Photo by Andy Bronson The Bellingham Herald
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2010/11/13/1721000/prep-football-lions-out-of-2a.html
BELLINGHAM - There won't be another state championship for the Lynden football team this season. Tumwater's punishing defense and powerful rushing attack made sure of that.
Tumwater's Kyle Warner scored a pair of first-half touchdowns to lift the third-ranked Thunderbirds to a 21-10 win over No. 2 Lynden on Saturday, Nov. 13, at Civic Stadium in the opening round of the Class 2A state playoffs. The Thunderbirds (9-1) host Burlington-Edison next week in the quarterfinals at a time, date, and place to be determined.
"When you beat a team like Lynden, which doesn't happen a lot, it's an amazing feeling," Warner said. "Now we just want to keep it going and get another win next week. We'll cherish this one forever. Coach (Sid) Otton will be using this one for a lot of motivational speeches for a while, that's for sure."
Tumwater took advantage of a Lions fumble on the opening kickoff to grab an early lead and carried that momentum throughout the first half and the game. The win was the ninth straight for Tumwater which hasn't lost since dropping its first game of the season to Olympia.
"That turnover on the opening kickoff really sparked us," Warner said. "When we were able to score, we took that momentum and then it just kind of went on from there."
It's the first time that Lynden (10-1) has lost an opening round game at state since 1997 when it was competing at the Class 3A level. It also ends the Lions' 23-game winning streak. The streak was the state's longest, dating back to the second week of the 2009 season.
Warner opened the scoring for Tumwater, hauling in an 8-yard touchdown pass from Daniel Hinkle in the first three minutes of the game to cap a short drive that was set up by the turnover. The two hooked up again halfway through the second quarter, this time on a 21-yard touchdown completion to make it 14-0.
The Thunderbirds pushed that lead to 21-0 a few minutes later when Zach Wimberly caught a pass in the corner of the end zone on fourth-and-six from the 21-yard line. Lynden finally found the end zone in the closing minute of the second quarter with Nate Wielenga catching a 7-yard touchdown pass to cut the Thunderbirds lead to 21-7 at halftime.
"Tonight we played a team that was equal or better in talent than us and they made the plays and we didn't," Lynden coach Curt Kramme said. "At the end of the first half I thought we were fortunate to be down by two scores. Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Really I thought our defense did a nice job of bending, but not breaking. We've been watching these guys run up and down the field on people for the past month and we did a pretty good job stopping them."
The Lions chipped away at the lead in the third quarter when Santiago Lopez kicked a 20-yard field goal with less than two minutes to play in the third quarter to make it 21-10. Lynden moved down to the 2-yard line on the drive, but Tumwater's defense came up with two big stops on consecutive running plays. Then an incompletion brought out the kicking team.
"That was probably the game right there," Kramme said. "We made it down there and then we went backwards on two plays and threw an incompletion. The charts tell you to try to get it to 11 and make it two scores, but we needed to get in the end zone on that drive. That was frustrating."
While the Lions struggled running the ball, particularly in the middle of the field, the Thunderbirds were ripping off big gains on the ground one play after another. Christian Bush finished with 155 yards to pace Tumwater, Payten Olson had 78 and Warner added 56.
It looked like Lynden might have a chance to get back in the game in the fourth quarter, but with six minutes to play in the game the drive stalled and the Thunderbirds took over on downs. Tumwater moved down to the 2-yard line and then ran out the clock to seal the win.
