MARYSVILLE — The Marysville Pilchuck football team was supposed to spend Friday night playing Oak Harbor for the Wesco 3A North championship.
Instead, at game time the Tomahawks huddled together in the Marysville School District headquarters, sharing their grief over a deadly shooting that occurred Friday morning at their high school.
Late in the meeting, a group of Oak Harbor players arrived clad in their purple jerseys. They came, offering hugs and handshakes, to show support for their opponents and the MP community.
“That’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen,” Tomahawks coach Brandon Carson said. “That just shows you what kind of people they are. Those guys have showed it tonight just by coming here and coming to the vigil and visiting us at our team meeting. I can’t put into words what it means for not only high school athletics, but for our team to get through this grieving process.”
The Wildcats did more than just show up.
Oak Harbor head coach Jay Turner, a 1990 graduate of Marysville Pilchuck, texted Carson early Friday and offered to forfeit the game — giving Marysville Pilchuck the league title and the No. 1 seed for next week’s Wesco 3A crossover games.
“It’s not just because it’s Marysville. It’s the right thing to do,” Turner said. “We had a meeting with our kids after school and then I talked with my coaches and we were all in 100 percent agreement that it was the right thing to do.”
Carson said Marysville athletic director Greg Erickson planned to talk to the Oak Harbor AD over the weekend to discuss the Oak Harbor offer.
“Big shout out to Oak Harbor for taking 2nd Place in WESCO North,” Marysville Pilchuck senior defensive back Nicholas Alonso tweeted Friday evening. “You guys are the real League Champions.”
Many of the football players witnessed, or were close to, the shooting that left two dead and four injured. Carson, his coaching staff, school administrators and counselors were on hand to talk to the Tomahawks and offer their support.
“I think they’re handling it to the best that they can,” Carson said. “I haven’t been able to talk to each one of them individually, but we’ll get through this.”
“We’re all in shock and just overall sad,” senior running back Killian Page said in a text message Friday afternoon.
The boy responsible for the attack, Jaylen Fryberg, was a member of the MP freshman football team. He shot himself after opening fire on three girls and two of his own cousins in the school cafeteria.
Marysville Pilchuck senior lineman Corbin Ferry said his first thought was for his teammates.
“I texted everybody in my contacts that was on the football team,” Ferry said. “I wanted to talk to them and make sure they were doing all right. We’re all really shooken up.”
The Tomahawks finished Friday night’s meeting the way they finish every practice and game.
“It’s not just a team, it’s a family,” Ferry said. “As a team, we break every practice with, ‘Family on 3, 1…2…3…’ And that’s huge. We don’t just say that. … We are a family. We all truly love each other.”
No one was certain Friday night when the Tomahawks will be back on the field. The school will be closed for a week. Carson said the team isn’t allowed on the campus, where many of the Tomahawks have their gear stored in the locker room.
“As of right now, what I’ve been told is MP is a crime scene, so it’s not a campus for us,” Carson said. “We can’t go on there. So we’re going to work through logistics (Friday and Saturday). We don’t know where we’ll practice. We might have to practice without gear because most of our kids’ gear is at the school. I don’t know. It might have to be shorts and t-shirt walk-through. That seems minute in the wake of today’s tragedy, but it’s something we have to work out.”
Carson is eager to get the team back out on the field. He said he hopes that the school — and adjoining Quil Ceda Stadium — is opened for the Tomahawks’ next game, a Wesco 3A crossover contest scheduled for Friday against either Meadowdale or Mountlake Terrace.
“I think it can rally a community together, especially if you can provide a win and give something the community can feel good about,” Carson said. “Just from a grieving process, it’ll help to get back on a normal schedule and routine.”
The Oak Harbor players made the drive from Whidbey Island to a vigil at a Marysville church before the wife of a Marysville Pilchuck coach encouraged them to show up at the Tomahawks’ team meeting.
“We just wanted to show our respects and show that Oak Harbor cares,” said Josiah Welch, a junior running back/defensive back for the Wildcats. “They seemed really grateful. They were all happy that we came.”
“Their head coach is an ex-Tomahawk who (Marysvile Pilchuck offensive line coach Scott) Stokes talks very highly of,” Ferry said. “That’s pretty cool. That’s a class act. The outcome of the game isn’t super important. We’d love to win. But the outcome isn’t the big thing. I was beyond stoked just to see that they gave us that.
“The fact that they drove here from Oak Harbor, it’s not like you’re driving here from Stanwood or from Arlington — it’s not a 15-minute drive. It’s a long ways. That was the classiest move I’ve ever seen in football at any level.”
At the football games that were played Friday night, players and fans showed their support for the Marysville community.
Mariner, Monroe, Cascade and Mount Vernon all had student sections decked out in red and white — the Tomahawks’ school colors. There were signs of support at the Kamiak-Lake Stevens game, and Arlington changed a planned “pink out” to a “red out.”
Granite Falls cheerleaders led a cheer for Marysville Pilchuck at the Tigers’ game against Cedarcrest. A moment of silence and prayer was said before the King’s-Archbishop Murphy game.
Several players, coaches and teams expressed support for the Tomahawks on Twitter, including the Shorewood Football program, which tweeted out: “Thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of Marysville-Pilchuck and the entire Marysville community.”
“Tonight we have a full slate of football games scheduled within the Western Conference,” Everett School District athletic director Robert Polk said in a statement. “… The Western Conference athletic directors feel strongly that it is important to help our students with as much sense of normalcy as possible. We do not want tragedy to paralyze us in our daily lives. The victims of this tragedy will be honored at each game across the league.”
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