Lakeland can’t stop Colville rushing attack

There are two schools of thought when your defense gives up 223 rushing yards.

The first is that you didn’t tackle well enough. The second is that your opponent is just plain good at running the football.

Both were true Friday night as the Lakeland Hawks tasted defeat for the first time this season, falling 28-20 to Colville in a non-league contest in Rathdrum, which wasn’t over until the final play of the game.

“I think it boils right down to the fundamentals,” Lakeland coach Tim Kiefer said. “I don’t think we tackled well and I don’t think we blocked well and that’s not taking anything away from Colville, because they are a great football team.

“But our guys played their hearts out and so did they – it was a great football game.”

Lakeland (2-1) got an early dose of Colville’s power on the game’s opening drive. The Indians (2-0) pounded the ball 83 yards on five carries to the Hawks’ 4-yard line.

Undeterred, the Lakeland defense proceeded to stuff Colville on the next four plays.

On the ensuing play, however, Hawks senior running back Bubba Bartlett fumbled the ball right back to the Indians, who punched it in three plays later on a 3-yard pass from Cody Yecha to Brandon Sager.

The game went scoreless until the 8-minute mark of the second quarter when Lakeland quarterback Jack Vanderlinden found Bartlett wide open 10 yards down the middle of the field on play-action and floated it onto his fingertips. Bartlett took it 37 yards untouched to tie the game at 7.

Bartlett put the Hawks on the board again 5 minutes later with a 3-yard touchdown plunge, but Colville answered with a Casey Cox 5-yard run to make it 14-14.

It seemed that would be the score heading into the half, but senior Chase Roberts grabbed the ensuing kick at the 15-yard line, cut left, shed one tackler, cut right and went the distance. Colville blocked the point-after and the Hawks went to the locker room up 20-14.

The Indians went up 21-20 on a 9-yard Brandon Katzer run late in the third quarter after a long drive that included Yecha pass completions of 13, 17 and 18 yards.

Katzer followed it up with a 7-yard touchdown run midway through the fourth quarter to make it 28-20.

Lakeland had one last shot, converting on a fourth-and-7 when Vanderlinden hit Steve Hanni on the left sideline at Colville’s 42 with 28 seconds left. But Vanderlinden, on an apparent miscommunication with his receiver, threw his first interception. Defensive back Trevor Fox caught the ball all alone in the end zone.