HOCKINSON — The Columbia River Rapids probably left Hockinson on Friday night wondering what team they just played.
It certainly wasn’t the Hockinson Hawks they had seen on film.
Hockinson, a team that averaged 31 pass attempts and 37 rushing yards in its first five games, threw just 10 passes on Friday and rushed for 193 yards in a dominant 28-7 win over River in a 2A Greater St. Helens League game.
The 193 rushing yards on Friday exceeded the Hawks’ season total in the first five games by 10 yards
“The last couple of weeks we’ve really struggled in the trenches,” Hockinson coach Clint LeCount said. “And we challenged our young offensive. We said ‘We’re going to put this on your shoulders. We’re going to add a new formation. We going to go man-to-man and let’s get after somebody. And let’s see what we can do.’ ”
And the line responded.
Led by senior center Aroldo Valencia and flanked by juniors Talen Allsup and Jacob Dark and sophomores Keegan McAfee and Jayden Sheffield, the Hawks offensive line accepted that challenge this week in practice.
“We had to change our mentality in practice,” Allsup said. “In practice, we had to take it more seriously. You practice like you play.”
Then they put that practice into action.
“We needed to focus more on driving and hitting hard, and just, like, dominating,” McAfee said.
After getting River to turn the ball over on downs on its first possession of the game, Hockinson drove 43 yards on 14 plays — 13 runs and none longer that five yards — to finish with a 1-yard touchdown run by quarterback Andon Stenerson for a 7-0 lead.
On Hockinson’s second drive, the Hawks went 75 yards on 11 plays to score on Xavier Maitland’s 1-yard run. Hockinson had a 14-0 lead and had only completed one pass to that point.
“That O-line played awesome tonight,” LeCount said. “Just driving people off the ball, giving our quarterback and our running back plenty of room. And they controlled the clock. That offensive line won the game.”
After River cut the lead to 14-7 in the second quarter, Stenersen hit Carter Cameron for two passes on the next drive, setting up Stenersen’s 2-yard touchdown run as the Hawks took a 21-7 into halftime.
Then the Hawks put together a backbreaking drive to open the third quarter, marching 65 yards on 14 plays — and eating up 9:08 off the clock — to go up 28-7 on Stenersen’s 20-yard touchdown pass to Cameron.
Stenersen rushed for 133 yards on 33 grinding carries. Cameron also shined on defense, coming up with three second-half interceptions to make sure River could not mount a comeback.
But it’s hard to mount a comeback when the other team won’t give the ball back.
After going up 30-0 in R.A. Long two weeks ago, only to escape with a 30-22 win, the Hawks were determined finish the job on Friday night.
“Our goal was to play four quarters and not only two,” Dark said.
That’s what made LeCount most proud.
“The line, man, they played out of this world tonight,” the coach said. “They’re young, like I said, and they’re learning a lot real fast. That’s why we had such struggles early on this season. We’ve just been so young. But they’ve been stepping up week by week, and we’re just going to keep building off this.”
HOCKINSON 28, COLUMBIA RIVER 7
River 0 7 0 0— 7
Hock. 7 14 7 0—28
First quarter
H — Andon Stenersen 1 run (Trevor Holmes kick)
Second quarter
H — Xavier Maitland 1 run (Holmes kick)
CR — Chris Parkin 21 run (Aedan Pena kick)
H — A. Stenersen 2 run (Holmes kick)
Third quarter
H — Carter Cameron 20 pass from A. Stenersen (Holmes kick)
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — Columbia River: Chris Parkin 7-74, Brayden Schiefer 8-30, Savion McCoy 1-2. Hockinson: Andon Stenersen 33-133, Xavier Maitland 16-43, Nelson Thompson 4-9, Shey Yarbrough 2-5, Carter Cameron 1-5, team 1-(-2).
PASSING — Columbia River: Schiefer 8-19-3-96. Hockinson: A. Stenersen 6-10-0-75.
RECEIVING — Columbia River: Ha’aheo Delarose 2-37, Hayden Rapp 1-32, Tommy Blau 1-15, Jacob Boothe 1-15, Chris Parkin 1-7. Hockinson: Carter Cameron 3-54, Ryder Stenersen 2-17, Gage Prepula 1-4.
