It all comes together for LC
The messages kept coming – e-mails and phone calls from as far away as Connecticut and Katmandu – all with congratulations from the Lewis and Clark High School community.
“There must have been 350,” said an overwhelmed Tigers football coach Tom Yearout. “The extended LC family is pretty amazing.”
Last weekend, in a thrilling championship game at Gridiron Classic XIII in the Tacoma Dome, LC rallied from a 14-7 deficit for two touchdowns in the game’s final 6 minutes to defeat Bothell 21-14 for the 4A state football title. Tigers current and past wanted to be a part of it.
Victory capped an 11-2 season that included five straight playoff victories – remarkably four of them on the road – to produce the school’s first boys team state championship since wrestling in 1981. Lewis and Clark had a football team voted state champion in 1967, but this was the first on-field football titlist.
“It’s still a little surreal right now,” Yearout said Monday. “I’m so proud of how they went about it. They did a great job of being focused, practiced hard and played really good football during the playoffs.”
Yearout had spent the day gathering up players’ gear, that annual season-ending housekeeping duty of coaches.
“I’ve got a lot of jerseys still to collect,” he laughed. “I think the players made sure a lot of fans were dressed in white on Saturday. But I got all the rest.”
Prior to the football season Yearout sensed that maybe this year’s team was special.
“That’s part of why I went out on a limb,” when he picked LC to finish first in the Greater Spokane League on his preseason questionnaire. “Our seniors had an inner toughness about them and our juniors had a sense of calm. It ended up being a great mix,” he said.
While the Tigers didn’t win a league title, tying for second with two other schools behind unbeaten Ferris, they reign today as the No. 1 Class 4A team in Washington.
Their sense of teamwork and togetherness was the uncommon denominator that produces championship seasons. It was the culmination of a philosophy, said Yearout, instilled by his mentor, former head coach John Hook. Now an administrator at Mt. Spokane, Hook was at the game.
“He said, ‘Work hard and there’s a role for you in the program,’ ” said Yearout. “He told them they can’t all be engines – there have to be some lug nuts on the wheels. It impacts a car just as much.”
LC’s lineup typically started eight seniors on offense and nine on defense. Senior captains Alex Shaw, the featured tailback who rushed for 793 yards on 151 carries during the postseason, Doug Talkington and junior Vaughn Kapiko, both receivers and defensive backs, were the only two-way players.
About the senior class in general and Tigers star Shaw in particular, Yearout said their attitude focused on ” ‘how do I help?’ When a leader (like Shaw) sets that tone, it makes it easy on the coaches.”
Single platooned offensive and defensive lines worked as well-oiled machines.
Quarterback Taylor Eglet, a second-year starter with years of playing point guard in basketball, personified the calm of the junior class, Yearout said.
“The seniors, in particular, loved to compete. And our underclassmen did not get rattled.”
Several players had key roles on both sides of the ball coming off the bench. First-year varsity starting tight end Charlie Eglet and first-time football player and back-up receiver Jordan Hanson, both seniors, became vital additions.
It was Jordan who caught the winning touchdown pass from Taylor Eglet on a play that covered 51 yards with 1:04 left to play.
Yearout said that his first thought on that play was, ” ‘We’ve got to make the extra point.’ The next thing I thought was, ‘How fitting it’s Jordan Hanson.’ All he does is make plays. And talk about a kid who just wanted to be part of the experience.”
All the parts – talent, togetherness, hard work and focus – and not the least, a little karma – joined forces in the Tigers’ season of destiny.
GSL football teams swept the Columbia Basin League, determining LC’s side of the bracket. For the past few years, Eastern Washington teams have been on opposite sides, preventing what in earlier seasons would have been an All-GSL semifinal between the Tigers and Ferris Saxons.
Like 1997 when Central Valley won state, it was the second-place league team that would be champion, both losing to Gonzaga Prep in league.
“(CV Bears coach) Rick Giampietri made a point of finding me in pre-game to wish us luck and I told him I had a feeling the second-place team was going to win again,” said Yearout.
Two weeks earlier it had poured rain for hours in Bothell before a playoff win over Inglemoor. The rain let up and sun came out 10 minutes before game time.
“An assistant coach came up to me and said, ‘The sun’s shining on the Tigers this year,’ ” Yearout recalled.
It did and then some indoors last Saturday against Bothell.
“The spontaneity of it and how we ended up winning triggered some real raw emotions that can never be matched again in a lifetime,” said Yearout.