Bruins win football opener at Hoquiam, 16-13

“It was certainly not mistake free, but that’s something I would expect in our first game,” Coach Shawn Friese said of two lost Bruin fumbles and two pass interceptions. “I was most proud of how we handled adversity in the game. There were times when things weren’t going our way, and we just got right back to work and that, I think, is a big reason why we won that game.”

Schlegel, who finished with 194 rushing yards on 30 carries, also scored the Bruins’ first touchdown on a 10-yard, third-quarter scamper. Senior Wyatt Stelma’s point-after kick gave the Bruins a 9-6 lead.

Stelma, the Bruins’ starting quarterback, was picked off twice, but as football often allows, he had opportunities to redeem himself. The senior helped give the Bruins good field position prior to Schlegel’s TD with a hustle play on punt coverage. Aaron Johnson sprinted downfield to lead the coverage and appeared to distract the would-be Hoquiam punt returner enough that he opted not to try and make a catch. The ball inadvertently glanced off the Grizzly player and Stelma, who is the team’s long snapper and was trailing on coverage, noticed the ricochet and recovered the ball 10 yards from the Hoquiam goal line.

Hoquiam regained the lead in the fourth quarter before Schlegel’s game-winning run. He benefited initially from a good burst from the Columbia interior line and then got an edge-sealing block 10 yards downfield from Mason Hamilton.

“They scored late in the game on us to go up,” Friese said. “We could have reacted differently to that, but we were mentally strong, and just said we’re gonna’ go down and score and then we’re gonna get a stop on defense and that’s what we did.”

Columbia sealed the win in the closing minutes by converting on a third-and-short, as Razo Salazar and Matthias Posini escorted Schlegel en route to a six-yard gain. Salazar and Posini and their buddies up front — including Brenden Donica, Razo Salazar, Trenton Boydston, Jacob Wolf and Kai Brausell — seemed to wear down their Hoquiam counterparts as the game wore on.

That was never more apparent than on the Bruins’ time-eating final series, when Schlegel ran eight successive running plays as Columbia ran out the clock. A few minutes before, Hoquiam had been driving for a potential go-ahead touchdown before senior Bryce Wang intercepted a Grizzly pass at the CHS 2-yard line. Wang’s pick was another redemption play, as he lost a battle at cornerback earlier in the final period when Hoquiam regained the lead on a TD pass play.

“No football game is ever going to go perfectly for you. There’s always going to be ups and downs,” Friese said. “The teams that win football games like that are the ones that know how to handle the downs; to minimize the amount of time you’re in that down period and to maximize the amount of time that you’re in the up period.”

Columbia’s other points came via a safety set up by senior Johnson’s punt coverage; he downed a Bruin kick at the Hoquiam one-foot line in the second quarter. Hamilton’s punt from the Bruin 49-yard line bounced at the Grizzly 15 toward the end zone. Johnson looped around the bounding ball, slipped as he was stopping with most of his body in the end zone. On his hands and knees, Johnson lunged forward toward the playing field and downed the ball inches from a touchback.

Hoquiam’s ensuing scrimmage run — toward the left side — was turned back at the goal line by Bruin defensive end Kai Brasuell. That enabled a host of CHS defenders - led initially by Posini and later by Hamilton and others - to gang tackle the Grizzly running back in the end zone for a two-point safety.

“I think defensively … we played really well,” Friese said. “There were so many assisted tackles. We just had three, four, five guys on nearly every tackle and that’s exactly what we focused on this week was playing team defense and pursuing the ball.”