“We want to do something now that no Terrace team has done.”

For the fourth time in five years, the Mountlake Terrace High School football team has reached the state playoffs —  the 2013 squad will face the Mountain View Thunder in a 3A quad-district matchup Saturday night in Vancouver. It’s another achievement in the career of Head Coach Tony Umayam, but the 1990 graduate of MTHS has a higher goal in mind for this season.

“Every year my staff and I come back and we talk about ‘what can we do this year that no Terrace team has ever done?’ We’re in that position now,” Umayam explained. “Gosh, we could win in the playoffs. That would be big.”

This year’s Terrace team finished the regular season with a record of 5-4, matching the efforts of teams in 2009, 2010 and 2012. Each of those squads qualified for postseason play, but lost in the first round of the playoffs. For this year’s Hawks to take that step that no other previous team has taken they will have to beat a 7-2 Thunder squad that topped the Greater St. Helens League in southwest Washington this season.

“Mountain View is, from what I’ve heard (because) we haven’t seen them yet, is very much like us. They like the power running game,” Umayam said. “It’s going to be a clash of two physical football teams.”

While a win Saturday would be a proud moment for Umayam, the coach is already feeling a sense of accomplishment as to where the football program at Mountlake Terrace has grown to over the past 10 years.

“This is four out of five winning regular seasons here at Terrace, and the first 45 years, there were only five winning seasons (total). Now we’ve done four out of five, and we’re back in the playoffs for the third time, and I’m really proud,” Umayam said. “I have to give a lot of credit to my coaching staff. They’ve been with me for a long time, and we’ve done a nice job to overcome a lot to get the program to where it is.”

For decades, the school’s football teams were unnoticed, languishing in losing seasons. The program played second fiddle to the Hawk basketball program, which took off in the 1970s and has sent 12 teams to state tournaments since 1976. Other sports teams and athletes at MTHS found success too, but the football program seemed mired in losing. Umayam wanted to change that when he was hired to be the head coach in 2004.

“My whole mission taking over 10 years ago was to have a football team that the school and the community and the alumni could be proud of, because for 45, 46 years, everybody was so down on football,” Umayam said. “Every decision that my staff and I make, it’s always with that mission in mind: put a product on the field that people can be proud of.”

Umayam also believes that a football program can do wonders to lift the spirits of the school’s student body, the staff, even the town that the school is located in. “Nothing represents the community, I think, of a school more than the football team. So when a football team’s good, you look at all the programs out there, very rarely do you see a top-notch, year-in-year-out, winning football program where you don’t say, ‘boy, that’s a great school to go to,’ Umayam explained.

The coach pointed out that with football being played in the fall, it begins the school year, and gives a student body the chance to build momentum and enthusiasm for the entire school year.

Terrace spirits would certainly be high if the Hawks could collect that first playoff win in school history on Saturday. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. at McKenzie Stadium in Vancouver; the game will be broadcast live on the Sound Live Sports Network beginning with the pregame show at 6:50 p.m.

Past MTHS Football playoff game results
2012 — Lost to Kennedy Catholic, 35-29
2010 — Lost to Mariner, 34-21
2009 — Lost to Central Kitsap, 35-0

— By Doug Petrowski
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