WV blanks Selah

West Valley’s best play failed miserably, but like almost everything else the Eagles did Friday night it turned out perfectly.

Sparked by Mitch Peterson’s brilliant punt return on the final play of the first half, West Valley returned to the state football playoffs for the first time in 22 years with a dominating 29-0 win over visiting Selah in the first round of the 2A playoffs.

“It’s exciting to know we have another week,” two-way lineman Nick Brown said, looking ahead to next weekend’s game at Gonzaga Prep against the winner of Colville-Othello today.

A big reason is Peterson’s 53-yard punt return when maybe the Vikings (8-3) should have just been happy to trail 7-0 and ran a play from their own 27 since there were only 4.3 seconds left in the first half when the ball was snapped.

WV coach Craig Whitney called timeout because “you can’t take it to the locker room” to set up a block of the punt.

The Eagles (11-0) didn’t get close to Evan Roberts’ punt and Peterson fielded it on the WV 47.

“We were sending everyone, trying to get a block and a quick field goal,” Peterson said. “I saw it come out and it came right to me. I was surprised.

“I kind of slipped, saw a hole and cut back. I saw a huge wall and followed my blockers.”

Peterson raced down the left sideline, then ran through a tackle and stiff-armed a Viking before coasting into the end zone.

That exemplified how well the Eagles handled the muddy, cold conditions and the Vikings didn’t.

“We talked before the game. We played five games in bad conditions,” Whitney said. “I think it helped our guys mentally because they knew they could play in these conditions.”

With the way the defense dominated that pretty much sealed the deal.

Selah had just 54 yards rushing on 23 attempts, completed just 5 of 18 passes for 21 yards and picked up just six first downs.

“WV played well. I don’t want to take anything away from them, obviously,” Selah coach Jeff Jamieson said. “We didn’t play well offensively. We made some mistakes, conditions might have played a little bit in that but they’re a good team. We just couldn’t get in a rhythm. They’re solid.”

The defensive tone was set early, when the Eagles fumbled the ball away at their 20 on just the third play of the game. The Vikings followed with a 5-yard penalty, a 1-yard run and three incompletions.

“After that first fumble we were in a big hole and the defense stepped up,” WV quarterback Drew Clausen said. “The defense kept giving us opportunities.”

Two plays after Quinn Gannon picked off Trent Douglass, Clausen redeemed himself with a 6-yard TD pass to Peterson.

The WV defense forced a three-and-out to open the second half and the Eagles marched 57 yards for a touchdown on Krys Smith’s 3-yard run. The defense then picked up a safety when Joseph Aubert tackled a receiver in the end zone. Finally, starting with 55 seconds left in the third quarter the Eagles put together a 16-play, 96-yard drive, eating up more than nine minutes, capped by Smith’s 13-yard run.

“We wore down teams all year,” Brown said.