Shane Jamison (12) scores a touchdown for Camas (Kris Cavin for The Columbian)Photo Gallery
TACOMA — As players raised their helmets and chanted “family on three” in unison, the upbeat, almost cheery mood surrounding the Camas football team seemed to defy the final score that lit up on the Lincoln Bowl scoreboard late Friday night.
Lincoln 31, Camas 29, the flickering yellow letters read.
Save for a game-saving interception on a two-point conversion attempt that could have tied the game with just over a minute to play, and Camas could have pulled of perhaps the most miraculous comeback in school history.
But its furious 29-point swing fell short, and the Papermakers, who replace the majority of its starting lineup this season, lost their first week one game in 10 years.
The message from head coach Jon Eagle?
“Totally upbeat,” senior receiver Luc Sturbelle said. “We just shouldn’t have started the way we started. Second half we just took off, that’s how we played to start the games. If we would have started like that it could have been ours.”
The Papermakers of the second half were nowhere to be found in the game’s early goings, as Lincoln moved the ball with ease and scored at will.
Abes junior quarterback Caden Filer, who finished with 238 yards passing, amassed his three touchdown passes in the first half, helping Lincoln jump unto a 31-0 lead with more than five minutes left in the first half.
Camas, at that point, had nothing going. Until with two seconds left in the first half, sophomore quarterback Jake Blair found Shane Jamison for a 50-yard touchdown to give the Papermakers a spark going into the break.
“When one person does something great like what Shane did at the end of the half, that gave us a motivation and made us believe we can actually do this,” running back Randy Yaacoub said.
Blair served as a spark all night for the Papermakers. He came in for senior Andrew Boyle in the third series, an effort Eagle employed to see which of his two capable quarterbacks had the hot hand.
And once Blair got going, so did the Papermakers. He threw for 208 yards, two touchdowns and a pick (his early pick six was his first throwing attempt as a varsity athlete). On the final drive, as Camas trailed by eight with less than three minutes to go, Blair led a 7 play, 81 yard charge that ended with a nine-yard pass to Sturbelle.
That set up a potential game-tying two-point conversion with 1:24 left in the game. Blair got the play call, motion right, and might the correct read, floating the ball to the back right corner of the end zone, but the pass was picked off by an acrobatic Julien Simon, Lincoln’s dynamic, highly-touted sophomore.
“I think we just started really, really slow and thought, oh, there’s a football game going on, then we just settled down and did what we could do in the second half,” Eagle said. “Super proud of the kids putting together a little comeback.”
Julien Simon, a rising national recruit for the Abes, had just one rush attempt and one catch, but was responsible for three of the game’s biggest moments.
First was his 30-yard pick six on the first play of Camas’ third drive, which served as a sucker punch to an offense that struggled to get going. Then a 26-yard touchdown catch that gave the Abes their biggest margin of the night.
And then finally, as Camas was in position to tie the game, the pass intended for a Papermaker in the corner of the end zone was picked off by an outstretched Simon, all but sealing the game.
LINCOLN 31, CAMAS 29 Camas 0 7 2 20 — 29 Lincoln 24 7 0 0 — 31 First quarter
L —Romere Williams 21 pass from Caden Filer (Gabe Foster kick).
L — Mykel Campbell 66 pass from Filer (Foster kick)
L — Julien Simon 30 interception return (Foster kick)
L — Foster 32 field goal Second quarter
L — Simon 26 pass from Filer (Foster kick)
C — Shane Jamison 50 pass from Jake Blair (Andrew Boyle kick) Third quarter
C — Errant snap into back endzone, safety Fourth quarter
C — Joey Schnell 13 pass from Blair (Boyle kick)
C — Randy Yaacoub 21 run (Bryce Leighton kick)
C — Luc Sturbelle 9 pass from Blair (Conversion failed)
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — Camas: Andrew Boyle 6-40, Randy Yaacoub 3-20, Joey Schnell 1-23, Zach Terry 12-19, Blake Deringer 4-0, Jake Blair 1-(-7). Lincoln: Abner SioFetaui 11-65, Caden Filer 10-29, Jaydion Laster 6-31, David Sweeney 4-16, Julien Simon 1-7 Armoni Bashay 1-17, Janoah Thomas 1-1.
PASSING — Camas: Jake Blair 13-25-2-208, Andrew Boyle 4-16-26. Lincoln: Caden Filer 14-24-3-238.
RECEIVING — Camas: Shane Jamison 5-92, Luc Sturbelle 4-85, Joey Schnell 2-27, Blake Deringer 2-5, Randy Yaacoub 1-2, Dawson Ingram 3-19. Lincoln: Mikel Campbell 4-123, Romere Williams 4-68, Julien Simon 1-26, David Sweeney 2-7, Armoni Bashay 1-11, Jaydion Laster 2-3.
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