The Camas Papermakers roll on.
If there was one drive all game Saturday that defined Camas’ intentions of its goal all season of playing in next week’s Class 4A football state championship game, it came on its final touchdown. The one that went 15 plays, ate 7 minutes, 14 seconds off the clock, and added to its lead it had since the second quarter on a Mount Si poised for an upset.
Indeed, the Papermakers roll onto next week’s state title game after its 35-14 state semifinal win at McKenzie Stadium.
After Mount Si’s 11-play, 80-yard drive to open the game, the Papermakers marched right back with an 80-yard strike by Blake Asciutto to Jackson Clemmer in a play that took just 11 seconds.
From there, it was all Camas from a run game that heated up the final two quarters to a defense that stood tall all game.
Camas (13-0) faces Bothell, a 31-21 winner Saturday over Woodinville in its state semifinal game, at 4 p.m. next Saturday at Mount Tahoma Stadium in Tacoma in the 4A state championship game.
Bothell (11-2) is the same team that ended Camas’ season in last year’s Week 10 state preliminary round last year.
Ironic? No, the Papermakers said. Just fitting.
“This is everything I could ask for,” junior tailback Jacques Badolato-Birdsell said.
Said linebacker Logan Silva: “We practice every day for what we want to achieve. This is amazing.”
Saturday, Camas never relinquished its lead once it became 14-7 and shut out Mount Si in the second half after allowing that opening play drive, one that junior quarterback Clay Millen went 6 of 7 passing in.
For the second straight week, though, Camas’ Jackson Clemmer had 100 receiving yards by first quarter’s end, and Badolato-Birdsell had a game-high 152 yards rushing, and scored four touchdowns of 8, 5 3 and 2 yards. One-hundred and thirty of those yards came after halftime.
Against a double-digit-seeded Mount Si (10-3) team that won six straight entering Saturday — and with Millen throwing 1,019 yards in three playoff games — Camas’ defense held the junior to 149 yards passing, had five pass breakups, one sack, and at one point, Mount Si punted or turned the ball over on downs in seven of eight possessions.
“The defensive line gave them a lot of pressure,” Silva said.
The Wildcats trailed by one score twice — at 14-7 and again at halftime, 21-14. It caught a break on one of the punts early in the fourth quarter with Camas’ lead at 28-14 when a Camas mishandle on a punt return was recovered by the Wildcats at the Camas 20. But when the Wildcats went for it on fourth-and-5, sophomore linebacker Logan Silva came up with his second pass breakup of the game.
The ensuing drive is the one Camas ran 14 run plays on its 15-play drive. On third-and-2, Badolato-Birdsell punched it in from 2 yards for his fourth touchdown capping a drive that took more than 7 minutes off the clock.
Mount Si held Camas to just 24 first-half rushing yards, yet that became the Papermakers bread-and-butter the final 24 minutes. Badolato-Birdsell had 20 of his 28 carries in the second half to set a new season-high in carries.
Eleven of those carries came on the final Camas drive.
Tristan Souza, Camas’ left tackle, called it “big-boy football.”
“That’s what we had to do, just like chopping down a tree — chop, chop, chop.”
Camas quarterback Blak Asciutto went 17 of 24 passing for 210 yards and an interception. That one mistake set up short field for Mount Si that ended on Brayden Holt’s 25-yard score on a hook-and-ladder.
That made it 28-14, but was as close as Mount Si got.
Next week marks four consecutive years a Clark County team has reached a state title game.
What do the previous four — Camas in 2016, Hockinson in ‘17 and Hockinson and Union last season — all have in common? They went undefeated.
And now it comes full circle. Camas’ senior class were freshmen when the school won its first football state championship in 2016.
“Now, we’re finally where we want to be,” Souza said.
—
CAMAS 35, MOUNT SI 14
Mount Si 7 7 0 0 -14
Camas 14 7 7 7 -35
First quarter
MS — Cole Norah 2 run (Colby Ramsey kick)
C — Jackson Clemmer 80 pass from Blake Asciutto (Bryce Leighton kick)
C — Jacques Badolato-Birdsell 3 run (Leighton kick)
Second quarter
C — Badolado-Birdsell 8 run (Leighton kick)
MS — Brayden Holt 25 pass from Clay Millen (Holt lateral from Aidan Doughtery) (Ramsey kick)
Third quarter
C — Badolato-Birdsell 5 run (Leighton kick)
Fourth quarter
C — Badolato-Birdsell 2 run (Leighton kick)
Individual statistics
RUSHING — Mount Si: Clay Millen 6-61, Brayden Holt 3-(minus-25). Camas: Jacques Badolato-Birdsell 28-150, Randy Yaacoub 9-53, Tyler Forner 1-5, Dante Humble 1-(minus 18).
PASSING — Mount Si: Clay Millen 20-32-0-149. Camas: Blake Asciutto 17-24-1-210.
RECEIVING — Mount Si: Aidan Doughtery 7-26, Kevin Corder 3-42, Cole Norah 2-6, Brayden Holt 5-64, Andrew Mistofi 3-21. Camas: Jackson Clemmer 4-110, Charlie Bump 7-45, Dante Humble 2-15, Randy Yaacoub 1-(minus-1), Jackson Preston 2-33, Jacques Badolato-Birdsell 1-8.
