3A State Football | Meadowdale masterpiece
BURIEN - The four-loss Meadowdale Mavericks are moving on to the quarterfinals.
Tight end Jacob Clampitt caught a 13-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Matt McDonagh with 36 seconds left to give Meadowdale a 20-19 win over Evergreen in a Class 3A first-round state playoff game Friday night at Highline Stadium.
Meadowdale (7-4) will play No. 4 O’Dea (11-0) next weekend as the Mavericks earned their first quarterfinal berth since 1979.
Eighth-ranked Evergreen (9-2) of White Center, which shared the Seamount League title, had hoped to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time since 1983.
Evergreen led 19-14 when it lost a fumble at its 43-yard line with 3:25 left. Five consecutive rushes by sophomore Naji Moore-Taylor moved Meadowdale to the 14. Three plays later, Moore-Taylor lost a yard to set up McDonagh’s pass to a wide-open Clampitt in the right corner of the end zone on fourth-and-four.
“I saw the defender fall down and I just had to catch it no matter what,” said Clampitt, who also had a TD catch in the first half.
The late fumble by Evergreen gave Clampitt a lot of confidence.
“That was like a sign,” Clampitt said. “We didn’t do much on offense the whole second half, and we finally got a break and took it to them.”
Charles Webster caught a 46-yard TD pass from Luther Leonard to give Evergreen a 19-13 lead on the first play of the fourth quarter. The Wolverines faced a third-and-four and decided to throw deep. They failed to score on a two-point conversion run.
Meadowdale of Lynnwood struggled in the second half. The Mavericks had the ball at the Evergreen 33 late in the third quarter before Johnny Jackson picked off a pass on fourth down to end the threat.
Moore-Taylor led Meadowdale with 109 yards on 20 carries.
“This was a big win for us,” Meadowdale coach Mark Stewart said. “We’ve been a pretty good football team the last couple of years, and this was probably a signature win against a really good team. It was an even game; we just made a play at the end and were fortunate to win.”
Meadowdale, which plays in the mostly 4A WesCo South, led 14-13 at halftime as the teams traded TDs twice over a wild three minutes.
Tonna Njoku gave Meadowdale a 7-0 lead on a 20-yard run before Evergreen answered with a 55-yard run by Nuve Kongaiaka, who finished with 106 yards on 11 carries. Meadowdale came back and scored on a 25-yard pass to Clampitt from McDonagh to go up 14-7.
A 63-yard kick return by Evergreen’s Kirt Terry-Springs set up a 6-yard TD run by Kyle Tunney, but the Wolverines missed the extra-point kick.
“It’s hard to go out like this with a one-point loss,” Evergreen coach Shaun Tarantola said. “Meadowdale made a lot of plays tonight. We made a lot of mistakes [four turnovers]. But I’m proud of our guys. That game could have gone either way.”