Nov. 14—BOX SCORE
At Tiger Stadium
BEARCATS 35, TIGERS 17
Burlington-Edison0 10 0 7 — 17
W.F. West 0 14 6 15 — 35
Scoring Summary
BE (Q2) — Izaiah Gonzalez 32 field goal, 9:30
WFW (Q2) — Wyatt Hoffman 70 run (Joel Mendez kick), 7:10
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BE (Q2) — Wyatt Hernandez 97 interception return (Roman Cook kick), 2:03
WFW (Q2) — Hoffman 13 pass to Constantine Robertson (Mendez kick), 0:24
WFW (Q3) — Robertson 3 run (kick failed), 8:20
WFW (Q4) — Hoffman 21 pass to Jalen Amoroso (Robertson run), 10:06
BE (Q4) — Jake VanPelt 13 run (Cook kick), 8:10
WFW (Q4) — Hoffman 23 pass to Holden Kunz (Mendez kick), 4:43
Team StatsBE WFW
First Downs 14, 14
Rushing Yards 153, 170
Passing Yards 178, 165
Total Yards 331, 335
Comp-Att-Int 14-19-1, 13-25-1
Fumbles/Lost 2/1, 3/1
Penalties 11/100, 5/48
Individual Stats
Rushing: BE — Bennet Watson 18/107, VanPelt 14/57/TD, Taven Casey 1/6; WFW — Hoffman 12/98/TD, Kunz 7/38, Robertson 5/24/TD, Jay Bieker 1/3
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Passing: BE — VanPelt 13-25-165-0-1; WFW — Hoffman 14-19-178-3-1
Receiving: BE — Damon Lehman 8/96, Clancy 4/53, Watson 1/16; WFW — Amoroso 5/61/TD, Brendan Stevens 2/43, Kunz 4/42/TD, Robertson 2/30/TD, Jack Becker 1/2
There wasn’t much time to sulk on the W.F. West High School football team’s sideline.
A costly pick-six in a goal-to-go distance right after a double flea flicker on fourth down couldn’t have come at more inopportune time.
Yet time and time again, the Bearcats have been able to answer the bell when their backs are against the wall.
“We flush it and go to the next play,” senior lineman Kaleb Whittaker said.
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Down the drain went the sorrows. And the deficit.
Class 2A No. 6 W.F. West wasted little time to march right back down the field to take a halftime lead and only build on it in the second half in a 35-17 triumph over No. 11 Burlington-Edison on Friday night at Tiger Stadium.
Twenty-one unanswered points in the Round of 16 contest kept the Bearcats season alive for one more week. They’ll take on either No. 3 Prosser or No. 14 Cedarcrest next week in a state quarterfinal.
“We’re battle-tested,” their head coach Dan Hill said. “We had a few bonehead mistakes, but I’m proud of our guys and our toughness.”
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In a way, only up 14-10 entering the locker room, didn’t bother W.F. West. It’s been in grind-it-out type games this season like in Weeks 2 and 3 versus Lakes and Kelso. It had to overcome some miscues against Washougal.
No one panicked.
“I’m proud of the boys for bouncing back from the mistakes,” Hoffman said.
Burlington-Edison’s Wyatt Hernandez kept his eyes on Hoffman and read the play perfectly and went untouched 97 yards to the house and the PAT gave it a 10-7 advantage.
“I was anticipating him to flow with the fake run to our left and I didn’t see him,” Hoffman said. “Stuff happens.”
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“There are going to be ups and downs in every football game,” Hill added.
The expectation for the Bearcats (10-1) offense is to score quickly. They did just that, needing under two minutes for Hoffman to find Constantine Robertson for a 13-yard TD with 24 seconds remaining.
They never trailed the rest of the night.
“Offense was starting to click and the call sheet went out the window, just call it as we see it,” Hill said. “We started moving the ball better.”
Whittaker dove for an interception off a batted ball on the Tigers’ opening drive in the second half and Robertson punched it in from 3 yards out. W.F. West went more to its even front defense and generated pressure at the line of scrimmage.
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It was on the field for 33 plays in each half, but one drive in the second quarter was 19 plays that ended with a field goal to open the scoring. The Bearcats forced a turnover on downs, a punt and a missed field goal in the final two frames.
“Just comes down to practice, do what we have to do,” Whittaker said. “After last week’s big win, you can’t get full of yourself. It felt like we were firing on all cylinders.”
Hoffman found Jalen Amoroso for a 21-yard score early in the fourth period and delivered the dagger on a 23-yard screen pass to Holden Kunz. Hoffman finished 14-of-19 for 178 and rushed for another 98 yards on 12 carries.
Hill credited his signal caller’s mental toughness after the rough start.
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“He’s a tough kid,” Hill said. “He’s calm, cool and collected. He’s got that great ability to wash it and move on.”
It wasn’t just the pick-six that flustered W.F. West.
The first play was a 10-yard loss on a fumbled handoff. It punted on its first two drives and then fumbled on the second play of the third drive. What the players and coaches saw on film was not the looks they got on the field.
“It wasn’t correlating and we had to adjust,” Hoffman said. “Their defense was being more risky (in the second half) in terms of bringing more blitzes and (playing) man coverage.”
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Burlington-Edison fumbled the ball right back and it took a 70-yard scamper by Hoffman with several broken tackles to put the Bearcats in front with 7:10 to go in the first.
They’re one win away from a third trip to the state semifinals in five years to continue the even-year magic, just like in 2022 and ’24.
Whomever is on the other sidelines next week, W.F. West isn’t going to divert from what has gotten this group to this point.
“Just play Bearcat football, stick to our tradition and win,” Whittaker said.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
