Images from Centralia's 2015 Homecoming game against Tumwater on Friday, Oct. 9, 2015 at Tiger Stadium in Centralia.
The first two minutes were, for the most part, a taste of things to come.
The Tigers lost a fumble on their second play, giving Tumwater — the top-ranked team in the 2A ranks, a perennial state power and the owner of an undefeated record — 31 yards of field with which to fool around.
Four plays and 63 seconds later the scoring started, on a 5-yard run from Jarid Barrett. Forty-eight game minutes, seven touchdowns and a running clock later the Thunderbirds exited Centralia with a 49-6 Evergreen 2A Conference football victory.
“We played against a team tonight that’s probably going to have their team banquet sometime in December,” Tiger coach Matt Whitmire said. “They came out and proved to be every bit the opponent we thought they’d be, but we still saw some really good things out of our kids tonight.”
Tumwater’s trio of offensive weapons was downright scary. Easton Trakel, all speed and cuts, ran for 95 yards and two scores on nine carries in his second game back from an injury; Barrett, a bruising back at 5-foot-9, 180 pounds, managed 29 yards and two touchdowns on eight totes; and Dominic Jones, a 6-foot, 200 third option, broke enough big plays to accumulate 115 yards and two touchdowns on just five carries.
The Tigers’ lone touchdown came with 6 ½ minutes to play in the game, when Joey Aliff found Nolan Wasson in the end zone on a 13-yard completion.
“They definitely execute every play, and they’ve done it every year,” Wasson said of Tumwater. “We knew what to expect, and I guess that’s just what happens.”
Centralia got a first down but only a yard more on its second drive of the game before punting, and Tumwater answered with a five-play, 63-yard drive capped with a 26-yard scoring run by Jones.
Centralia put its best drive together in the first half, running off 13 plays on a drive helped along when a Tumwater defender tipped a bouncing punt and the Tigers recovered. Aliff hit Josh Towle on a 25-yard completion and catch in traffic for a first-and-goal from the 10-yard line, but the Tigers’ fourth-and-goal play from the 2-yard line was stuffed.
The biggest challenge Tumwater presents, Whitmire said, was its overall team speed.
“You just can’t replicate that in practice,” he pointed out. “There were times tonight where you just looked and said we didn’t have much of a chance, because they are superior — not to just us, but every team right now in terms of who they’re going to see until the playoffs.”
And that speed was most apparent when the Tigers had the ball.
“I was more impressed with them defensively than anything else,” Whitmire said. “Number one, they’re skilled at what they do, but number two, that’s the fastest team I’ve seen in the last 10 years of high school football. They just flat-out fly, and when they hit you, it’s with bad intentions.”
Tumwater never punted in the first half, with Trakel scoring on runs of 4 and 8 yards, and Barrett adding a 4-yard scoring run with just under 4 minutes until halftime. The Thunderbirds took a 35-0 lead into the intermission after 24 minutes of football in which they outgained Centralia 269-73.
Jones’ 2-yard touchdown run on the fifth play of the second half gave Tumwater the requisite 40-point lead and prompted the officials to signal for a running clock. Noah Andrews added a 57-yard tackle-breaking touchdown run late in the third quarter, finishing with three carries for 77 yards.
Tumwater finished with 391 yards of offense, with quarterback Spencer Dowers completing 4 of 5 passes for 69 yards. Dylan Ferrians led Centralia with 48 rushing yards on 11 carries, while Wasson finished with five catches for 43 yards.
The Tigers play a nonleague contest at Bremerton on Friday, before jumping back into league play with a road game at rival W.F. West on Oct. 23 and concluding the regular season at home against Black Hills on Oct. 31.
“The next three games are games that we should be in from the very start,” Whitmire said. “We’ll go out next week, and even though it’s a nonleague game, it’s a chance to get back on track to a .500 record before we come back to a huge Swamp Cup game.”
Notes: Friday was the Tigers’ belated homecoming ceremony, with Bryse Gilmore and Liban Ali earning queen and king honors. The homecoming dance will be held on Saturday, Oct. 24. … Centralia’s Nathan Yahn added an interception with 1:55 left to play. … The Tigers were coming off an unexpected bye week, when their originally-scheduled homecoming game was cancelled due to a school lockdown after a threatening letter was found in the building. “It kind of made us get out of our rhythm a little bit,” Wasson said, of skipping last week’s game against Sequim.
