Swamped at Enumclaw’s Pete’s Pool the previous week, Kentlake regained its stroke and overcame mistake-prone Kentridge 38-20 in a North Puget Sound League Cascade Division opener for both football teams Friday night at French Field.<\/p>\n
Must win?<\/p>\n
Just ask Falcons quarterback Brandon Mortenson.<\/p>\n
“It’s a huge win coming off a loss last week (49-17 to Enumclaw),” said the senior quarterback, who threw two touchdowns in the victory over the much-improved Chargers. “We really needed it for our confidence. We came back and stepped up. Great game.”<\/p>\n
Kentake improved to 2-1 on the young season.<\/p>\n
The game was in doubt until Kentridge, trailing 24-20 early in the fourth quarter, coughed the ball up on a kickoff return, setting up Kentlake’s fourth touchdown of the game, Tony Heimann II’s 2-yard run.<\/p>\n
Kentride again fumbled the ensuing kickoff return, but its defense stood firm as Solomon Hines returned an interception 83 yards the other way for a score. But the Chargers were called for a sideline infraction – coaches found on the field and in the path of the officials trailing on the play – and the TD, which would have closed the gap, was nullified.<\/p>\n
Having to start anew from deep in its own side of the field, Kentridge was forced to punt. Kentlake blocked it, with X-zavier Thomas returning the ball 10 yards for the clinching TD.<\/p>\n
Too many penalties, too many mistakes cost the Chargers (0-1, 1-2), who ended the game with its share of injuries.<\/p>\n
“I’m proud of the guys. They really battled the whole time. … We had chances in this game,” said Kentridge’s first-year coach Brett Ogata. “Football is such a big-play game. We had some untimely turnovers and penalties that really changed the tide of the game. Can’t take anything away from Kentlake. They beat us.<\/p>\n
“We have to learn from this, move forward, and we will,” he said. “This is a team that’s growing. … We got a lot better tonight. It’s a process.”<\/p>\n
The loss foiled the performances of Kentridge’s main weapons – the speedy Hines and 6-foot-5 junior quarterback Natano Woods.<\/p>\n
Hines grabbed a 62-yard TD pass from Woods, outracing the Kentlake secondary to give the Chargers’ a 20-17 halftime lead. Hines also had two interceptions on the night.<\/p>\n
Woods threw scoring strikes to wide-out Ben Victoria (47 yards) and tight end Matthew Paino (24 yards) in the first half.<\/p>\n
Mortenson found Jalen Taylor on a 9-yard TD pass in the first quarter and hit Jeremiah Woods for 56 yards and another score in the second.<\/p>\n
Carson Lucas’ 4-yard TD run put Kentlake ahead to stay at 24-20 with 10:55 left in the game.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere<\/strong><\/p>\n At Kentwood 49, Kennedy Catholic 27:<\/strong> Justin Seiber threw three touchdowns – two of which went to Stephen Watson – as the Conquerors (1-0, 2-1) beat the Lancers (0-1, 2-1) in an NPSL Cascade Division opener Saturday night at French Field.<\/p>\n Tayvonne Miller and Dyson Johnson each ran for a pair of short TDs. Alphonse Oywak caught Seiber’s other TD pass.<\/p>\n Hazen 62, at Kent-Meridian 14:<\/strong> Delvon McNeely ran for 136 yards and two TDs and caught three passes for 128 yards and a third score as the Highlanders (1-0, 2-1) routed the Royals (0-1, 0-3) in an NPSL Cascade Division opener Thursday night at French Field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Swamped at Enumclaw’s Pete’s Pool the previous week, Kentlake regained its stroke and overcame mistake-prone Kentridge 38-20 in a North Puget Sound League Cascade Division opener for both football teams Friday night at French Field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":220,"featured_media":30476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-30475","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\/30475"}],"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\/220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30475"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}