Late clutch plays lift Washougal over Aberdeen 35-21 in 2A district football playoffs

WASHOUGAL — At moments when ‘Plan A’ didn’t work for the Washougal football team Saturday, the Panthers seemingly always answered with a course correction.

The Panthers captured a 35-21 win over Aberdeen at Fishback Stadium in the Class 2A District 4 playoffs to reach the 2A state playoffs for the second consecutive season.

To get there, Washougal dealt with a number of nerve-wracking moments, particularly early in the fourth quarter after it gave the ball back to Aberdeen in a 21-21 game.

But when the Bobcats coughed up the ball on a fumble, recovered by Washougal’s Brayden Padilla, the Panthers thrived in the clutch with a game-winning drive to put them over the top.

Washougal methodically moved from midfield inside the 20-yard line, thanks to a pair of third-down, chain-moving completions from quarterback Holden Bea to receivers Deondrae Goodell and Sam Evers. Running backs William Cooper and Mercy Johnston did the rest. After Cooper gained 5 yards to get the Panthers inside the 10, Johnston scored the go-ahead, 6-yard touchdown to give the Panthers the lead for good.

“Once the second half started … something happened, something clicked,” Goodell said. “We just played how we were all season and we just did great for the rest of the game.

“It was very nerve-wracking, but we pulled through and we did what we were supposed to do. We did our job. No mental mistakes, and we did good all the way through.”

And on the topic of mistakes, perhaps no one did a better job of correcting them than Goodell.

Aberdeen led 14-7 at the end of the first quarter on a pair of rushing touchdowns from running back Aidan Watkins. To start the second, Bea swung a short pass out to Goodell that was jarred loose and recovered by the Bobcats.

With momentum on the visitors’ side, it could’ve been a make-or-break moment for Washougal. Instead, Goodell grabbed an interception on Aberdeen quarterback Grady Springer three players later and returned it to the Aberdeen 25, setting up a 23-yard touchdown pass from Bea to Brandon Austenfeld.

Goodell later hauled in a 24-yard touchdown pass from Bea, then made his second interception of the quarter to send the Panthers to halftime with a 21-14 lead.

“I was mad,” Goodell said. “I was like, I’m gonna have to do something to do our team better. So I came back, I did what I could and it worked out well.”

Washougal had the lead, but it was far from safe.

Summoning extra energy late in the second half, Goodell said, was the product of a halftime speech from senior lineman Jose Alvarez-Cruze, one of the team’s most vocal leaders.

“He does it every halftime, and it really brings the team up every day,” Goodell said.

The message of this particular talk was simple, but effective.

“My big point this week was, I don’t want this to be my last football game,” Alvarez-Cruze said. “Not all of our seniors are going to college, so we’ve got to make it worth it for everybody. That was our big thing.”

After Washougal scored the go-ahead touchdown with 4 minutes, 18 seconds remaining, its defense acted as the closer by turning the ball over on downs.

On first down, Johnston and Cooper Maxey combined to make a tackle for loss. On second down, a fumbled snap backed Aberdeen up another five yards. A third-down pass was knocked down at the line of scrimmage by Harry DeShazer. Then, on 4th-and-17, Elijah Franco made the hit on a receiver over the middle for an incomplete pass.

“We just wanted the game to end and we just wanted it to be over to go to the next round,” Goodell said. “That’s all we wanna do right now, is just keep going up in state.”

The Panthers (8-2) suffered two losses during the 2A Greater St. Helens League slate to Woodland and Ridgefield, but bounced back in the final weeks of the regular season and earned the No. 2 seed in the league out of a three-team tiebreaker on Monday.

“We do our best to flush it,” Alvarez-Cruze said. “Learn from it, but flush it. We can’t let it drag us down.”

Matchups for the 2A state playoffs will be announced Sunday.

WASHOUGAL 35, ABERDEEN 21

Aberdeen 14 0 7 0—21

Washougal 7 14 0 14—35

First quarter

A — Aidan Watkins 3 run (Edmond Brown kick)

W — Sam Evers 19 pass from Holden Bea (Koby Johnson kick)

A — Watkins 15 run (Brown kick)

Second quarter

W — Brandon Austenfeld 23 pass from Bea (Johnson kick)

W — Deondrae Goodell 24 pass from Bea (Johnson kick)

Third quarter

A — Watkins 2 run (Brown kick)

Fourth quarter

W — Mercy Johnston 6 run (Johnson kick)

W — Bea 3 run (Johnson kick)

Individual statistics

RUSHING — Aberdeen: Aidan Watkins 22-131, Marcus Hale 14-62, Micah Schroeder 7-19, Grady Springer 7-15; Washougal: William Cooper 14-38, Holden Bea 9-3, Mercy Johnston 1-6, Team 2-(minus 4).

PASSING — Aberdeen: Grady Springer 1-8-2-27; Washougal: Holden Bea 10-19-0-136.

RECEIVING — Aberdeen: Marcus Hale 1-27; Washougal: Sam Evers 3-41, Brandon Austenfeld 3-41, Deondrae Goodell 3-45, Brayden Padilla 1-8.