Scotties zap Zillah with dogged determination

It’s time to add one more weapon to the Freeman arsenal:

Luck.

Of course, good teams make their own luck and the Scotties are certainly good.

Second-ranked Freeman ran its record to 10-0 and reached the semifinals of the State 1A football playoffs for the second time in school history by rallying for a 26-14 victory over Zillah on a crisp, beautiful Saturday afternoon at Central Valley’s Sig T. Hansen Field.

Next up for Freeman is Napavine (11-0), a 3-0 quarterfinal winner over Kalama (9-2). The two teams will play at the Tacoma Dome on Saturday at 1 p.m.

At first glance, it would appear the Scotties won the way they have all year.

Kevin Hatch ran for 223 yards and two touchdowns. Sophomore quarterback Andrew Dresback hit 9 of 12 passes for 135 yards and two more scores.

The Scotties’ defense came up with four turnovers. Bryan Riggs and Andrew Wilkerson both had an interception and fumble recovery.

But it wasn’t that simple.

Zillah (8-4) controlled the first half, taking a 14-7 edge to become the first team to lead Freeman all year.

The Scotties had 114 yards of first-half offense, but 82 of that came on the opening drive that ended when Michael Wittwer turned a screen pass into a 10-yard touchdown.

Zillah had drives of 65 and 81 yards, scoring late in both quarters – on an 18-yard run by fullback Duran Torrez and a 10-yard run by quarterback Steve Collins. The Leopards could have had more points if not for a Riggs interception inside the 10.

“They had us scouted pretty well,” said Freeman coach Jeff Smith. “They were taking away all the strong side stuff.”

It didn’t help that Brian Ross was running through the defense for 99 yards as the Leopards piled up 163 first-half yards on the ground and 188 overall.

“It wasn’t a loud halftime,” Smith said. “These kids know they’re not going to win if they’re not tackling and they were tackling very poorly in the first half.”

“We were more excited,” Wilkerson said of second-half changes. “We haven’t been down all year and we wanted to show we could come back.”

The Scotties fumbled a way a punt early in the second half, but Riggs got that back with a fumble recovery on the next play.

Dresback threw an interception deep in Zillah territory, but that led to bad field position for the Leopards. After a poor punt, Hatch carried four straight times, tying the game at 14 on a 17-yard run around left end.

Wilkerson recovered a fumble on Zillah’s next possession. Bolstered by a 24-yard gain on a screen pass to Hatch, the Scotties went 43 yards to grab a 20-14 lead on Hatch’s 3-yard run.

“We knew what we had to do,” Hatch said. “We started to execute instead of hesitate and took it to them. They had a great defense.”

With the missed extra point, Freeman’s defense went to work, protecting a six-point edge with 11:23 to play.

“Nobody has been able to run inside on us all year,” Freeman defensive end Dan Sanders said. “We switched to a 4-4 and got our line fired up and everybody stepped up.”

Sanders stepped back to linebacker and another defensive lineman came in. It made a huge difference as the Leopards had three first downs and 43 yards rushing after halftime.

Zillah took over at midfield with 5 minutes left. Collins bulled into the line for a first down on third-and-inches, but the ball popped loose and the Leopards lost four yards. On fourth down they had a perfect screen set up for Ross, but he tripped over a Leopards fallen lineman before he could break into the open.

“Better to be lucky than good,” Scotties assistant coach Kelly Neely said.

Freeman iced it with a tricky 37-yard scoring pass from Dresback to Wilkerson with 2:39 to go. On the play, Hatch took a handoff and pitched back to Dresback.