Lake Stevens turns on jets, zooms away with back-to-back WIAA 4A football titles
SEATTLE - When it was time, papa-bear Tom Tri let his voice be heard.
In the middle of a wild post-game Lake Stevens High School football huddle, he grabbed the WIAA trophy and shook it - and cheered like an overjoyed mad man.
One Class 4A championship was nice.
A second one Saturday night was sweeter.
Much of that had to do with the team on the opposing sideline - Graham-Kapowsin High School, which blistered many of these same Vikings' coaches and players in the 2021 state title game at Mount Tahoma Stadium.
They returned the favor - a 31-6 victory at Husky Stadium as Lake Stevens became just the sixth school to win back-to-back Class 4A titles - and first since Skyline in 2012.
Not a bad two-year stretch for a program that mightily struggled o break through for decades to claim the gold-ball trophy.
"We took a long time," Tri said. "Every year, we tried to learn and get better, go to clinics to pick up things, to see how teams wanted to attack us.
"But we've gotten really good at doing this, really."
On Saturday, in a matchup of prolific passing offenses, it took a while for both teams to get warmed up
Clinging to a 10-6 lead late in the first half, Lake Stevens cashed in on the game's first big play - Kolton Matson's 45-yard touchdown pass to Paul Varela in the middle of the field with 19 seconds remaining.
It was a double-move route in the middle of the field that the Vikings had missed on earlier in the half. But Tri went back to it in the closing seconds.
"They have two high safeties on the hashes, and they were opening their hips, so we thought we could sneak a little fake corner and post (route combination) back to the middle," Tri said. "We had a feeling it would be there."
It was, as Varela had a step on the defender and took it to the end zone for a half-closing 17-6 Vikings lead.
"Earlier, I had overthrown Stevie (Lee), but we ran it again," Matson said. "This time, I put it right where I needed to get it."
Graham-Kapowsin put together a promising drive deep in Vikings' territory to begin the second half. But on fourth and 4, Jabez Woods was stopped just short of the first down at the Lake Stevens' 6-yard line on a reverse run at the 7:12 mark.
Lake Stevens covered the 94 yards on its next drive, converting a third-and-long on Matson's 61-yard scoring strike to Jesse Lewis along the right sideline, and the Vikings were up, 24-6 with 4:16 remaining in the third quarter.
Nearly four minutes later, after a quick Graham-Kapowsin drive, Matson side-armed a 3-yard touchdown pass to David Brown for a 31-6 lead with 31 seconds to go in the quarter.
"We had to settle down," Tri said. "It is the state championship game and our guys were pretty fired up. There were going to be a lot of nerves.
"We did a lot better job of calming down in the second half, and going out and executing the game plan."
Matson finished 13-for-25 for 231 yards and four touchdowns in the victory.
Graham-Kapowsin's Daveon Superales passed for 306 yards but threw a pair of interceptions. He did give the Eagles a brief lead late in the first quarter on his 2-yard touchdown run.
With the win, the Vikings not only earned another escorted parade around their hometown lake, they are in position to become the first 4A school in state history next season to win three consecutive WIAA titles.
"Let's win some more," Tri said.
