in the ribs by a pair of Kentridge defenders en route to completing a 62-yard bomb to wide receiver Andre Marticio with 6:02 left in the half. The big completion led to a 30-yard field goal by kicker Mitchell Habryle, which gave the Falcons a 17-16 lead they would not relinquish.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Church’s night, however, was done.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“I got hit from both sides,” said Church, who noted after the game that he was just fine. “It was a good hit. (But) I was begging to go back in.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Saulo, who was sidelined with an illness, was forced into action when Church went down.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentlake’s air assault continued as Saulo completed 10 of 18 passes for 141 yards. Church had been rotating as Kentlake’s No. 2 quarterback with Breton Medina during the season’s first two weeks. Called into action, he didn’t disappoint, particularly with his pinpoint accuracy.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“That’s what he does well,” said Kentlake coach Chris Paulson.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Church and Saulo, however, weren’t the only ones airing it out on this night in a league that has long been known more for rushing than passing. Kentridge quarterback John Hamilton completed 16 of 29 passes for 160 yards before leaving with a shoulder injury late in the game. Kentridge backup Jahkari Singh filled in admirably, completing 4 of 4 passes for 51 yards in the final minutes, including an 8-yard touchdown strike to Reggie Collins that got the Chargers to within eight points.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentridge’s offense is an evolving process, coach Marty Osborn said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“We’re still in progress. We did a lot of good things,” said Osborn, who relinquished his offensive coordinating duties in the offseason to Jeff Shumake. “After two weeks, we have not perfected (the offense).”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Many of the good things happened early Friday night for the Chargers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentlake took a 7-0 lead in the first quarter, when Church connected with star Austin Pernell down the left sideline for a 65-yard touchdown. Church uncorked a 40-yard bolt to Pernell, who cruised the final 25 yards to the end zone.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“He came out on point,” Pernell said of Church.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Pernell finished with six receptions for 153 yards, including the one touchdown. He also had a 58-yard interception return for a touchdown with 11:10 remaining in the third quarter that gave the Falcons a 30-16 lead.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
After Church connected with Pernell, the Chargers quickly struck back \u2014 twice.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Hamilton started the comeback with a 3-yard touchdown run with 2:19 left in the first quarter. Kentridge took an 8-7 lead after Alec McKenzie ran in the 2-point conversion. Seconds later, Kentridge’s Austin Berry recovered a Kentlake fumble that resulted in a Hamilton to Kaid Tipton 28-yard touchdown 19 seconds later, giving the Chargers a 16-7 first-quarter lead.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentlake (2-0 in league, 2-0 overall) proceeded to rip off 23 straight points between the second and third quarters to take control of the game. Minutes after Habryle gave Kentlake a 17-16 lead with a field goal, running back Caleb Mathena went in from 7 yards out as the Falcons’ lead ballooned to 24-16 at the half.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Mathena did a little bit of everything for the Falcons, collecting 5 receptions for 78 yards to go along with 25 yards on the ground. He also added a fumble recovery.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The loss drops Kentridge to 0-2 in league play. The Chargers lost to Auburn last week, 32-20.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“That’s two weeks in a row that we’ve gone down to the wire,” Osborn said.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Steffin Church felt the jitters more than a day in advance of his varsity debut at quarterback.<\/p>\n
Those jitters, however, quickly disappeared for the Kentlake High junior Friday night at French Field. Church, who was filling in for the ill Caleb Saulo, completed 8 of 9 passes for 203 yards and a touchdown \u2014 all in the first 18 minutes of play \u2014 sparking the Falcons past Kentridge 30-22 in a South Puget Sound League North Division game.<\/p>\n
“I always have my jitters,” admitted Church. “I was worrying about it all day long and last night (Thursday).”<\/p>\n
Church got the start for Saulo, a second-team all-leaguer a year ago and one of the league’s top-returning quarterbacks. Church dazzled well into the second quarter, when he was drilled in the ribs by a pair of Kentridge defenders en route to completing a 62-yard bomb to wide receiver Andre Marticio with 6:02 left in the half. The big completion led to a 30-yard field goal by kicker Mitchell Habryle, which gave the Falcons a 17-16 lead they would not relinquish.<\/p>\n
Church’s night, however, was done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":11922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-11921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11921"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}