Early miscues too costly for Camas

The Camas football team had little margin for error in recent weeks as injuries piled up.

And in Saturday’s Class 4A state playoff first round game against Skyline, self-inflicted errors were too much for the Papermakers to overcome.

The Spartans of Sammamish jumped ahead in the first quarter by 14 points — which included a botched Camas punt recovered in the end zone for a Skyline touchdown — and held that lead for the remainder of a 33-20 win.

Despite multiple comeback attempts into the second half, No. 8 Camas (8-3)saw its season end in the first round of the playoffs after reaching last year’s 4A state championship game.

“It’s a good team, we just hurt ourselves (with) mental mistakes,” senior linebacker Hayden Ollmann said. “It’s hard to stay out of your head in the game sometimes, and sometimes you just need someone to remind you, someone to know you have their back so they can have your back.”

Camas pulled within 20-14 after junior quarterback Ben Druckman, who made his second start for injured senior Tyson Ruggiero, threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to Ronan Loop with under three minutes left in the second quarter.

The Papermakers then forced a three-and-out and gave their offense a chance to get more points before halftime. Instead, the Papermakers lost the ball and their quarterback for the remainder of the game.

With 48 seconds left in the half, Skyline pressured Druckman for a sack and fumble, recovered at the Camas 19-yard line. Druckman exited the game with an injury. On Skyline’s next play, Luke Morgan caught a 19-yard touchdown from quarterback Ben Odom, giving the Spartans a 26-14 lead at halftime.

To the Papermakers’ credit, they continued to battle down multiple scores.

Their defense got back-to-back stops to open the second half, but missed a golden opportunity to get within one score late in the third quarter when the Spartans’ defense bottled up three straight run plays inside the 5-yard line and forced an incompletion on fourth down.

“I’m proud of these guys,” Ollmann said. “We played Mount Tahoma … we played West Linn, two really good teams, a top team in Idaho (Coeur d’Alene), played a lot of tough teams. But each week we got beat, we got back up to the next week.”