TUMWATER — The Rochester offense had three more in them.
The Warriors spent four quarters grinding away in the ultimate clash of styles, between their loaded-up, misdirection ground-and-pound and Black Hills’ spread passing attack, and come the end of four quarters, there was nothing to separate the vastly different teams.
But then overtime started, and the Warriors had more left in the tank.
The Rochester defense sent the Wolves backwards on the first possession of overtime, and the Warriors had three more good strong offensive plays left, winning 20-14 on a Palmer Watt 6-yard walk-off touchdown.
“We got the right ones when it mattered,” Rochester coach AJ Easley said. “Those guys put it on their backs, and got some really frickin’ hard yards.”
It started on defense, where the Warriors faced an obvious challenge: stop a Black Hills spread offense that looks completely different than what they’re used to practicing against.
“If that was our strong suit, we’d run it, but it’s not,” Easley said. “So it takes them a little bit to get acclimated, but we did the best job we could have done of rallying to the football. Our tackling was a thousand times’ better than it has been the past two weeks.”
After falling behind toward the end of the first half, Rochester dug in, stopping Black Hills on fourth-and-goal at the 2-yard line on the first drive of the third quarter, and coming up with an interception in the third.
When the Wolves scored to tie the game at 14-14 on a Jaxsen Beck pass to Bereket Lester, the Warriors then had to stop the hosts on a short field with time winding down, and proceeded to do just that, sacking Beck on fourth down to turn Black Hills over.
Rochester’s front came away with six sacks, and held the Wolves to just 39 rushing yards.
“Those guys up front, minus Chris Tartios — Jack Dane and Jaden Nichols and Wyatt Dall — never came off the field,” Easley said. “Two of them are guards and one is a tackle, and they never came off the field. And in the fourth quarter and in overtime, they’re still getting after the quarterback. They’ve got to be absolutely exhausted right now.”
In overtime, Black Hills got the ball at the 25-yard line to start. A quick pass picked up three yards, but a stuffed run set the hosts back to the original line of scrimmage, and the final sack of the day made it fourth-and-20, which the Wolves couldn’t pick up.
“It became reality right then, it did for me at least,” Watt said. “The mindset changed, went from ‘Hopefully we’re winning the game’ to ‘We’re going to come out on top here.’”
Rochester’s first play went to Watt, to get the Warriors well within the red zone. The second went to Ethan Rodriguez, who got to the 6-yard line, and Easley dialed up one last power play for Watt, who plunged into the end zone standing up as the Rochester sideline came spilling onto the field.
“I just got the ball, and I don’t know, put it in the end zone,” Watt said.
Tate Quarnstrom led Rochester with 197 yards on 27 carries, while Rodriguez had 109 yards and Watt added 67.
The Warriors totaled 395 yards on the ground on 63 carries — a loaded total that does lower their season average to just 464 per game.
“With the offense that we run, the message is always the same,” Easley said. “They shut us out in the first half, but you’ve got to keep pounding, you’ve got to keep driving. If you just stay the course and stay with it, they’ll break open.”
Beck finished his night 20 for 32 for 254 yards, with two touchdowns and an interception. Both touchdowns went to Lester, who had eight catches for 59 yards; Maddox Hodge led the Wolves with eight snags for 154 yards.
Black Hills will go to Chehalis to face W.F. West next Friday, while Rochester will stay at home to host Shelton, looking to stack up some real momentum.
“I think we can build off it,” Watt said. “We’ve got the new offense that we’re running, and we’ve just been getting better and better at it.”
