JOYCE — The Quilcene Rangers football team put themselves in position to finish second in the Northwest 1B League by getting off to a fast start against Crescent, going on to win 60-32.
It was yet another high-scoring affair for the Loggers. They have been in five games this year with 80 or more points. Two of these games had more than 100 points. The game featured 725 yards of total offense by the two teams combined.
Both coaches praised their opponents.
“Crescent plays us tough. They always do,” said Quilcene coach Trey Beathard. He said the Rangers thrive on capitalizing on turnovers, but the Loggers didn’t cough up the ball once all game.
“They made us earn all of our points,” he said.
The Rangers racked up 390 yards rushing. The Loggers struggled to run against Quilcene’s defense, but counteracted with a great game from quarterback Henry Bourm, who passed 17-for-21 (80.9 percent) for 169 yards.
“Give Quilcene credit, they know how to stop the run,” said Crescent coach Brian Shimko. “We got lucky with our passing game. We spread the defense out and it worked.”
The Rangers stormed out to a 35-0 lead thanks to two long touchdown runs from Robert Evans of 62 and 66 yards. Mason Iverson had touchdown runs of 17 and 12 yards and Tyler Beukes added a 17-yard touchdown.
After a Crescent touchdown on a 52-yard pass and run from Bourm to Josh Berson, Quilcene finished the half with a 33-yard touchdown run by Andrew Perez-Lopez.
Perez-Lopez opened the scoring for Quilcene with a 65-yard run. The Loggers were able to score 24 points in the second half. Bourm threw a touchdown pass to Mikah Love and the Loggers got another touchdown on a 5-yard run by Jeremy Charles. Bourm finished the scoring with a 20-yard run.
Quilcene got its final two touchdowns on a 36-yard pass from Perez-Lopez to Beukes. The Rangers got their last touchdown on a 78-yard kick return on the final play of the game by Perez-Lopez.
Perez-Lopez ended up having a fantastic game, rushing 15 times for 177 yards and passing for another 47 yards as Quilcene only passed six times. Including his kick return, he had more than 300 all-purpose yards.
Iverson ran eight times for 61 yards and Evans three times for 128 yards. Beukes added 24 yards on three carries.
For the Loggers, Dom Sprague ran 12 times for 68 yards. Bourm ran eight times for 22 yards and Liam Sprague twice for 18 yards.
Berson caught four passes for 75 yards, while Love had six catches for 39. Dom Sprague caught two calls for 23 yards, Levi Bourm two for 12 and Josh Noel three for 20 yards.
Beukes led the Rangers with 13 tackles while freshman Tucker Boling had nine.
“He’s figuring it out what to do. That’s two really good games in the past two weeks,” Beathard said.
Quilcene (6-1, 7-1) has a big game at home at 1 p.m. Saturday against Tulalip Heritage (6-1, 7-1). Tulalip Heritage and Quilcene are tied for second place in the Northwest 1B League and whoever wins will grab second in the league as Neah Bay has won the title.
Crescent (2-5, 3-5) hosts Lummi (0-7, 0-7), looking to end the season on a high note. Shimko said the Loggers will not make one of the four allocations out of the Northwest 1B League for postseason so he is looking at scheduling a tenth game after the Lummi game.
In another Saturday game, Clallam Bay beat Wishkah Valley 58-26 in six-man football, improving to 6-0 on the season. It was the first game all year Clallam Bay allowed any points.
