Yelm beats Gig Harbor to win 3A South Sound Conference title, 3 takeaways
YELM, Wash. - Top-ranked Yelm ran its 3A South Sound Conference winning streak to 27 games, won its fourth consecutive league title and completed an unbeaten regular season on "senior night."
Yelm scored on five possessions in a row against visiting Gig Harbor and ran away with a 57-7 victory in the SSC championship game. The Tides brought a 6-0 league mark into the contest, tied with the defending Class 3A champs atop the league.
Like each of the Tornados previous seven opponents this season, Gig Harbor gave up more than 50 points. Only Class 4A Camas, which Yelm beat 8-7 in Week 1, held the Tornados offense down.
WEEK 9 WASHINGTON FOOTBALL SCOREBOARD
After scoring on those five consecutive possessions, the Tornados had a potential sixth touchdown slip through the hands of a receiver on the final play of the first half in building a 35-0 halftime advantage. Brayden Platt led the charge with 179 yards and three rushing touchdowns on just 18 carries over the first 24 minutes.
Platt didn’t touch the ball in the second half. He didn’t need to as Yelm will ride a mostly positive high into the playoffs that begin with Week 10 games next Friday and Saturday.
Here are three takeaways from the game:
THE GOOD
The obvious here is Platt. The senior celebrated his final regular-season home game with a huge effort. The Oregon commit got thrown to the ground by a bevy of Gig Harbor defenders on Yelm’s second possession after an eight-yard gain set the Tornados up with a second-and-two at the Gig Harbor 10.
Platt responded with two more runs to cover the final 10 yards and scored his and the Tornados' first touchdown of the night with a six-yard run. That was just the beginning, of course, en route to his three touchdown night and a fourth straight league title.
“It means a lot,” Platt said. “It means we’re building a culture here. It’s huge. My brother and his teammates started it back in the day, and we just continue it.”
But beyond that, though sparingly used, the passing game behind quarterback Damian Aalona, was efficient. Aalona completed just seven passes but got 97 yards and three more touchdowns out of his 13 attempts.
“It’s called winning,” Aalona said.
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THE BAD
… As in the "bad men" of Yelm’s defense held the Tides to just 61 yards in the first half while the Tornados' offense piled up 344 yards. Yelm suffocated Gig Harbor, getting five sacks on quarterback Benji Park as the Tornados led 35-0 at the half.
While the mercy rule running clock did eventually come after Yelm extended its lead to 43-0 on its first possession of the second half, the Tornados actually had a chance to play the entire second half with that advantage. Only a ball that slipped through the hands of Jacob Tracy in the front of the end zone on the final play of the first half kept this one from being 42-0 heading to the locker room.
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AND THE UGLY
As dominating as the performance was, Yelm coach Jason Ronquillo and staff will have a bit to talk about this coming week. The Tornados were called for 15 penalties in the game.
Before the backups scored Gig Harbor’s only touchdown of the game with 7:15 to play, the Tides had only two drives that advanced into the red zone, and both were heavily aided by defensive Yelm penalties.
The first resulted in a missed field goal after a roughing the passer pushed Gig Harbor ahead earlier in the drive. The second ended on a turnover on downs at the Yelm 8-yard line, a drive on which the Tides moved from their own 35 to the 8 while gaining only 19 yards of offense – but getting four pass interference calls totaling 43 yards.
“There’s things to learn from every game,” Ronquillo said. “The emotions got the best of us on senior night. We knew it was going to be an emotional night. The league championship’s on the line, the kids are feeling a certain way. We got a little undisciplined and a little out of control at times.”
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