Camas FB bounces back for 35-22 win

After a humbling loss to Mt. Tahoma in its home football opener last week, Camas junior Thor Brody summed up the week to follow succinctly.

“Practice was hard,” he said. “One-hundred percent, it was hard.”

The Papermakers embrace the hard, because they know it will lead to better results down the line.

“We know what we signed up for,” Camas coach Adam Mathieson said.

Camas used that Week 2 loss to Mt. Tahoma as an opportunity to get better, and the Papermakers showed those improvements across the board in a 35-22 win over Lincoln of Tahoma on Friday at Doc Harris Stadium.

A defense that surrendered 42 points one week ago limited Lincoln to two touchdown drives, forced two turnovers and held the Abes to 0-for-3 on fourth-down attempts.

The Papermakers’ offense, which has 10 new starters this season, put together a balanced attack behind quarterback Tyson Ruggiero’s 208 passing yards and four touchdowns, two of which went to tight end Zachary Jones. Brody paced the Papermakers’ ground game with 116 yards and one touchdown on 29 attempts.

“We did not want to lose again,” Brody said. “It’s really something when we lose at Doc Harris, it doesn’t happen often, so we weren’t gonna let it happen again.”

That mindset shined through to start when Camas gave up a 50-yard pass from Sione Kaho to Ka’Isaiah Wilson on the first play from scrimmage, only to turn back Lincoln with a fourth-down goal-line stand at the 1-yard line.

Momentum-swinging plays like that, and a second-quarter interception from Armani Dukes, set up two Camas touchdown drives to take a 15-7 halftime lead.

Lincoln got within 22-15 in the third quarter on Jadeon Scranton’s 2-yard touchdown run, then receoverd a Camas fumble with a chance for a game-tying drive.

The Papermakers’ defense forced three straight incompletions on Kaho, the No. 2-ranked prospect in Washington according to 247Sports, for another turnover on downs.

Ruggiero threw touchdown passes to Dukes and Maxwell Gibson in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach.

“The guys did a great job,” Mathieson said. “It’s a prideful group of young people. When you play football at Camas, you don’t schedule soft. We’re in a stretch of four or five games against top-10 football teams, so they responded how they should.”