At their preseason media day, several players on the Camas football team were united about the one game they most looking forward to this season — the Week 9 meeting against Skyview.
After both teams’ performances in Week 2, it’s safe to say a lot of fans around Clark County are looking forward to that game as well.
Camas rebounded from a sluggish Week 1 performance against a stout Roosevelt defense to blow out Clackamas 48-6.
Meanwhile, Skyview rebounded from a 17-point deficit in the third quarter to beat a talented Graham- Kapowsin team 21-17.
Senior Gavin Packer said the 17-0 deficit was more about Storm miscues than anything else.
“Honestly, they got lucky we turned the ball over so many times in the first half. It shouldn’t have been like that. We should have had a lot more conversions on drives. … Turnovers killed us in the first half, got us down early. We came back in the second half ready.”
Then he got a nudge from teammate Kaden Hamlin.
“Defense made a stand,” Packer added. “(They) came back from giving up (27) points (against Radford of Honolulu). It doesn’t get better than that.”
A lot of people saw the score from Camas’ 12-6 win over Roosevelt in Week 1 and thought the Papermakers still had work to do on offense.
Senior Chase McGee said that score can be deceiving.
“We played a really good team last week,” McGee said. “Roosevelt, they were really awesome. It goes to show … that our team is a lot better.”
Camas got an early 38-yard interception return from Hayden Ollman to help the Papermakers to a 14-6 lead after the first quarter.
From there, the Papermakers offense got going.
Senior quarterback Jake Davidson was asked to grade the offense on Friday against Clackamas.
“The first quarter, I would give it a solid C,” Davidson said. “And then, I mean, the rest of it I think an A-plus.”
While the coaches for both teams hope their players are focused on Week 3 — Camas travels to Tacoma to face Lincoln, while Skyview hosts Puyallup — the fans in the stands can still get excited for the Nov. 1 showdown between the 4A Greater St. Helens League rivals at Kiggins Bowl.
The unbeaten 11
Camas and Skyview are two of 11 teams that enter Week 3 at 2-0.
They are joined by Battle Ground, Kelso, Heritage, Ridgefield, La Center, Seton Catholic, Kalama, King’s Way Christian and Castle Rock.
Battle Ground coach Mike Woodward thought that after the Tigers rallied for a 23-12 win over Mountain View, his Tigers have the potential to enter 4A GSHL play the same way they did last season — 6-0.
“They are just resilient,” Woodward said. “We cleaned up a lot of the undisciplined errors from the first week. That was good to see tonight. But I just think that they’re resilient. We’ve been down in both games and just not playing as fluid and smooth as we would’ve hoped to. But they just keep fighting. There’s no quit in these kids whatsoever.”
Positive steps in loss
It may have come in a loss, but Friday saw Washougal’s offense take steps to becoming more complete.
For one, the Panthers saw running back Mercy Johnson return after missing the season opener with an injury. Johnson rushed 17 times for 130 yards in Friday’s 21-16 loss to Prairie.
Washougal also put more responsibility in the hands of quarterback Kaden Fautt. The senior threw the ball 36 times Friday after attempting just 16 passes the previous week in an 8-6 win over Mountain View.
Fautt tallied 228 yards, spreading the ball to six receivers. Royce Jones led the way with six catches for 62 yards while Brandon Austenfeld had four catches for 65 yards.
