1A Trico League football: Castle Rock 32, Columbia-White Salmon 24

Castle Rock 32, Columbia-White Salmon 24

WHITE SALMON — Castle Rock’s Chance Naugle threw three touchdowns and Wyatt Partridge returned a punt 70 yards for a score as Castle Rock held on for a 32-24 victory over Columbia-White Salmon.

Columbia brought the game to 19-9 halfway through the third quarter on Austin Charters’ 20 yard run, but the Rockets marched 64 yards in seven plays to push their lead back to 16 on Coleman Guerrero’s four yard run.

The Bruins answered after Charters’ fourth-quarter defensive interception with 7:19 to play. Ryan Howard hauled in a 15-yard touchdown catch on the very next play and the subsequent two-point conversion brought the game within eight. But Castle Rock grinded out an eight-play 63-yard scoring drive with 3:45 left in the game to put the Rocket lead to 15.

The game appeared to be dire for the Bruins when Charters was intercepted on the first play of the following drive, but a third-down sack of Naugle on Castle Rock’s next series gave the Bruins the ball with 1:40 left. Down 32-17, Columbia covered 72 yards, scoring with 55 seconds left on Charters’ 32-yard run to bring the score back within eight.

Columbia recovered the onside kick on the Rocket 45 to keep the Bruins’ comeback hopes alive. However, a Castle Rock sack on the first play forced a second-down spike to stop the clock, putting the Bruins at third down. After an incompletion and fourth-down sack, Castle Rock held on for the win.

CASTLE ROCK 32, COLUMBIA 24

C. Rock 19 0 6 7–32

Columbia 3 0 6 15–24

First quarter

CR — Landon Gardner 14 pass from Chance Naugle (kick success)

CWS — Zavier Smith 25 FG

CR — Gardner 35 pass from Naugle (Kick fail)

CR — Wyatt Partridge 70 Punt Return (Run fail)

Third quarter

CWS — Austin Charters 20 run (Run fail)

CR — Coleman Guerrero 4 run (Kick fail)

Fourth quarter

CWS — Ryan Howard 15 pass from Charters (Alek Raether run)

CR — Parker Watts 10 pass from Naugle (kick success)

CWS — Charters 32 run (Zavier Smith kick)

Individual statistics

RUSHING — CR: Wyatt Partridge 24-182, Coleman Guerrero 6-43, Austin McQuilliams 3-11, Chance Naugle 2-(-19), Jaden Behrendson 1-9; CWS: Bowen Durkee 15-106, Austin Charters 17-75, Alek Raether 3-8, Angel Sanchez 2-8, Zavier Smith 1-12, Alarick Blankenship 1-3.

PASSING — CR: Naugle 8-18-1-111; CWS: Charters 10-22-2-65.

RECEIVING — CR: Landon Gardner 4-71, Parker Watts 2-18, Austin McQuilliams 1-14, Coleman Guerrero 1-8; CWS: Zavier Smith 5-13, Elijah Nielson 4-37, Ryan Howard 1-15.