By Doug Petrowski

Leading up to Friday’s game against the Shorewood Thunderbirds, Mountlake Terrace High School’s football coaches stressed coming out strong from the opening kickoff. “We talked about jumping on our opponents early,” said Hawk Head Coach Tony Umayam. The team did just that and more, leading to a 42-8 bruising of the T-Birds at Shoreline Stadium.

Mountlake Terrace scored on their opening possession, an eight-play, 68-yard drive capped off by a three-yard TD run by senior Lucas Pope. The successful two-point conversion put the Hawks up 8-0. Then, on the T-Birds’ first possession, the Hawk defense came up big with a fumble recovery on the Shorewood 28-yard line. Two plays later, junior Chance Ragsdale carried the ball 20 yards for the second Hawk score, giving Mountlake Terrace a 14-0 lead less than five minutes into the game.

Umayam liked what he saw in the first quarter. “I’m proud that the guys came out and played physical,” he said. “We got the chance to establish what we like to think is our style of play, and that’s being a physical football team.”

The Hawk defense had a strong outing, holding Shorewood to just 10 total yards in the first half. The only T-Bird score came late in the fourth quarter; before then, the Mountlake Terrace defense hadn’t given up a touchdown in more than 10 quarters over the last three games.

Junior defensive tackle Jordan Brown had a big game, leading the team with five solo tackles and assisting on three others. The defense was also able to play a lot of second stringers in the second half, much to the delight of Umayam. “You got to let some of the younger guys play, that come out to practice every day, and give them a chance to play under the Friday night lights,” he said.

The Hawk offense was running on all cylinders Friday night with 462 total yards; 406 on the ground. Junior Devante Downs again led the running attack, going for 232 yards on 17 carries and two touchdowns, one being an 88-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. Ragsdale added 123 yards rushing on nine carries with two touchdowns, his best statistical game of the season.

Umayam gives a lot of credit to the Hawk offensive line for their success in running the ball lately. “Our offensive line is getting better every single week,” he said.

Senior Quinton Barnard scored the other Hawk touchdown on an eight-yard pass reception from Kennedy in the second quarter. The Mountlake Terrace offense scored touchdowns on six of their first nine possessions, punting once and fumbling the ball away the other two times.

The Hawks will face Marysville-Getchell next Friday at 5 p.m. at Marysville-Pilchuck High School for the right to play in a 3A District playoff game the following weekend. Next week’s game can be viewed live on the Hawk Live Sports Network starting at 4:50 p.m. on MLTnews.com. You can also view the archive of the MTHS-Shorewood game at the same link.