Mt. Spokane bounces back with impressive win over Rogers

If Mt. Spokane wanted to make a statement about the status of the 3A race in the Greater Spokane League, it accomplished the task.

Emphatically.

Cole Hattenburg rushed for 133 yards – including an 85-yard sweep for a touchdown – and Brady Hill threw three TD passes en route to a 42-0 win over Rogers at Albi Stadium on Thursday.

Mt. Spokane dropped from the state 3A top-10 rankings after last week’s loss to Mead in the “Battle of the Bell,” but the Wildcats could make a return appearance after a dominant win.

“We came out and got some things done,” Mt. Spokane coach Terry Cloer said. “Out tackling wasn’t great last week, so I felt like we improved on that. We played gap sound.”

The Wildcats (5-2, 1-0) led 14-0 at intermission and put things out of reach early in the third with a flurry of touchdowns.

Rogers (2-4, 0-1) got a good return of the second-half kick and picked up a first down but stalled at the Mt. Spokane 46. A punt pinned the Wildcats on their 15, but on next play Hattenburg took a sweep to the right, got around the corner to the sidelines and sprinted 85 yards to a touchdown.

“(Hattenburg) had a knee injury and this is just his second week back,” Cloer said. “We played him a lot on defense last week and he ran it much better on offense tonight.”

The ensuing kickoff bounced away from Rogers, but the Pirates covered at their 5. On first down, a bad exchange between quarterback Zachary Phillips and receiver Adam Perry hit the turf, and Mt. Spokane linebacker Grayson Bowles fell on it in the end zone to put the Wildcats up 28-0.

Mt. Spokane forced a Rogers punt. On the first play of the next possession, the Wildcats ran a middle screen and Hill hit Jacob Adams in stride. The result was a 49-yard touchdown pass as Adams coasted untouched up the middle of the field.

It was the second touchdown to come on a middle screen for the Wildcats.

“We run some (screens) and we put a couple of new ones in (this week),” Cloer said. “The weather, it wasn’t real conducive to the vertical passing game, so we got some of that done.”

Hill said he was ready when the middle screens were called.

“We practiced all week for them,” he said. “We knew the rain was coming so we had to play short. We practiced those all week and we looked good with them today.”

Hill finished 10 of 16 for 153 yards.

After a rocky, scoreless first quarter, the Wildcats built a two-touchdown lead in the second. Mt. Spokane put together a nice drive and eventually had second-and-12 from the Rogers 15.

Hill faked a pass to the outside left and hit Hattenburg with an inside screen. Hattenburg slipped a tackle then went the rest of the way up the middle for a 15-yard touchdown reception with 9:07 left in the quarter.

Later, the Wildcats forced Rogers to punt and took over at their 16. On first down, Hill hooked up with Quentin Ayers on a 26-yard pass play. Ayers was hauled down by a horse-collar tackle and 15 yards were tacked on to the end of the play.

Mt. Spokane had second-and-12 on the Rogers 33. Hill rolled right and heaved it to the right corner of the end zone. It slipped through the hands of defensive back Elijah Wade and into the arms of Ryan VanWert for a 33-yard touchdown pass and a 14-0 lead with 3:31 left in the half.

The Wildcats tacked on a late touchdown with both teams playing mostly backups, as Zane Smith carried it in from the 5.

Zachary Phillips went 6 of 11 for 63 yards for Rogers, and Tre Phillips carried 19 times for 99 yards.