Eatonville Tames Wildcats, Improve to 4-0

The #2 ranked Cruisers celebrate their 35-13 victory over #10 ranked La Center on Friday night. The Cruisers are now sitting at 4-0 on the season. Photo: Andy Buhler - Scorebook Live

High school football games are 48 minutes long……..four twelve minute quarters. The #2 ranked Eatonville Cruisers needed less than a quarter of that amount of time to take down the #10 ranked La Center Wildcats 35-13 in non-league action in La Center, WA.

The Cruisers would only need 11 minutes of offense to take care of the Wildcats this past Friday night. They would score on 5 of their 7 possessions with the other 2 possession being a punt and running the clock out at the end of the game.

After receiving the opening kickoff to start the game, the powerful Eatonville offense would start their first drive of the game at their own 36 yard line.

Before you could blink, Eatonville was in the end zone.

On the first offensive play of the night, quarterback Kevin Wulff would hand the ball off to Austin Wicker who would take the ball off tackle and shoot through the huge hole opened up by linemen Kyle Cox and Julian Evans to outrace the Wildcat defenders 64 yards for the score. Job Kralik would convert on the extra point attempt and Eatonville would enjoy an early 7-0 lead.

Senior Austin Wicker outruns the Wildcat defense 64 yards for the Cruisers first score of the night. Wicker would lead Eatonville with 92 yards on the ground. Photo: Trinity Potter - https://trinitypotter.smugmug.com/

Seven plays later, La Center’s Levi Giles would mishandle the handoff from Darren Cepeda and the Cruisers Broady Chapman would jump on it to give Eatonville the ball back at mid-field.

Again, the Cruisers would be very efficient with their offense and score three plays later when Wulff would hit a streaking Job Kralik for a 30 touchdown to extend the Eatonville lead to 14-0.

The Wildcats would answer with an 11 play, 77 yard drive that resulted in a 20 yard touchdown strike from Cepeda to Tru Feldman. After a holding call against the Wildcats on the 2 point conversion attempt, they would settle for the extra point kick to cut the Cruiser lead down to 7.

La Center, who are known to onside kick the majority of their kick offs, would try just that but Brandon Storm would fall on it for the Cruisers at the 50 yard line.

After a big sack on 2 and 10, the Cruisers would be face with a 3rd and long situation. Wulff would see a streaking Kralik, who had separation from his defender, and threw deep to him only to have the ball glance off Kralik’s outstretched fingertip. Eatonville would be forced to punt the ball for the first and only time on the night.

With the ball at their own 20 yard line, La Center would string together a slow and methodical 15 play, 80 yard drive capped by a 3 yard touchdown carry by quarterback Darren Cepeda. The Wildcats would elect to go for the two point conversion when Cepeda would again keep the ball but the Cruiser defense snuffed out the play and took him down at the 12 yard line. Again, the Wildcats had cut into the Cruiser lead and trailed 14-13.

After another failed onside kick attempt that Cruiser Waylan Mettler would recover, Eatonville would set up shop with great field position at their 40 yard line.

The Cruisers would answer back quickly with a 5 play, 59 yard drive that would result in a 6 yard touchdown run by senior Blain Hanly. After another successful point after attempt, Eatonville would extend their lead to 21-13.

With 1:22 left on the clock until halftime, the Wildcats again would string together a nice drive that brought them all the way deep into Cruiser territory. With 9 seconds left on the clock, La center would trot out the field goal unit to attempt a 37 yarder. Cruiser Job Kralik would rush off the edge and get a hand on the kick forcing it to fall short to end the half.

La Center would receive the kick off to open up the 2nd half.

Starting at their 25 yard line, the Wildcat offense would put together a 19 play drive that would take up the entire 3rd quarter. Eatonville would touch the ball only one time in that quarter and that would be when the Cruisers Blain Hanley picked off a Cepeda pass to end the quarter.

The Cruisers would start the 4th quarter with the ball on their 8 yard line following the Hanley interception that ended the 3rd. Eatonville would put together a 7 play, 72 yard drive that would see a big 36 yard Wulff to Kralik completion and then a nice 23 yard run by Dylan Norman. The drive would be capped when Wulff kept the ball from the 1 yard line and followed his linemen into the end zone. After Kralik’s kicked sailed through the uprights, Eatonville would increase their lead to 28-13.

Quarterback Kevin Wulff powers his way in from 2 yards out for the score. Photo: Andy Buhler - Scorebook Live

On the Wildcats next possession, facing a 4th and 3 from their own 40 yard line, Cepeda would hit an open Kaiden Faul who would take one step and be hit by Reilly McIlraith who would jar the ball loss. The Cruisers would then take over on downs at the Wildcat 40 yard line.

With the Wildcats leaving them with a short field, Eatonville would once again waste no time in moving the ball on the La Center defense. 6 plays later, Blain Hanley would get the call again with a 2 yard run into the end zone for the score. After the extra point attempt was successful, Eatonville would extend their lead again to 35-13 and that would end the scoring on the night.

La Center would try a last ditch effort to get into the end zone, but that effort would be thwarted when senior Brandon Storm intercepted a Cepeda pass at the Eatonville 30 yard line. The Cruisers would run 2 plays to pick up a first down and then go into the victory formation and kneel the ball twice to run the game clock out for the 35-13 victory.

