Meadowdale sacks Glacier Peak

SNOHOMISH — After the first two weeks of the season, it was clear Meadowdale High’s football team had a pretty good quarterback in senior JP Routen.

After the first four weeks of the season, it’s clear they have two.

Senior Caleb Tingstad has started at quarterback for the Mavericks the past two weeks while Routen has been out with an injury. The Mavs’ offense hasn’t missed a beat.

Friday, Tingstad led the Mavericks to what could prove to be their most important victory of the season, a 30-19 road win over Glacier Peak. With the victory, Meadowdale improved to 3-0 in the Wesco 3A South and 3-1 on the season. Victories over Glacier Peak and Edmonds-Woodway in back-to-back weeks appear to give the Mavs the inside track at a league championship, though head coach Mike Don isn’t willing to get too far ahead of himself.

“We’re 3-0 (in league), but we’ve still got some teams left,” Don said. “We’ve still got to go out next week and play Shorewood, and then we’ve got Lynnwood, which is an unbelievably improved football team. I know what those kids are capable of because I coached them all.”

Don was the head coach at Lynnwood and Brewster before taking the head coaching job at Meadowdale.

The victory over Glacier Peak was Meadowdale’s third consecutive win — all league games — after dropping the season opener, a non-conference game to Lake Stevens.

“We knew we had a brutal four-game stretch to start the year and we were able to come out of that 3-1 and I think that’s a good accomplishment for our kids,” Don said. “We’ve had two really good Wesco 3A schools in a row. When you play Edmonds-Woodway and Glacier Peak back-to-back, that’s a tough combo. I thought our kids did a really good job all week of prepping for another big game. They did a great job tonight.”

Tingstad connected with running back Malik Braxton for a 5-yard touchdown pass on the Mavericks’ first possession of the game. Moments later he got into the end zone himself, scoring on a 23-yard touchdown run that gave Meadowdale a 13-0 lead after the extra point was blocked.

Tingstad finished the first half 5-for-6 for 114 yards and two touchdowns.

“Going into the year, it was actually a really good battle between (Tingstand and Routen) all summer,” Don said. “I wavered back and forth on who the starting quarterback was going to be. It was really wasn’t the quarterback position as much as it was that Caleb is a phenomenal tight end and outside linebacker. … I knew Caleb was going to step up real well at quarterback. It was the other spots that I was nervous about, and those kids have played unbelievable.”

Meadowdale’s senior kicker Brett Schafer made sure his team scored points on each of its first three possessions when his 43-yard field goal gave the Mavericks a 16-0 lead late in the first quarter.

And the fast start ultimately decided the outcome.

“It was the difference in the game,” Rosenbach said. “You spot them 16 points and after that we played them pretty good. They scored 30 and we scored 19, that’s a pretty good game after that. But we missed opportunities. While they were scoring those 16 points we missed a couple of opportunities.”

The early lead allowed Meadowdale to do what it wanted to do offensively in the first half — grind Glacier Peak’s defense with running back Rory Spillum.

“We’ve got two really good (running) backs,” Don said of Spillum and Malik Braxton. “Rory Spillum is unbelievable. He’s rushed for over 100 yards in pretty much every game. He’s more of a workhorse type back that is going to take the pounding. What we’re trying to do is give Malik spots where he can make big plays. We want to take advantage of him, kind of a Percy Harvin-ish thing.”

Don’s plan worked. Though Braxton didn’t touch the ball much, he scored three touchdowns including an 82-yard touchdown reception late in the first half and a 28-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter that all but clinched the victory.

Braxton also intercepted a pass on defense.

Glacier Peak scored its first points on a safety in the second quarter and Spencer Pettit added a 44-yard field goal as time expired in the second quarter.

The Grizzlies took advantage of a turnover on Meadowdale’s first offensive play of the second half and scored their first touchdown, cutting the deficit to 11 at 23-12, but never got any closer.

It doesn’t get any easier for the Grizzlies, who face No. 1 ranked Bellevue next Friday before returning to their league schedule in two weeks.

“It’s not like we’ve got a bye week next week,” Rosenbach said. They know they’ve got to come to work, but they know it’s just one game. Obviously, this was a big game. Those guys (the Mavericks) have put themselves in the driver’s seat (for the league championship). We’ve got to home someone helps us out. All we can do is go back and take it one week and a time. We’re going to go take a shot at Bellevue and see what happens there and then get back in the league schedule.”

Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.

At Veterans Memorial Stadium

Meadowdale 16 7 0 7 — 30

Glacier Peak 0 5 7 7 — 19

M–Malik Braxton 5 pass from Caleb Tingstad (Brett Schafer kick).

M–Tingstad 23 run (kick blocked).

M–Schafer 43 FG.

M–Braxton 82 pass from Tingstad (Schafer kick).

GP–Safety (Tingstad sacked in end zone).

GP–Spencer Pettit 44 FG

GP–Iain Black 2 run (Pettit kick)

M–Braxton 28 run (Schafer kick)