TACOMA — If you bring the plays, you get the sledge.
Sledge hammer, that is.
After 13 games at cornerback — and the final one of high school career proving ever memorable with a 42-37 win over Lynden to repeat as a state champion — Aidan Mallory leaned up against the Hockinson team training table postgame, exhausted physically, and plenty of scrapes on his body to show for it.
Happy, but exhausted.
“I can’t hold my own weight up,” he said.
The sledgehammer assisted, too. A tradition started by Hockinson earlier this season, its represents the player who coaches feel made an impact defensively.
“If you make a big hit,” he said, “you get the hammer.”
For Mallory, it was a hit and a play. Now in two championship games, Mallory’s momentum-shifting interceptions changed the course of Hockinson’s state titles games.
In last year’s 35-22 title victory over Tumwater, Mallory’s fourth-quarter interception return for a score sealed Hockinson’s fate for its inaugural state title in football.
Saturday, trailing 24-21 to start the fourth quarter, Mallory picked off Lynden quarterback James Marsh and returned it 30 yards to set up a Hockinson score four plays later. That touchdown gave Hockinson its first lead of the game as part of a 35-point second half.
“It doesn’t take much to get our team going with momentum,” Mallory said of his second interception of the season. “A big sack, a big interception. … Anything can give our team momentum.”
Mallory also had two kick returns for 13 yards. Not to be outdone was another Mallory — Liam Mallory, Aidan’s freshman brother.
Liam Mallory’s played championship games at the youth level, but nothing compared of the magnitude of Saturday, he said.
“It was such a rollercoaster,” Liam Mallory said. “It was craziest game I’ve ever been in in my life.”
As quarterback Levi Crum’s backup all season who also dealt with a minor knee injury midseason, the younger Mallory knows to stay ready at all times.
Saturday, he got his big chance.
Liam Mallory played cornerback, slot receiver and saw time on special teams. The Hawks’ secondary, already thin with the absence of Peyton Brammer (foot), meant personnel changes entering Saturday and again when Lynden’s lead bloomed to 24-7 at the 8:38 mark of the third.
Enter Mallory at cornerback. He made two catches for 31 yards, recovering Lynden’s onside kick attempt late, and a deflected a 2-point conversion. The Hawks converted three fourth-down plays, but none bigger yardage-wise than Mallory’s 17-yard catch to the 3 on a fourth-and-10 on its final possession of the third. The next play, Sawyer Racanelli scored from 3 yards out for one of his five rushing scores on the day.
Often on the field at the same time defensively, big brother equally was proud.
“He did awesome,” Aidan Mallory said. “It shows what we’re going to have in the future.”
So Saturday, the Mallorys shared the sledge.
