By Steven Smith for Peninsula Daily News
MOSES LAKE — Neah Bay’s football team entered its state Class 1B semifinal game with two main objectives — set the tone early, and end it quickly.
And by accomplishing both goals the Red Devils are heading back to the state championship game for the third time in school history.
The Red Devils put two early touchdowns on the board, then cruised to a 74-34 win over Odessa-Harrington at Lions Field late Saturday.
The victory will send Neah Bay (11-2) a little closer to home — to the Tacoma Dome — to face top-ranked Almira/Coulee-Hartline (13-0) in the title game Friday at 4 p.m.
The Red Devils lost in the semifinals the past two years to nemesis Lummi.
“It feels great to finally get to the title game,” Neah Bay coach Tony McCaulley said.
“Don’t get me wrong, third place is nice. But we didn’t want to settle for third this year.”
Neah Bay got off to a quick start with two fumble returns for touchdowns, then matched Odessa-Harrington point-for-point until getting a kickoff return for a score from Titus Pascua to end the first half.
The Red Devils were up by two touchdowns in the first minute-and-a-half.
“But then it went back-and-forth for a while,” McCaulley said.
The coach said he thinks there was an emotional letdown still lingering from the victory over Lummi the weekend before.
“We played well but we were flat at times,” he said. “It could have been from the Lummi game, or it could have been from the trip here.”
It was an eight-hour trip one way for Neah Bay. The team stayed overnight and was still on the road back home at noon Sunday.
On Saturday, the Red Devils closed out the game with a pair of touchdowns in the third quarter, ending the contest on the 40-point mercy rule with 1:59 remaining in the period.
Not bad for having a limited amount of information on the Titans, McCaulley said.
“We only had two films on these guys, and they played us a lot more together than we expected,” McCaulley said.
“I think we were bigger than [Odessa-Harrington] and that would be to our advantage, but they hit us tough and made us change our game.”
As good as the Neah Bay offense was in rolling up 413 total yards (351 on the ground), it was the Red Devils’ defense that came up with several big plays to kill potential scoring drives by Odessa-Harrington.
The Titans finished with 415 yards of offense and had a 14-9 edge in first downs, but also committed three turnovers, including the two early fumbles that became Neah Bay touchdowns.
“Those were huge plays for us,” McCaulley said. “Without that, it‘s a lot closer game. When we came out in the second half, the plan was to end it quickly and get home.
“We played a heck of a hard-hitting game last week [a 58-40 win over Lummi] and we came in here still a little nicked up.
“ACH [Almira/Coulee-Hartline] is going to give us a good [title] game, but it will be nice playing closer to home.”
Saturday was huge for Neah Bay quarterback Josiah Greene, who carried the ball 14 times for 225 yards and four touchdowns.
The sophomore completed just two passes for 62 yards, but one of those was a 59-yard scoring toss to Pascua.
Josiah Greene also scored on a fumble return.
The Titans had the first offensive possession of the game, but that ended when Zeke Greene sacked Odessa quarterback Jared King for a 10-yard loss.
As King went down, the football ended up on the turf for Neah Bay’s Michael Dulik to turn the play into a 23-yard touchdown return and a 6-0 Neah Bay lead.
On the ensuing kickoff, Odessa-Harrington’s Brett Larmer bobbled the ball twice and finally tracked it down at the 5-yard line.
But as he started to head up-field, two Red Devils took him down, knocking the ball free as Josiah Greene scooped up the fumble and needed only two steps to get into the end zone to give Neah Bay a 12-0 lead just 83 seconds into the game.
The Titans finally got their offense rolling a minute later when King tossed a 26-yard scoring strike to Larmer to cut the Devils’ lead to 12-6 with 9:21 left in the opening frame.
King would end the game with 313 yards passing and three touchdowns.
But the Devils answered quickly when Josiah Greene scooted around the defense on a sweep and ran 50 yards to the end zone at the 8:27 mark of the first quarter.
And the two teams weren’t even close to being finished.
King broke away for a 24-yard touchdown run at the 5:59 mark, getting the Titans within six points, 20-14.
Pascua found a hole in the middle of the line, broke two tackles and dashed 40 yards, giving Neah Bay a 28-14 edge before King ended a seven-play drive with a 1-yard burst to get the Titans back to within eight, 28-20, with :04 showing on the Lions Field clock.
Just enough time for Pascua to go 88 yards with the kickoff as time ran out on the first period, putting the Devils up by 16 points, 36-20, as the game headed to the second frame.
Two minutes in the new quarter, the Titans had to set up for a punt after Tyler McCaulley sacked King for a 13-yard loss.
But the ball was snapped over the head of Odessa punter Justin Hunt, who fell on the ball just before McCaulley could at the Odessa-Harrington 18-yard line.
Tyler McCaulley got the honors on the next play, and rumbled over Titan tacklers to go the distance to the end zone for a 42-20 lead.
King got the Titans back within two scores with a 57-yard scoring toss to Cade Weber with 9:05 left in the first half, and had Odessa driving to the end zone six minutes later until Neah Bay’s Leyton Doherty intercepted a pass in the end zone to end the Titans’ march.
Doherty received a shoulder injury in the game and will be evaluated today.
That set up Josiah Greene for a 53-yard scoring run with 1:44 left in the half.
Both teams would add touchdown passes before the halftime break — King tossed a 23-yard strike to Hunt with 49 seconds to go, but Josiah Greene answered with a 59-yard pass to Pascua to give the Devils a 58-34 lead at the intermission.
Neah Bay ended the game with scoring runs of 31 and 47 yards by Josiah Greene, and two-point conversion runs from Tyler McCaulley and Pascua.