One of the key moments in the game, was the Blain Hanley interception to end the 3rd quarter. La Center had a great quarter long drive going that would have more than likely ended in a score that would have potentially tied the game up. Hanly was asked about that play after the game.

“Well, after La Center had been putting up multiple great drives against us and our defense in one constant dog fight, I was expecting it to be another run. When I read my line, I saw pass and went to my zone. Luckily, all of my defensive backs were in the right spots and my d-line put great pressure on the quarterback. I was in the right spot at the right time to help end their quarter long drive", said an excited Hanley.

Hanley was referring to the 12:00 minute drive the Wildcats had that ate up the entire 3rd quarter.

“It felt weird being in one nonstop drive on defense for an entire quarter, my first time ever, and it felt good to end it with an interception” he said.

On Hanley’s overall play during the game, Head Coach Gavin Kralik had nothing but praise for the senior linebacker, “Blain has continued to improve each season due to his work ethic and great attention to detail. He is like another coach out there on the defense for us. We really appreciate the leadership he provides to our team on and off of the field”.

After winning their first three games of the season by a combined score of 141-13, the Cruisers knew this would be a real test for them.

“We knew this was the beginning of a really challenging three game stretch for us. I was really proud of our team’s ability to battle through the adversity that was dealt to us during the game. We have plenty of really talented teams throughout our schedule and our ability to overcome the adversity that will be a part of our path is going to be a big determining factor in how the rest of the season plays out”, said Kralik.

Senior quarterback Kevin Wulff, who had put up big offensive numbers in the Cruisers first three games, was fairly silent in this one. He would only attempt 6 passes on the night completing 3 of them for a total of 84 yards and a touchdown. I asked Kralik if there was something the Wildcat defense was doing to cause the low numbers.

“To be honest our defense was on the field a long time. We felt like we had lots of options of what we could do on offense and multiple players able to carry the ball. We were averaging about a first down per rushing attempt so we felt like it just made sense to continue with that a bit more than usual”.

An example of what Kralik is talking about and alluding to the fact that the Cruiser offense is very efficient and productive is a list of each of the Cruisers drives and the amount of time each took. It is quite astonishing.

As Kralik alluded to in earlier comments, the Cruisers are in the middle of a tough 3 game stretch that will really challenge them. Next week they will face the 4-0 Tenino Beavers who feature a very strong running game led by Oregon State commit Takari Hickle. Checking it at 6’3” 240 pounds, he reminds you of former Cruiser Caden Jumper who is now with the University of Washington, big, strong and tough to bring down.

With the Beavers coming to down Kralik knows his team needs to focus and prepare, “Tenino is a very well coached team that will present another strong challenge for our program. We are looking forward to that matchup and know that we have to prepare and play well to compete like we will need to this coming Saturday”.

The Cruiser will host the Beavers on Saturday, October 2nd at B.W. Lyon Field in Eatonville. Kickoff is schedule for 1 pm. Fans are invited to attend the game and root on the Cruisers.

Game Stat Leaders

Passing: Kevin Wulff – 3 of 6 passing for 84 yards and 1 touchdown

Rushing: Austin Wicker – 4 carries for 92 yards and 1 touchdown

Blain Hanley – 4 carries for 24 yards and 2 touchdowns

Kevin Wulf – 4 carries for 17 yards and 1 touchdown

Receiving: Job Kralik – 2 catches for 67 yards and 1 touchdown

Defense: Blain Hanley – 16 tackles and 1 interception

Brandon Storm - 11 tackles and 1 interception

Broady Chapman – 4 tackles and 1 fumble recovery

Authors Note – I wanted to explain the ranking systems that are being used in High school football in the state. There are currently 3 different entities that rank high school teams in the state of Washington.

There is the Cascadia Preps poll, the Score Book Live poll, and the A.P. Poll. The Cascadia Preps poll is done by one person (Ryland Spencer) who travels all over the state watching about 60 – 70 games a year. He has a pretty good handle on the teams in the state. They currently have the Cruisers ranked at #1. This is the poll I have been using when talking about the Cruisers.

The next poll by Score Book Live is similar to the first in that it is created by two gentlemen (Todd Milles and Andy Buhler) who have been covering high school football for many years and like the previous ranking system, have a very good handle on all the high school teams in Washington. They currently have the Cruisers ranked at #2.

The final poll is the most familiar ranking system, the A.P. Poll. This poll consists of 8 - 10 sports reporters throughout the state. Each voter submits a top 10 for each classification. The Associated Press has a points system (like 10 for first place, 9 for second, etc.). They will then combine all the voters’ rankings to come up with an overall ranking. For example, here is the latest AP poll for the 1A classification that was released on September 22nd.

Class 1A (First place votes received in parenthesis)

1. Royal (9) 3-0 90

2. Eatonville 3-0 81

3. Toppenish 3-0 71

4. Mount Baker 1-2 48

5. Montesano 3-0 47

6. Riverside 3-0 44

7. Zillah 2-1 29

8. Connell 2-0 26

9. Lynden Christian 1-2 22

10. La Center 2-1 19

With all this explained, when writing about and referring to the Cruisers and the teams they play, I will use the AP Poll ranking system going forward.