The Lake City football team captured the 5A IEL title with a convincing 49-19 win at Lewiston.

Lake City advances to the state playoffs for the 13th straight year.

Hit the tab below to read Josh Wright's unedited game story.

Josh Wright

Correspondent

LEWISTON – Three minutes, four plays, 21 points. That’s all it took for Lake City to turn a taut season finale with Lewiston into a laugher.

A dizzying sequence in the third quarter and rousing line play helped catapult the Timberwolves to a 49-19 rout at Bengal Field on Friday night. With the win, LC snatched its 13th consecutive berth to the state playoffs and the 5A Inland Empire League crown.

Lake City (3-6, 3-0) will host a first-round postseason game against the winner of Monday’s three-way Kansas tiebreaker between Lewiston, Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene. It will take place at Lake City starting at 6 p.m..

“To me, this is so satisfying for this group of seniors,” LC coach Van Troxel said. “... They never, as freshmen and sophomores, beat Coeur d’Alene, they never beat Post Falls, they never beat Lewiston. It’s the first time in their careers that they won two games in a row. They’ve just grown and grown and grown.”

Up 14-0 at the half, the Timberwolves started the third quarter with a 65-yard touchdown jaunt from Jacob Bowman. It was called back by holding, but LC was unfazed.

On the next play, quarterback Mark Smyly connected with Austin Kiefer for a 65-yard pass and score.

Then, on Lewiston’s first play of the half, quarterback Justin Podrabsky was intercepted by Brian Griswold. Bowman followed up the turnover by waltzing into the end zone for a 5-yard score two plays later.

Just like that, it was 28-0. But LC wasn’t done.

After forcing a turnover on downs, the Timberwolves capped the three-minute flourish with a 43-yard touchdown scamper from Bowman. With last year’s leading rusher Justin Bryant hobbled, the junior finished with 145 rushing yards and four touchdowns on 17 carries.

“That third quarter was like the longest third quarter in the history of football,” Lewiston coach Emmett Dougherty said.

The Bengals were plagued by poor pass protection, drops from receivers and an out-of-sync performance from University of Idaho-bound Podrabsky. He went 19 of 32 through the air for just 144 yards.

In the second half alone, Podrabsky was sacked five times.

“Can’t say enough about the way our defense (played) because that’s a pretty good offense,” Troxel said. “Justin probably got hit as much as he’d been hit in a long time.”

The Bengals (4-5, 1-2) sputtered from the start, failing to gain a first down until their first possession of the second quarter. That started a nice drive to LC’s 20-yard line, but a holding penalty and two incomplete passes led to a turnover on downs.

From there, Lewiston did nothing offensively until late in the third quarter. And now they have to try to rebound on Monday.

 “It’s going to be a tough task but these guys have fought all year long and every time people think we’re dead, these guys fight back,” Dougherty said. “So I think we’ve got a great chance Monday to get another crack at Lake City.”

---

---