Woodland opens season with a 22-0 victory over Kalama

KALAMA — Well, it wasn’t exactly a masterpiece, but Sean McDonald got a victory in his first game at Woodland’s head coach.

Sophomore Elijah Andersen rushed for 133 yards and two touchdowns and the Woodland defense did the rest in a 22-0 win over Kalama on Thursday.

“I was glad we came out on top,” McDonald said. “I’m glad with the way our defense played. They played lights out.”

Before the game, Kalama proudly displayed the 2B state championship banner the Chinooks won last season with McDonald as their coach.

But after the game started, it was clear that this year’s Kalama is much younger and much smaller than last year’s squad.

The Chinooks struggled to get things going, and the Beavers didn’t make it any easier.

Kalama could managed only 133 net yards of offense on Thursday, and 128 of those yards came on three pass plays of 42, 42 and 44 yards. The Chinooks did not take a snap inside the Woodland 21-yard line all game, resulting in their first shutout loss since 2014.

“On the defensive side, there are definitely some alignment issues, but for the most part we’re pretty good,” said Daeton Lofgren, Woodland’s senior offensive lineman and linebacker.

On offense, it took a while for the Beavers to get a going, but the defense provided a spark as Keaton Northcut came up with a midfield interception in the second quarter.

Thirteen plays later, Northcut gave Woodland a 6-0 lead right before halftime with a 5-yard touchdown reception from Brett Martynowicz on fourth down.

The game stayed that way until an errant snap resulted in a safety and an 8-0 lead for Woodland early in the fourth quarter.

Then the Beavers’ offensive line started to assert itself, opening up holes for Andersen to seal the victory with two late touchdowns.

“They battled,” McDonald said. “We showed some good things for sure. In the second half, we put things together a bit more. We definitely need to get mentally tougher. We’ve got to fix the penalties. That’s going to kill us down the road.”

But for this week, Woodland can celebrate its first win in this rivalry in four years.

“It feels amazing,” Lofgren said. “The amount of work, blood, sweat and tears that we put in this summer, just to be able to do this — come out, get a victory on the first game, especially against a big rival like Kalama, it feels amazing.”

WOODLAND 22, KALAMA 0

Woodland 0 6 0 16–22

Kalama 0 0 0 0—0

Second quarter

W–Keaton Northcut 5 pass from Brett Martynowicz (kick failed)

Fourth quarter

W — Safety, ball snapped out of end zone

W — Elijah Andersen 1 run (Diego Almodovar kick)

W — Andersen 2 run (Almodovar kick)

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING — Woodland: Andersen 21-133, Justin Philpot 3-26, Northcut 1-9, Daeton Lofgren 2-0, Martynowicz 5-(-4). Kalama: Drew Schlangen 6-13, Chase Leigh 1-10, Hayden Lawson 2-1, Aiden Brown 7-(-21), team 1-(-14).

PASSING — Woodland: Martynowicz 14-29-0-122. Kalama: Brown 5-25-1-144.

RECEIVING — Woodland: Drew Burns 6-41, Northcut 3-37, Andersen 2-23, Hayden Clark 1-13, Landon Utter 1-6, Philpot 1-2. Kalama: Jaxxon Truesdell 2-86, Leight 1-42, Lawson 1-8, Brynden Swearingen 1-8.