HOCKINSON — Going into the season, Hockinson players and coaches had high expectations.
They wanted to repeat as Class 2A state champions.
A pair of dynamic wide receivers in the highly-touted 6-foot-3 Sawyer Racanelli and athletic 6-foot-5 Peyton Brammer, plus enough of its defensive core returning, gave the Hawks enough to be confident about.
The only question was under center: With graduated quarterback Canon Racanelli out of the picture, how would first-year starter Levi Crum fill the void?
Not only was he replacing the single-season and career state record-holder for touchdown passes and total yards, but he was being handed the keys to an offense that was tailor-made for the quarterback he was replacing.
Head coach Rick Steele was cautious. He liked what he saw out of Crum as the JV quarterback last season, but he expected it to take time to adjust to the varsity level.
“He’ll be a different player in week nine than in week one,” he said at the time. Steele told Crum not to compare himself to his predecessor. Crum tried not to.
Then the season started.
“Week two, his second varsity start, we play Archbishop Murphy,” Steele said. “He just was fantastic. And he’s been he’s been getting better every game. We were kind of wondering how is this was going to work, then he answered all the questions.”
Added offensive coordinator Josh Racanelli: “He had a fire in his eyes that we hadn’t seen. He’s my nephew and I had never really seen him with that confidence.
“That was when we knew we had someone special with the next quarterback in line for us.”
Crum had five touchdown tosses and 478 all-purpose yards (376 passing, 102 rushing) in the Hawks’ route of then-No. 3 Murphy on the road. He wasn’t just ready to start. He was ahead of schedule.
As Crum and the top-seeded Hawks (12-0) prepare for Saturday’s 2A state championship game against five-time winner Lynden at 1 p.m. in the Tacoma Dome, the final chapter in their quest to repeat, the junior, who had his own coaches’ mouths agape early in the season, admits he even surprised himself.
His 3,288 passing yards (67.17 completion percentage) and 51 touchdowns are by far the most in either category across Clark County — and not all too far off the all-state quarterback in Canon Racanelli he replaced (4,128 yards, 57 touchdowns last season).
“It’s just crazy seeing Canon and you don’t really know what that feels like to like to put up those numbers and stuff and then you get in the game and then things start rolling,” Crum, who spent last season as Canon Racanelli’s seldom-used understudy, said. “And then and then you look and have numbers like that so it’s kind of surprising.”
Early in the season, particularly the week two win over Murphy, Crum’s approach was to lean on his weapons.
Josh Racanelli put it simply: “You’ve got the two best receivers in the state of Washington at your disposal. Just don’t overthrow them.”
There was Brammer, a longtime teammate who he had plenty of experience with on the field.
Then there was Sawyer Racanelli, Crum’s first cousin. The two were joined at the hip growing up playing sports, fishing on the Kalama River — where Crum lived before moving to Hockinson for his freshman year of high school.
Because they lived in different towns, they didn’t play on the same youth football teams growing up, but they did play against each other twice. (“We killed them,” Sawyer said.)
Though off the field Sawyer describes their relationship as the equivalent of having another sibling, until this season, they hadn’t played together as starting quarterback and wide receiver.
Crum relished having two dynamic receivers to throw to. He spent much of the season’s first few games building timing and trust on the field with his top target.
He let the two find open space, and made simple throws.
“It was just get them the ball, they’ll make the plays,” Crum said. “And then as we got going I kind of started to do my own thing.”
He did force two bad passes — two interceptions against Murphy — but since then has seldom had a blemish. Crum has four interceptions on the season.
As Crum proved himself on the field, Josh Racanelli started to give him more leeway — tougher throws, the ability to audible and more read options, where his foot speed and agility would be put to the task.
Though Crum excelled on the ground, too (135 rushing yards against 2A Greater St. Helen’s League runner-up Woodland), that wasn’t the most impressive part, according to his offensive coordinator and uncle.
“He just really gave us more from a standpoint leadership point than we expected,” Josh Racanelli said.
In last year’s 2A state title, a 35-22 win over perennial power Tumwater that netted Hockinson the school’s first state title, Crum had one catch for five yards as a backup slot receiver.
This year, his role is decidedly more pronounced. And with him at quarterback, the Hawks have not skipped a beat.
“It’s been fantastic watching him pick up where Canon left off and he’s only a junior,” Josh Racanelli said.
Going into the season, his coaches forced themselves to lower their own expectations, so as to not heap too much pressure onto a player making his first varsity start.
But staring the 2A state championship down, the transition has worked better than many within the program predicted.
“I knew Levi would step in perfectly fine and a lot of people compare him to Canon,” Sawyer said. “He’s Levi. He’s not Canon. … ultimately they’re both amazing quarterbacks.”
