MONTESANO — The Rochester Warriors were in the perfect position against Montesano with the perfect play call, putting the ball into the hands of the perfect player.
Instead, the ball hit the turf, and it was a wrap.
Rochester, which had trailed by as many as 14 against Montesano on the road Friday night, was in the midst of a 16-play drive that started with 2 minutes and 24 seconds left in the third quarter, with the Warriors trailing 22-14. They faced a fourth-and-2 at the Bulldogs 29-yard line with a hair above six minutes left in the fourth quarter.
The call was simple: hand the ball to Ethan Rodriguez, the reigning 1A Evergreen League Most Valuable Player, and let the University of Idaho commit go to work. After all, the Warriors’ slow-paced rushing attack had worn down Montesano’s defense all night, especially in the second half.
Rodriguez took the handoff and bulldozed his way for a no-doubt first down to keep the drive and Rochester’s comeback hopes alive. But as he fought for more yardage, a Bulldogs defender punched the ball out from behind him, sending it rolling to the 14-yard line, where it was recovered by linebacker Karsten Mann.
On his 149th carry of the season, it was Rodriguez’s first fumble of the season.
All Montesano's offense had to do was run out the clock, and it did essentially that to win 22-14, exacting revenge on the Warriors after Rochester upset the Bulldogs last fall.
“The hard part about our offense sometimes is you’re asking kids to be perfect for a 17-play drive. You needed probably five more, so 22 or 23 plays in a row you’ve gotta be perfect,” Rochester head coach AJ Easley said. “Ethan’s been perfect for a long time. Stuff happens sometimes.”
The Warriors declared their intentions from their opening possession. Their run game had yet to be stopped all year, nor by Montesano last year as Rochester rushed for 370 yards in the 16-14 win. Rochester used more than half of the first quarter clock with a nine-play drive, letting the play clock tick down to the last seconds before snapping the ball. However, the drive amounted to nothing as a turnover on downs handed Montesano the ball at its 37.
Montesano only needed four plays and 82 seconds to throw the first punch. Running back Toren Crites caught a pass from quarterback Tyson Perry and made multiple defenders miss to pick up 31 yards on the first snap. Three plays later, Perry connected with Mason Fry for a 17-yard touchdown. A 2-point conversion made it 8-0 Montesano.
The Bulldogs stymied the Warriors’ rushing offense on the next drive. As the ball was punted back to Montesano, Rochester senior lineman Wyatt Dahl gave a passionate speech to his teammates on the sideline.
“We’re beating ourselves,” he told them. “We have to play our offense and do what we know how to do.”
Montesano did what it knows how to do and gave Zachary Timmons the ball in open space. The senior running back snagged a pass in the middle of the field, and the moment he stuck his foot in the turf to turn upfield, there was nothing but paydirt in front of him as he scored a 64-yard touchdown to give Montesano a 16-0 lead early in the second.
Rochester’s offense remained calm and collected, assembling a 14-play drive over nearly 10 minutes. Rodriguez dove into the end zone from 3 yards out, and Rochester appeared content to be trailing 16-8 at halftime.
However, the Warriors attempted a surprise onside kick with less than two minutes left in the second quarter, and the Bulldogs’ recovery at their 45-yard line set them up with a shot to open up the lead.
The elusive Crites immediately capitalized on the short field with a 51-yard run to the 4, and Timmons’ 1-yard plunge extended the Bulldogs lead to 22-8 with 36 ticks left until halftime.
After a Montesano punt on the first drive out of the locker room, Rochester once again wore down the Bulldogs defense, using its running back trio of Rodriguez, Maddox Rodgers and Xander Peterman. Another 14-play drive ended in another 3-yard Rodriguez score, and suddenly, the Warriors were within 8 points.
Rochester’s defense delivered in the third quarter, forcing punts on both Bulldogs drives. The Warriors got the ball back with 2:24 on the clock, and Easley had no plans to give the ball back.
“It would have been ideal to score with very little time on the clock there and try to get that 2-point conversion to tie it and take our chances in overtime,” Easley said.
The ideal plan was working swimmingly. Rochester’s rushing attack never pulled off a big gashing run, but it was the small cuts for 6 yards and 8 yards on first down that tired Montesano out. But with the game on the line and a fourth-and-two in sight, Rodriguez’s surefire first down turned into a nightmare ending for a Warriors team looking for a statement win.
“I just wasn’t holding onto the ball tight enough. That’s on me,” Rodriguez said. “I was mad, but I had to just forget it immediately.”
Despite the heartbreaking defeat, Rochester proved that it can hang with one of the top 1A teams in the state. The Warriors outgained the Bulldogs 296 to 285 and ran 62 offensive plays compared to Montesano’s 32. Easley told his team after the game that they are “as good if not better” than the Bulldogs.
“Montesano is a fantastic football team. They’re number one or two in the state for a reason,” he said. “I’m proud of all of our guys for digging in. Early on defensively, it didn’t look great. To give up 22 in the first half and to finish with 22 against a team that is averaging over 40 is pretty commendable. The fumble tells you that we’re a play or two or a fourth down early in the game away. We’re right there. We’re a play away.”
Rochester (5-2, 1-1 Evergreen) will have to dig deep once again as a revenge game comes into view next Friday. The Warriors will host Tenino (6-1, 2-1 Evergreen) in the Scatter Creek Showdown, which the Beavers won 38-24 last year.
“We came into that game thinking they weren’t going to be a challenge, and they came and beat us,” Rodriguez said of last year’s contest. “We’re going to play them as hard as we can, and we’re going to win that game.”
“They want to go 1-0 every week. We lost to Aberdeen three weeks ago and just reeled off three wins in a row. So these guys are pretty good at responding and being resilient,” Easley added. “I don’t know that they’re going to need a lot of extra motivation.”
