Colville’s win worthy of top-notch rivalry

Details were sketchy last Friday night on Colville’s 21-20 victory in Pullman in a game between two of the Great Northern League’s premier football programs.

It was as thrilling as the final score suggests, as a blocked field goal in the waning seconds of the game preserved the Indians’ victory.

“The last three years the game with them has come down to one or two key plays and special teams momentum swings,” Colville coach Randy Cornwell said. “This was no different.”

Colville trailed 13-0 just before halftime. Sophomore quarterback Sawyer Bardwell was intercepted three times in the game.

“If someone told me we can do that and beat those guys, I’d have told him, ‘You’re crazy,’ ” Cornwell said.

But Bardwell, in his second start since 6-foot-3 junior prospect Jade Dorman was lost to an ACL tear, completed 12 passes for 197 yards and three touchdowns in engineering the comeback.

“What I was proud of was that he mentally kept flushing his mistakes and the team kept picking him up,” Cornwell said.

His first TD pass, a 36-yarder to P.J. Sager, came with 40 seconds remaining until half. He hit Sager with a 30-yard TD strike following a Pullman turnover, and engineered a nine-play, 85-yard drive for the winning score that began with just less than 7 minutes left in the game and included converting on fourth-and-9. He hit Austin Pete from 22 yards out for the score.

Pullman roared back in the final 2 minutes and had first downs at the 11 and again at the 13 following a sack, then a pass interference call. But Colville’s defense held and got the blocked field goal for the win.

“That was just a tremendous defensive effort,” Cornwell said. “We’re undersized, but the kids can flat play. That was a big win.”