OAK HARBOR — After his team weathered a week of shock, sacrifice, adulation and attention, Oak Harbor High School football coach Jay Turner didn’t know what to expect when his Wildcats took on Mountlake Terrace Friday night.
He liked the answer he received: Oak Harbor walloped the Hawks 49-9.
The win earned the Wildcats the third seed out of the Wesco 3A North. They host to Kennedy Catholic next week in the quad-district playoffs.
Terrace is the fourth seed and heads to Olympia to face Capital.
“The past week has been a roller-coaster ride,” said Turner, whose game last week against Marysville Pilchuck was canceled because of the shooting at MP. “We didn’t know how the kids would respond. It took a few minutes to get comfortable.”
Once the Wildcats settled in, Mountlake Terrace was in trouble.
The Hawks moved the ball early, with running back Ryan Lacrosse scoring from 3 yards out on the game’s first possession. The next time Terrace had the ball, the Hawks ate up enough yardage to set up a 46-yard field goal by Ivan Melchor.
From that point, Mountlake Terrace collected just three first downs.
Oak Harbor rolled early and never stopped, averaging better than 10 yards per play.
After the Hawks’ first score, Oak Harbor sophomore fullback Princeton Lollar bolted up the middle for a 45-yard TD, the first of his four scores. On the run he shed two defenders at the 15 and carried another the final 10 yards into the end zone. The 225-pounder ran for 163 yards on 17 carries.
He was joined in the spotlight by a handful of teammates.
Quarterback Clay Doughty completed nine of 11 passes for 213 yards and a touchdown. Dyllan Harris caught eight of those passes for 191 yards and the score. On gains of 42 and 51 yards, Harris out-jumped and out-wrestled two defenders to complete the plays.
Dejon Devroe ran for 103 yards on nine carries and scored twice. In all, the Wildcats piled up 532 yards of offense.
Terrace finished with just 159 yards of total offense. It ran just 16 plays in the second half for 26 yards.
“I’m really proud of our kids,” Turner said. “It’s a good group of kids and they understand what is important.”
And he wasn’t referring to winning football games.
At Oak Harbor H.S.
Mountlake Terrace 6 3 0 0 — 9
Oak Harbor 7 21 14 7 — 49
MLT—Ryan Lacasse 3 run (kick blocked)
OH—Princeton Lollar 45 run (Mark Johnston kick)
MLT—Ivan Melchor 46 field goal
OH—Lollar 7 run (Johnston kick)
OH—Lollar 4 run (Johnston kick)
OH—Dyllan Harris 11 pass from Clay Doughty (Johnston kick)
OH—Lollar 1 run (Johnston kick)
OH—Dejon Devroe 10 run (Johnston kick)
OH—Dejon Devroe 7 run (Johnston kick)
Records—Mountlake Terrace 8-1. Oak Harbor 6-1.
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