2A Football | Lynden achieves 1st goal

TACOMA — Lynden ran off with the Class 2A football title that had been all but engraved all season for Prosser.

After trailing 10-0 at halftime, third-ranked Lynden shut out Centralia after the break on Saturday and beat the Tigers 14-10.

Centralia had shocked the state last week by eliminating top-ranked Prosser 37-35 in an upset of earthquake proportions.

The next question: Can Lynden (13-1) pull a rare double and win the 2A basketball title in March? The Lions made the state 3A semifinals last winter and now are 2A because of reclassification. They are the preseason state favorites.

Lynden pulled back-to-back football-basketball title magic in the old A classification in 1980-81 and again in 1991-92.

Three basketball starters were on the Tacoma Dome artificial grass Saturday for Lynden, and one, quarterback Chris Bolt, led the comeback.

Bolt carried 17 times in the second half for 76 of his total 103 yards and scored the winning touchdown on a 7-yard run with 9:08 left in the game.

Landon VandeHoef scored Lynden's first TD on an 8-yard run in the third quarter after defensive end Kyle Gunst stopped Tyler Gussin for no gain on fourth-and-one at the Lynden 46.

"I told the coach I wanted the ball," said Bolt, who is 6 feet 5, 200 pounds.

Coach Curt Kramme was happy to oblige because Centralia was double-teaming wide receivers and had only five defenders in the core area of the defense. Bolt operated mostly from a shotgun-spread formation, took the snap only 3 yards from center and made quick reads of the defense.

"I don't know how many times I carried," Bolt said. "It was a lot."

His total was 24, a lot for a running back, let alone a quarterback.

Kramme called Bolt "one of the best athletes in the state. I hope he gets a chance to play college football."

Kramme has one of the most usual collections of championships in the state. He played on the 1978 Blaine team that won the A football championship and later coached Burlington-Edison to 3A golf championships in 1990 and 1991. In the fall of 1991, he moved to Lynden to coach football and his team won the A state title.

A young contributor in Saturday's triumph was sophomore linebacker Taylor Creighton, who had an interception at the Lynden 14 on Centralia's first drive that started with a successful onside kick. He made another interception at the Lions' 9-yard line with nine seconds left in the half.

"I had no idea it was coming," Creighton admitted.

Eighth-ranked Centralia (12-2) built its 10-0 halftime lead on a first-quarter, 10-yard run by Gussin, who finished as the game's top rusher with 169 yards on 21 carries. The Tigers added a 34-yard field goal by Alex Parke-Fagerness in the second.

"The first half, we were dominating," Gussin said, "but the second half, I don't know what happened.

"No one thought we'd get this far, and no one ever thought we'd beat Prosser. I love these guys. We played good all year. We just came up four points short."

Centralia coach John Schultz said, "Missed blocks, missed tackles, interceptions, screwups in the red zone, you can't do that against a great football team. We made too many errors today."

C — FG 32 Parke-Fagerness, 4:40.

L — Landon VandeHoef 8 run (Chris Bolt kick) 4:35.

L — Chris Bolt 7 run (Bolt kick), 9:08.

Passing — Lynden, Bolt 11-18 76. Centralia, Cruickshank 4-16-2.

Receiving — Lynden, Dallas 1-8, Br. Bomber 3-23, VandeHoef 3-19, Bl. Bomber 2-16, Kok 2-10. Centralia, Isaac Moog 1-10, Gussin 1-7, Wakefield-Rikard 1-13, Meehan 1-5.