WF West Quarterback, Elijah Johnson (far right), uses teamate Adrian Boites' as a screen between himself and Black Hills defender TJ Borden, Friday night at Bearcat Stadium.
Chehalis' Giovanni Corona, right, goes one-on-one with Black Hills' Mark Melendrez Friday night at WF West.
WF West Quarterback, Elijah Johnson, left, fakes the handoff to Nathan Anglin, Friday during their matchup against Black Hills.
Chehalis' Nathan Anglin take the ball up the middle against the Black Hills defense during their matchup at WF West Friday night.
Chehalis' Kevin Clevenger (33) yells out after making the stop against the Black Hills offense, Friday evening at Bearcat Stadium.
Chehalis' Nathan Anglin runs the ball into the endzone, past the Black Hills defense for the first touchdown of the evening, Friday in Chehalis.
If Friday night was any indication, the Evergreen 2A Conference regular season — as short as it is — should be a good one.
W.F. West and Black Hills went blow for blow in the league’s opening game in Chehalis, with the Wolves taking advantage of two second-half Bearcat turnovers for a 24-21 victory.
“They’re just a really good team. They’ve got tough backs, but, you know, we went toe to toe,” Bearcat coach Wollan said. “We feel like it’s a game we should have won. We played our hearts out today. We were tough. It just felt like it was a punch-counterpunch game.”
The Wolves, however, landed the biggest punches in the later rounds. Black Hills’ T.J. Borden picked off an Elijah Johnson pass with 6 minutes, 17 seconds left in the game and returned it 40 yards to the Bearcat 29-yard line, and on the next play Conner Furu packed the ball 29 yards to the end zone to give the Wolves what turned out to be the final 24-21 lead.
“There’s probably, you know, a lot of coulda-woulda-shouldas in this game, but again, it’s nothing our kids should hang their heads about,” Wollan said. “We had a lot of kids make some tremendous plays out there, so for us, it’s just another step in the right direction.”
The game was close on the scoreboard and the stat sheet. W.F. West produced 180 yards on the ground and 111 through the air, while the Wolves ran for 131 yards and quarterback Christian Williams passed for 145 yards and three touchdowns. Johnson ran for 90 yards on 20 carries to lead the Bearcats, with Austin Emery pounding out 57 yards on 14 totes.
The Wolves, however, never gave the ball away.
“We just made too many turnovers,” Wollan said. “The game of football’s pretty simple. We can’t turn the ball over like we did. They were all devastating.”
The Bearcats lost a fumble on the 1-yard line in the first half, and fumbled away the opening kickoff of the second half to set up a four-play Wolf drive that ended when Williams was flushed out of the pocket and ran in a 5-yard touchdown. The extra point, however, was wide, leaving the Bearcats with a 7-6 lead.
W.F. West answered quickly, covering 78 yards — mostly on a 59-yard reception by Dakota Hawkins — and scoring on Johnson’s push into the end zone midway through the third quarter.
Black Hills marched right back downfield, and Williams hit Day on a fade route to the back corner of the end zone to cut the lead to 14-12, but Jordan March’s 2-point run attempt was stuffed well short by Clevenger.
W.F. West answered, with a 10-play drive — highlighted by Johnson’s 10-yard completion to Yarter in a fourth-and-1 situation — and scored when Austin Emery barreled into the end zone from 14 yards out.
“It was just bam, bam, bam,” Wollan said. “It felt like every possession was just critical.”
On the Wolves’ next play, Williams found Mark Melendrez on a swing pass and watched the receiver dance down the left sideline on a 58-yard scoring play. The extra point, though, was again wide, leaving W.F. West with a 21-18 lead.
“They’ve got some incredible speed. Melendrez is just a different gear than anybody we’ve got,” Wollan said. “The second half, they were able to find ways to get him the ball and he made us pay. That’s smart on their part to get the ball to a real good player in space.”
There were plenty of bright spots for W.F. West, specifically a first-half defensive stand. After losing the first-half fumble, the defense came up big on the Wolves’ ensuing drive — which spanned 21 plays and reached the 1-yard line before three straight tackles for a loss set up an incomplete pass and ended the drive.
The Bearcats answered with an 11-play, 89-yard drive, helped along by quarterback Elijah Johnson’s 33-yard completion to Garrett Yarter and capped with running back Nathan Anglin — who missed the Cats’ first three games with an ankle injury — scoring his first touchdown of the season on a 3-yard run, and giving W.F. West a 7-0 halftime lead.
Furu finished 65 rushing yards on six carries for Black Hills (5-0), while March ran 18 times for 57 yards. Williams hit 7 of 8 passes for 96 yards and three touchdowns in the second half.
“It’s a game we easily could have won, and we just didn’t. Maybe we’re just not quite ready to do this right now,” Wollan said. “Our goal is to win a Week 10 game and just keep getting better, and I think we made a lot of progress today.”
W.F. West (2-3, 0-1 league) will host 3A Kelso on Friday.
