PORT TOWNSEND — Leave it to Forks to come on strong when the rain began to fall.
Up 8-7 against a game but short-handed Chimacum squad after one quarter, the Spartans put together 26 unanswered points in the second quarter to run away from the Cowboys 48-7 in Friday’s nonleague football game at Memorial Field.
“We were physical,” Forks coach Emil West said.
“We came out to play right out of the gate, we hammered them and we played stingy defense.
“We played as a family. It wasn’t a single effort, it was a whole-team effort.”
Jack Dahlgren’s 8-yard touchdown run opened the scoring for the Spartans in a penalty-filled contest between two young teams.
Chimacum answered swiftly, taking advantage of a short field, as Elijah Avery went 32 yards for a score on a misdirection counter.
Forks seized control of the game with a dominant second-quarter effort.
The trouble started for the Cowboys early in the second quarter when Issac Purser dropped a punt snap and was taken down for a turnover on downs at the Chimacum 26-yard line.
“When you are used to things not going the right a way a few snowflakes can become an avalanche,” Cowboys coach Mike Dowling said.
“It’s a difficult thing to teach or coach your way out of, but it boils down to us needing to be more disciplined.”
After a couple of penalties, Tristan Pisani scored the first of his two rushing touchdowns for Forks on a 26-yard scamper off the left side.
Pisani finished with 19 carries for 134 yards, 17 of those runs and 114 yards coming in the first half.
On the next Chimacum drive, a pass interference penalty on the Spartans gave the Cowboys the ball at Forks’ 31-yard line, but a tackle for loss by Billy Palmer, a chop block-penalty and another tackle for loss pushed Chimacum back across midfield.
“Billy is the man,” West said.
“He’s our unsung hero, he’s amazing on the offensive line, and he made some great plays on defense when they were running those rollouts. He kiled it.”
Facing a third-and-35 situation, Cowboys’ quarterback Cole Dotson was chased down well behind the line of scrimmage and stripped of the ball by Brett Moody. Kenny Gale picked up the ball and returned it 25 yards for a Spartans TD and a 20-7 lead.
Forks recovered another fumble, this time in its own territory on the next Chimacum possession to set up the team’s third score of the quarter, a 2-yard score by Pisani.
Pisani accounted for all 53 yards, all on the ground, on that Forks scoring drive.
“Our goal is to always get our running backs one-on-one against the secondary, and with our guys we like our odds every single time,” West said.
“They gave us some [defensive] fronts that were tough for us at times, but we picked it up and started marching.”
Chimacum then allowed a safety on a punt snap out of the end zone to put the Spartans up 28-7.
After a 25-yard return by Jeffrey Schumack, Dahlgren rumbled 30 yards to the Cowboys’ 1-yard and Garrison Schumack did the rest, scoring on a 1-yard plunge for a 34-7 halftime lead.
A 23-yard TD pass from Gabe Reaume to Cole Baysinger and a 3-yard run from Kenny Gale accounted for Forks’ second-half scoring.
“They were a good team,” Dowling said.
“They beat us physically, they beat us mentally.”
Chimacum was playing without senior captain Lane Dotson, the team’s best lineman, who was ejected from the Cowboys win last weekend on a questionable call.
“It did have an impact,” Dowling said.
“When you can hold an edge and not allow them to hit the outside you stand a better chance.
“Lane is the leader of our team, a good kid who motivates the other guys.”
Dowling was honest in his assessment of his team’s performance.
“We’ve got to get better,” he said.
“Too many penalties. Stupid mistakes. So many offsides penalties. They came in and kicked us pretty hard. We were not prepared to play them tonight.”
Chimacum (1-2) will face another difficult contest at home in its Nisqually/Olympic League opener against perennial power Cascade Christian (2-0) on Friday.
West also saw room for improvement from his team, which committed numerous holding and illegal motion penalties.
“The penalties, the ones that we can help,” West said.
“When guys are blocking stuff is going to happen, we are going to hold on to people. What gets to me is the extracurricular stuff, we talked about cleaning that up at halftime. We talked about how down the road this stuff will hurt us, it didn’t tonight, but we have to clean it up.”
Forks hosts Class 1B No. 3 Neah Bay (2-1) in an 11-man game Friday.
Forks 48, Chimacum 7
Forks 8 26 14 0— 48
Chimacum 7 0 0 0— 0
First Quarter
F—Dahlgren 8 run (Pisani run)
C— Avery 32 run (Purser kick)
Second Quarter
F—Pisani 26 run (run failed)
F—Gale 25 fumble return (run failed)
F—Pisani 26 run (run failed)
F—Safety
F—G. Schumack 1 run (pass failed)
Third Quarter
F—Baysinger 23 pass from Reaume (pass failed)
F—Gale 3 run (Gale run)
Individual Stats
Rushing—F: Pisani 19-134, Gale 13-75, Dahlgren 4-60, Baysinger 5-48, G. Schumack 5-13, Demorest 2-10. C: Avery 7-61, Zack 8-12, Johnson 2-4, Caldwell 1-3, Purser 1-(-5), Dotson 5-(-12).
Passing—F: Reaume 2-5-0, 30, TD; C: Dotson 10-19-1,70; Sevilla 1-1-0, 6.
Receiving—F: Baysinger 1-23, G. Palmer 1-7. C: Storm 2-21, Dickerson 2-21, Zack 2-14, Johnson 3-11, Sevilla 1-9.
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Sports reporter/columnist Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or at mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
