TUMWATER — The Sequim High School football team found a whole new level of heartbreak in its Class 2A first-round state playoff loss to the Centralia Tigers on Friday night.
Hard to imagine for a program that’s seen its share of gut-wrenching season-ending losses in the past five years.
Yet after Tigers quarterback Forrest Ahrens found teammate Dominick Courcy on an aptly-named “hero route” for a 26-yard touchdown pass and 21-14 win with 0.4 seconds to go, Sequim’s Erik Wiker had to shake his head.
“It can’t be much more heartbreaking than that,” the fifth-year Wolves head coach said.
Nobody knows better than him.
After all, it was the third time in four years Wiker saw his team fall in the final minute of its last game of the season, all in the playoffs.
Excluding Sequim’s loss to eventual 2A state champion Lynden in 2006’s first round, the Wolves have lost four postseason games by a combined 11 points since 2004.
That includes last year’s two-point setback to Tumwater on a last-minute field goal at the very same Tumwater District Stadium the Wolves played at on Friday.
“[Friday’s loss] is the one that hurts the most because I think we should have won it,” Wiker said. “It comes down that one play for the whole game. To have it go like that is heartbreaking.
“You go from thinking about maybe going overtime to bam, it’s over.”
It was a bitter pill to swallow for many Wolves, who up until Centralia’s game-winning drive had outgained the Tigers 292 yards to 277.
And they did that without their top tackler and fullback (Brad Woolf) or starting quarterback (Drew Rickerson), both out with injuries.
“I’d take this team anywhere,” a tearful Chris Pruden, who filled in ably at quarterback with 83 yards of total offense, said after the loss.
“If we played these guys again right here we’d win, hands down. It would be a blowout I bet.”
If the Wolves played like they did during the last eight minutes of the first half up until the final minute of the game, the 5-foot-7 signal caller might be right.
Sequim, which went down 14-0 after the game’s opening 16 minutes, held the Tigers to only four first downs while picking up 10 of its own during that time.
Wolves running back Travis Decker made up for a first quarter fumble at the Centralia 5-yard line by running for 77 yards and two touchdowns on Sequim’s 51- and 47-yard scoring drives in the second and third quarters.
“It was just a bad mistake,” Decker said of his fumble. “Players make mistakes. You can’t just dwell on it. You have to keep going.”
Decker did more than that, finishing with 173 yards on the ground on 31 carries. The last of his two touchdown runs, a five-yard run off the right tackle, knotted the score at 14 with five minutes left in the third quarter.
“I knew we could come back,” Decker said. “Our offense takes a while, but it gets stuff done.
“The linemen were blocking extremely well. Any good runs or any good plays we had, all credit goes to the linemen on that.”
Added Wiker, “[Decker] runs to win, and the kids respond to that. He pretty much had the team get on his back and he carried them.”
Centralia sophomore running Zack Baldwin did the same for the Tigers, gaining 185 yards on 22 carries with one touchdown.
All but 52 of his yards came in the first half. And it was his fumble in the third quarter that set up Sequim’s game-tying drive.
“We had several opportunities earlier in the game to put it away and we didn’t do it,” Centralia coach John Schultz said.
So did the Wolves.
Sequim drove inside Centralia territory twice in the fourth quarter, the first time after a spectacular 33-yard juggling catch by John Textor from Pruden put the Wolves at the Tigers’ 44-yard line.
The drive stalled from there, but after getting the ball back at their own 33, the Wolves marched down to the Centralia 25 with less than a minute remaining.
After Decker was brought down with a shoestring tackle on third-and-1¬½ for no gain, the Wolves attempted a quarterback sneak on fourth down. Pruden was stuffed at the line, giving Centralia the ball at its own 25 with 0:33.9 left.
“We had gone left a whole bunch [on the Wolves’ three-back formation],” Wiker said of the play call.
“Maybe we outsmarted ourselves because it worked every time, but we thought that they might be slanting and going that way to where if we snuck it we’d squeeze it in there a little bit.
“Of course right now we wish we would have called something else.”
Centralia responded immediately on offense, with Baldwin running a trap play 29 yards to the Sequim 46.
Ahrens hit wide receiver Easton Mastellar for a 16-yard gain two plays later to set up his dramatic touchdown pass to Courcy.
The play was actually designed to go to Mastellar again. Yet with Sequim’s Bryan Little bearing down on him on a linebacker blitz, Ahrens threw the ball down the center of the field to Courcy on a post route (aka the “hero route”).
The junior slipped past two Sequim defensive backs to make a diving grab at the goal line.
“I laid out and the ball fell right into my hands. It was a great throw by Ahrens,” Courcy said.
It was the second touchdown of the day for Courcy, who also ran one in from 27 yards out in the second quarter.
“[Little] came and came hard and put some good pressure on me,” Ahrens said. “I just put it up there for Dominick, and he made an amazing play.”
Sequim attempted a multiple-lateral play on the ensuing kickoff, but it was brought to a halt after Pruden slipped at the Wolves’ 25.
“They are a very good football team,” Centralia’s Schultz said of Sequim.
“They are huge up front, and their backs are fast, and defensively they came and just smacked us in the face.
“It was just a great game, and we’re in the quarterfinals. You’ve got to be a little bit lucky when you get in these things.”
Wiker and the Wolves have to be wondering when luck will go their way. With a majority of Friday’s starters only juniors, they are hoping it will come next year.
“Losing it with 0.4 left on the clock, it gives you fire in your stomach for next year,” said Decker, a junior. “It keeps building up.”
Pruden, who played his last game as a Wolf on Friday night, said he expects things will be different next fall.
Not that it makes it any easier.
“It’s not a good feeling,” he said, “but there’s not much we can do. Next year these kids are going to come back and go farther.”
Centralia 21, Sequim 14
Centralia 6 8 0 7 — 21
Sequim 0 7 7 0 — 14
First Quarter
C–Baldwin 27-yard run (Kick no good)
Second Quarter
C–Courcy 27 yard run (Hughes run)
S–Decker 8 yard run (Huston kick)
Third Quarter
S–Decker 5 yard run (Huston kick)
Fourth Quarter
C–Courcy 26 yard pass from Ahrens (Kick)
Individual Stats
Rushing–C: Baldwin 22-185, Hughes 14-59, Courcy 7-37, Ortega 2-10, Ahrens 2-3. S: Decker 31-173, Yamamoto 5-17, Catelli 1-9, Hall 2-10, Pruden 7-18.
Passing–C: Ahrens 3-7-0-58. S: Pruden 6-8-0-65, Catelli 0-1-0-0.
Receiving–C: Mastellar 2-32; Courcy 1-26. S: Catelli 2-18, Textor 3-45, Gillis 1-2.
