Hunter Smith broke CHS single-season records for receiving yardage and TD receptions. (John Fisken photos)
Sean Toomey-Stout, seen here making a tackle in an earlier game, had a breakout freshman season on offense, defense and special teams.
Four weeks from now Cascade Christian could very likely raise the trophy as 1A state football champs.
The Cougars have a 6-foot-3 freshman QB with a cannon for an arm and a stable of super-quick running backs and receivers, and it’s not hard to figure out how they’ve gone 10-0 this season.
That being said, victim #10, Coupeville, walked off the field Friday holding its collective heads high.
With two of three senior captains (Clay Reilly and Jacob Martin) out with injuries and quarterback Hunter Downes ripped up by a stomach illness, the Wolves chances of upsetting the #5 team in the Associated Press poll were slim.
So it wasn’t a huge surprise Cascade Christian rolled to a 47-8 win to close out Olympic/Nisqually League play.
But Coupeville, which tripled its win total from a season ago, finishing 3-7, refused to go down easy, scoring late to accomplish something league runner-up Port Townsend couldn’t against the Cougars.
The Wolves didn’t get waxed like Vashon Island (which was crushed 82-6), weren’t shut-out like the RedHawks (who fell 42-0) and stayed scrappy until the end.
Not that the game was especially close, as Cascade Christian rode a four-touchdown performance from senior running back Zach Bartolome to snag a 40-0 halftime lead and trigger a running clock in the second half.
But, under that running clock, Coupeville “won” the second half 8-7, even with the Cougars leaving their starters in until the fourth quarter.
The Wolves closed the season on a strong note, ramming a late touchdown down Cascade Christian’s throat.
It came on a short four-yard lob from Downes to Hunter Smith (the junior receiver tacked on a two-point conversion) and was set up by Matt Hilborn softening the Cougar defense with an 18-yard bolt through traffic on the previous play.
The scoring strike was significant, as it allowed Smith to break his second record of the night.
He hauled in nine catches for 124 yards Friday, finishing the 2016 campaign with 915 receiving yards and 11 touchdown receptions.
Both those marks are school single-season records, besting Chad Gale (844 yards in 1987) and Josh Bayne (10 TD catches in 2014).
Smith will enter his senior season with very little work left to do to claim three CHS career marks.
He has 1,334 yards and 13 TD’s as a receiver, and Gale’s records are 1,345 and 17. With 11 interceptions, Smith also sits just one off of Bayne’s career record.
After spending Thursday night and Friday morning heaving, Downes reached down deep to make it on the field for the finale, and went out slinging passes until the game’s final play.
He racked up 143 yards against Cascade Christian — Cameron Toomey-Stout pulled in two passes for 19 yards to supplement Smith — and, after missing most of his sophomore year with an injury, put together one of the best seasons ever by a Wolf quarterback.
Downes finished with 1,559 yards passing and 17 TD’s, one shy of Joel Walstad’s single-season mark.
While the Hunter to Hunter combination was clicking, the young guns stepped up and made an impact running the ball.
With Martin (hand surgery) and Reilly (concussion), the team’s top two rushers, sidelined, freshman Sean Toomey-Stout and sophomores Hilborn and Chris Battaglia stepped into their shoes.
All three had at at least one carry of ten-plus yards.
The game marked the end for six Wolves.
Kory Score, Taylor Consford and Jonathan Thurston all saw playing time for CHS this season, with Thurston on the field Friday, but Coupeville’s three senior captains will leave the biggest hole.
Martin was a rock for four years, doing the dirty work on both sides of the ball, especially shining when it came to laying down block after block for runners like Bayne, Wiley Hesselgrave and Lathom Kelley.
Reilly was a superb defender in the backfield and a beast in the kicking game during his career.
He ripped off a 70-yard punt at one point (it was all leg), and made the guys in the press box at Bellevue Christian fall out of their chairs with his supersonic PATs.
Their co-captain, Uriel Liquidano, was the only one of the trio healthy enough to play Friday, and he more than earned the bring-down-the-house ovation he received during pre-game introductions.
Like his older brother Oscar before him, Woody was an animal in the trenches and a gentleman the rest of the time.
After the final buzzer had sounded, the captains joined their team for one final talk by first-year head coach Jon Atkins, who had the Wolves a play or two away from going 5-5, which would have matched the best CHS record of the past decade-plus.
The huddle was packed with young players, established stars like Downes and Smith, fast-risers like Sean Toomey-Stout and still green youngsters such as Dawson Houston, Andrew Martin and Gavin Knoblich.
It is a team full of promise, and the key will be whether the new leaders work as hard as the three captains who stood together at the heart of the huddle.
The season ended with a loss, but the feeling on the field in the afterglow was of seeing a program make a turn for the positive.
Different players will carry the banner going forward, but what was started links directly to those three young men — Martin, Reilly and Liquidano.
They honored their uniform, their school and their families. They played and practiced with passion, and they went out as brothers.
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