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Despite his team holding a 21-7 halftime lead, Joe Roth was worried.
The head coach of the Edmonds-Woodway Warriors was concerned that their opponent, the Ferndale Golden Eagles, would get their footing, come out of the locker room focused and methodically execute their heralded running game after the halftime break.
Roth’s concerns were merited as the Golden Eagles ran for nearly 300 yards in the second half, reached the end zone with their four offensive possessions (not counting a victory formation kneel down to end the game) and came from behind to defeat the Warriors 35-27 in a Wesco League crossover game played Saturday at Ferndale High School.
The Golden Eagles’ running attack — with junior Elliot Lenssen and senior Jon Stanek carrying the ball and a big offensive line led by 6-foot-2 280-pound Kulshan LaValley and 6-foot-4 275-pound Trey Munson — proved too much for the Warriors to slow down. Lenssen rushed for 170 yards on nine carries in the second half while Stanek ran for 134 yards on 13 carries.
Combined, Lenssen and Stanek rushed for 411 yards in the contest.
“They’re fast off the ball,” Roth said of the Ferndale ground game. “It’s tackle-over, so we’ve got to adjust, and they run it really well. They’re big, they’re physical.”
E-W had kept the Golden Eagles from fully getting up to speed in the first half — Ferndale had just 107 yards rushing before intermission. But Roth sensed at the half that their opponent wouldn’t give up on running the ball.
“So that’s frustrating because that’s the thing we talked about at halftime,” Roth said. “I had a feeling they were going to come back to it and it was going to be a problem.”
Ferndale doubled-down on their rushing attack in the second half by abandoning the pass (the Golden Eagles attempted only three second-half passes) and instead played quickly with a packed formation to take advantage of their size and strength.
“We just needed to line up faster, be ready, bring more of a pile,” Roth said. “They just got off the ball really hard.”
With both teams crowding the line of scrimmage, both Lennsen and Stanek were able to break through the line and get past members of the E-W secondary on three occasions for long touchdown runs in the second half. Lennsen scored on runs of 84 and 52 yards while Stanek had a 52-yard TD run of his own.
“That fact that it hit for home runs is a little frustrating,” Roth said, “because I can understand the 4 yards. But they popped a couple out of it.”
Roth admitted that while he and his coaching staff tried to prepare their team for the hard-running Golden Eagles, doing so was difficult.
“You can’t replicate that in scout; you can’t,” Roth explained. “So we can talk about it but to get that live look, we’re not deep enough to replicate that in practice.”
The halftime shift in momentum came after Edmonds-Woodway had outplayed Ferndale during the first half. The Warriors scored first late in the first quarter when quarterback George Gizzi connected with Cruz Escandon for a 20-yard touchdown pass-and-catch.
Ferndale scored on the first play of the second quarter with a Stanek 1-yard TD run. But E-W answered with their next possession, capped off with a Gizzi 9-yard TD throw to Joaquin Escandon.
With just 37 seconds to go in the first half, Carmelo LaRocca ran for a 1-yard TD to give E-W their 21-7 lead at the break.
The defense contributed to the Warriors’ big first half as Andrew Bau and Zachary Gizzi both intercepted passes by Ferndale quarterback Nolan Boleak during the second quarter.
While the Golden Eagles’ offensive attack was ticking in the second half, E-W found it tougher to move the ball. The Warriors’ best drive after halftime was a third-quarter possession that lasted 10 plays and 72 yards, ending with another Cruz Escandon TD catch for 20 yards.
After the Golden Eagles scored their final touchdown with 2:06 remaining, the Warriors, down by eight points, had one last possession to score and potentially tie the game. After a sack, Gizzi found his brother Zachary for 65 yards, moving the ball to the Ferndale 25-yard line. Three plays later, Cruz Escandon couldn’t secure a well-thrown pass by Gizzi at the goal line. Facing a fourth-and-14 with less than a minute on the clock, Gizzi hit his brother Zachary in the end zone with a 33-yard toss, but the ball was knocked out of his hands by McManus, ending the potential Warrior comeback.
“We played hard to the end; we were there,” Roth said. “The pass was broken up there at the end — not that it’s one play that defines the game — but we’re there ’til the very end.”
“The guys played hard; it was a very competitive game,” Roth added. “I’m proud of them.”
With the victory, Ferndale will get a berth in the WIAA 3A State Week 10 round-of-32 playoffs this upcoming weekend. With the loss, E-W will now have just one more game in their 2025 season, a matchup with a team to be determined and to be played Nov. 6, 7 or 8.
“It will be one more game that these guys get to do with their friends,” Roth said, “and that’s really cool because you only get to play so many games in your life. So we’ll go have fun in that, whoever that is.”
Prep Football: Edmonds-Woodway at Ferndale, Nov. 1
Edmonds-Woodway 7 14 0 6 – 27
Ferndale 0 7 14 14 – 35
1st quarter scoring:
1:15 – George Gizzi (Edmonds-Woodway) 20-yard TD pass to Cruz Escandon; Tyler Yates PAT kick good
2nd quarter scoring:
11:59 – Jon Stanek (Ferndale) 1-yard TD run; Parker McManus PAT kick good
9:34 – George Gizzi (Edmonds-Woodway) 9-yard TD pass to Bjorn Beckstrom; Tyler Yates PAT kick good
:37 – Carmelo LaRocca 1-yard TD run; Tyler Yates PAT kick good
3rd quarter scoring:
9:53 – Elliot Lenssen (Ferndale) 84-yard TD run; Parker McManus PAT kick good
4:07 – Jon Stanek (Ferndale) 52-yard TD run; Parker McManus PAT kick good
:28 – George Gizzi (Edmonds-Woodway) 20-yard TD pass to Cruz Escandon; Tyler Yates PAT kick no good
4th quarter scoring:
7:47 – Jon Stanek (Ferndale) 6-yard TD run; Parker McManus PAT kick good
2:06 – Elliot Lenssen (Ferndale) 52-yard TD run; Parker McManus PAT kick good
Records: Edmonds-Woodway 4-2-0 in 3A Wesco League South Conference, 5-4-0 overall; Ferndale 3-3-0 in 3A Wesco League North Conference, 4-5-0 overall
Edmonds-Woodway next game: versus opponent to be determined; time, place and date to be announced
Ferndale next game: versus opponent to be determined; time, place and date to be announced (WIAA 3A State Football Week 10 playoff game)
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