Knights rule the night

East Valley made one thing perfectly clear during Thursday night football at Albi Stadium.

No one can take anything for granted in this year’s Greater Spokane League.

Jolted last week in two overtimes by Shadle Park, the Knights provided a shock of their own, handing a 23-3 loss to Lewis and Clark.

Both teams were coming off losses last week and the Tigers’ inability to hang onto the football in this game was a factor early.

But EV also won the battle in the trenches as the contest progressed. After LC held the football for most of the first quarter while taking a 3-0 lead, Knights defensive standout Jakob Pugsley recovered a fumble on the first play of the second quarter and the Tigers scarcely saw the ball again.

EV took a 9-3 lead into the locker room at half and put together two time-consuming second-half drives to pull away. Coupled with field position woes most of the night, there simply wasn’t enough clock for the injury-afflicted Tigers to mount a comeback.

“LC was down guys just like they were down guys against Central Valley,” EV coach Adam Fisher said. “They were missing players and in their defense, we caught them at a good time. They were down a bit and we had to take advantage.”

LC had running back Levi Taylor back in the lineup, but it was still without quarterback Taylor Eglet and a couple of key defenders. The Tigers held the football for more than 6 minutes of the first quarter on their first possession, but the drive bogged down inside the 15-yard line and the Tigers settled for a 33-yard Sam Waples field goal.

They got the ball back quickly and used up the rest of the quarter, only to fumble. But it was two muffed punts on the same series after stopping EV that proved most damaging.

The Knights, forced to punt again following a penalty, recovered the second and covered 28 yards for a 6-3 lead. They got the ball back with 1:58 left in the half and Rick Garmon kicked a 37-yard field goal that just cleared the crossbar as time expired.

A nearly 5 1/2-minute march to open the second half made it 16-3 and a 95-yard scoring drive that used up nearly 9 minutes iced it.

“That was our most impressive drive ever – to take that much time, converting that many times on third down (five) and a fourth down and finishing,” Fisher said.

The EV game plan was simple on both sides of the ball.

On offense, the idea was to ride the legs of tailback Nick Bellomy. He carried the ball 32 times for 143 yards, scoring once and setting up two Chris Zivic scores.

“They took me off defense and just had me carry the football,” Bellomy said. “I went both ways all week, but that’s what we wanted to do.”

Bellomy said his line countered LC’s slanting defense and opened holes for him to slice through.

“My line was just amazing,” Bellomy said.

On defense, the Knights contained Taylor, who finished with 20 carries for 92 yards, with linebackers Pugsley and Dakota Lawson, and covered LC’s short passing game.

“We knew they were running their power game,” Pugsley said. “We just stopped it straight up, got outside contain and just butted heads this week. Everyone knew it was going to be a physical game.”

The Tigers only had the ball for 14 second-half plays.

The victory evened the Knights’ record at 2-2 in the GSL and dropped LC to 2-2, 1-2. It took the sting out of last week’s loss to Shadle Park, but only served to show how unpredictable the GSL can be.

“Last week took five years off my life,” Fisher said. “Shadle played exceptional. This week we had an excellent week of practice, a great plan and the thing is, this week, the kids executed. It comes down that you have to take care of business. There are still a lot of games to play.”