Defense rules day in West’s 4A/3A win

EVERETT – Who needs offense? On a day where neither team could move the ball with any regularity, the West’s defense dominated in a 14-0 victory over the East in Saturday’s 40th Annual East-West 4A/3A All-Star football game at Everett Memorial Stadium.

“It was pretty surprising,” West linebacker Logan Cullen of Anacortes said about the defensive battle. “I thought we were going to march down the field and throw 40-yard bombs. I thought the East was going to do the same thing.”

Cullen, the West’s Most Valuable Player, blocked a punt and sacked the quarterback twice as the West held East to 109 yards in a game that was an offensive snoozer from start to finish.

Here are some offensive gems from Saturday’s game, which featured many of the top recently-graduated prep players in the state.

• The two teams combined to go 5 for 26 on third downs, including a span of 12 consecutive series when neither team managed a first down.

• The East, which managed a total of minus-18 rushing yards, did not have a running play go for more than 6 yards. The game’s lowlight came with 2:56 remaining in the first half. The West burned a timeout to set up one of the game’s 14 punts. After the timeout, the West was penalized 5 yards for a false start before executing a successful 28-yard punt.

One big West play was enough to win the slugfest. Issaquah’s 5-foot-9 receiver Blake Ferguson, a Washington State University recruit and unlikely hero considering the statures of West receivers Keauntea Bankhead (Ballard), Jeff Fritchman (Lake Washington) and Chancellor Young (O’Dea), out-leaped East cornerback J.R. Jamerson of Pasco to haul in a 27-yard TD pass from Ballard’s Cole Morgan, another WSU recruit. The play, which resulted in a 7-0 lead with 9:24 remaining in the first half, came on fourth-and-14 when it seemed yet another drive had stalled.

The West put the game away in the fourth quarter. Cullen, who was dominant despite playing linebacker instead of his usual defensive end position, blocked Ben Hannula’s punt. O’Dea’s Andre Geraghty recovered the ball at the East 17, setting up Burlington-Edison’s Saxton Shearer’s 3-yard plunge. Oak Harbor’s Blake Ward, who rushed three times for 12 yards, kicked his second extra point of the game for a 14-0 lead with 7:23 remaining.

Moses Lake’s Mitch Reffett was named the East’s MVP.