By RayJaun Stelly
The Seattle Medium
Last Saturday, the Fighting Irish of O’Dea hosted the 11th-ranked Stanwood Spartans in the quarterfinals of the WIAA 3A state football playoffs at Memorial Stadium.
Throughout their first three playoff games this season, the Spartans’ offense has been flourishing as they’ve averaged 31 points per game and with such high scoring, their defense has been just as impressive allowing just 18 points per contest.
O’Dea’s offense has been stellar all year long because of their rushing attack. The Fighting Irish entered the contest averaging 49 points per game throughout this postseason. On the defensive end, O’Dea has been solid despite giving up more points during their playoff run than they did during the regular season.
Nonetheless the stage was set to provide both teams with an opportunity to advance to the semifinal round in this year’s 3A State Championship tournament. Stanwood received first possession and took full advantage, scoring on a 65-yard touchdown run by Ryder Bumgarner to give the Spartans a 7-0 lead.
Despite allowing an early touchdown, O’Dea responded a minute later as running back Jason Brown, Jr. scored on a 63-yard touchdown run to tie the game at 7.
After the explosive scoring plays, both teams settled down on defenses and did not allow their opponents to score for the remainder of the first quarter.
To start the second quarter O’Dea would begin to dominate both sides of the ball. Quarterback Luke D’Anna found Tucker Ashcraft on a 10-yard touchdown pass to give O’Dea a 14-7 lead. O’Dea’s defense would follow up with a big play as they forced and recovered a Stanwood fumble at midfield.
With the ball back in the hands of their offense, the Fighting Irish would put their running attack to work and cap the drive off as Brown scored his second touchdown of the game on a 10-yard run. With Brown’s touchdown, O’Dea had scored 14-unanswered points in the span of seven minutes to take a 21-7 lead into halftime.
Receiving possession to start the second half, O’Dea went back to their bread and butter which was running the ball, and three minutes later Brown found himself in the endzone yet again. As stellar as their offense was, O’Dea’s special teams rose to the occasion as well, forcing another fumble as Stanwood tried to return a kick.
Recovering their second fumble gave the O’Dea offense a short field to operate with. D’Anna and the Fighting Irish offense would respond with a 40-yard pass to Darien Maragh. The play was followed by an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against the Spartans to help inch them closer toward the end zone, where Brown would rush for his fourth touchdown of the day on a five-yard run.
At that point, the Fighting Irish led 35-7 and took full control of the game, as they would go on to defeat Stanwood 42-21. Advancing to the final four, O’Dea will now face Eastside Catholic with a chance to not only avenge their loss to them earlier this season but to claim a spot in the WIAA 3A championship game.
