Lifting daughter Jordyn into his arms, and with son Kolten attached to his leg, first-year Eastside Catholic head coach Jason Gesser let out a huge grin on Friday night.
“It’s amazing,” said Gesser, when asked what it felt like to beat Archbishop Murphy 20-14 for his first victory as a head coach. “We game-planned our butts off for this game. Our coaches worked very, very hard.”
The winningest quarterback in Washington State University history highlighted his young team’s motivation as the prime reason the Crusaders were able to bounce back from a tough defeat last week, and knock off one of the best teams in the 2A classification.
“These guys will run through a wall for you,” he said. “You coach them up, you tell them what to do, and they’ll do it. That’s all you can ask for as a coach.”
Trailing 14-7 at the start of the fourth quarter, the Crusaders reached down and displayed the grit Gesser was so proud of.
Facing a second-and-27 from its own 10-yard line, Eastside senior quarterback Connor McCormick scrambled backward into his own end zone. With a Wildcat defender in hot pursuit, McCormick heaved a pass down the right sideline to an area where two of his receivers were hanging out. Senior Luke Nelson pulled in the pass, completing the play for 53 yards.
“I saw the broken play,” said Nelson, who had eight catches for 127 yards. “I was supposed to be running a post, but I saw him rolling out. I saw my other receiver made a play on it, but he couldn’t make it, and I knew it was my ball and I had to come down with it.”
Three plays later, McCormick found senior receiver Alec Kimble on a 17-yard fade route to the right corner of the end zone, tying the game 14-14 with 5:20 left in the game.
With momentum rolling Gesser asked his defense to get the ball back, and they responded.
On an attempted trick play, Archbishop backup quarterback Conner Kruse handed the ball to starting quarterback Austin VanderWel on a reverse. Senior safety Matt Freeman was there waiting on the play, knocking the ball from VanderWel’s hand just as he prepared to throw the ball. He recovered the loose ball at the Wildcat 25 with 3:44 remaining in the contest.
“I put my hand up,” Freeman said. “Instincts just took over. I got my hand right there to knock it back.”
Four plays later sophomore running back Chevelle Walker broke loose up the middle for a 9-yard score with 1:50 left on the clock. Eastside’s defense held from there, forcing a four-and-out.
Things didn’t start so smoothly for the Crusaders, however.
After punting on their first possession of the game, Eastside allowed Archbishop to march 70 yards on 14 plays, capped off by a 10-yard touchdown run by VanderWel.
The series acted as a reminder of the previous week’s 24-10 loss to Olympic — a game that saw the opponent jump out to a quick two-touchdown advantage.
“We knew we had to slow them down so our offense could get on track,” Freeman said. “We realized that Olympic is not going to happen again. We can’t let them get on us early.
The defense answered the call. Eastside forced Archbishop into three turnovers on its next three possessions.
Meanwhile, the offense started to find a groove of its own. McCormick, who completed 18 of 23 passes for 203 yards, connected with Kimble for a 9-yard TD with 8:07 to go in the second quarter.
The Crusaders forced the Wildcats into five turnovers Friday night — something head coach Dave Ward is unaccustomed to.
“That’s crazy, we had none last week,” Ward said. “We just let them hang around, hang around, and they got stronger as the game went on.”
Eastside Catholic improved to 1-1 in non-league play, and Archbishop Murphy dropped to 1-1.
“This is just such an accomplishment from last week to this week,” McCormick said. “Last week’s loss, we could have responded really low to that … but we made a decision to come out here Monday and work hard, and it showed tonight.”
The Crusaders host non-league North Mason at 7 p.m., Friday, Sept. 18. League play starts the following week at Lakeside.
