PORT ANGELES — Port Angeles ran into the wrong football team at the wrong time Friday night.
Missing one of its most explosive athletes to injury, Port Angeles couldn’t get a handle on a North Kitsap squad that spent the past week stewing on a game it let get away.
North Kitsap seized control from the beginning and never let go in Friday night’s critical Olympic League contest, ruining the Roughriders’ homecoming with a decisive 35-14 win at chilly Civic Field.
“[North Kitsap] played a better game than we did tonight, no doubt about it,” Port Angeles coach Tom Wahl said. “We seemed like we were always fighting out of a hole in the first half.”
The loss spoiled Port Angeles’ unblemished record and muddied the waters in the Olympic League title race with two weeks to go.
Instead of needing only to win out to claim the title, the Riders (4-1 in league, 6-1 overall) now must also get help from rival Sequim, which plays at North Kitsap (4-1, 4-3) next Friday.
“We still got a shot at the league championship,” Wahl said. “I think we should be able to keep ourselves up and optimistic.”
North Kitsap came off the bus Friday night still fuming over a 34-28 overtime loss to Olympic the week before.
And the Vikings quickly took their frustrations out on a Port Angeles team that clearly missed speedy senior starter Cameron Braithwaite — out because of a knee injury.
North Kitsap scored on three of its four possessions to take a 21-0 lead 16 minutes into the game, mixing in play-action bootlegs with a deadly screen game.
The Vikings’ wing-T attack took advantage of a Rider secondary that had a sophomore starting in place of Braithwaite at cornerback as quarterback A.J. Milyard completed 9 of his first 15 passes for 156 yards and two touchdowns.
That included throws of 13 and 26 yards to Conner McCorkle and J.T. McCorkle on a two-play scoring drive to begin the game and set the tone for the evening.
“We had a bad taste in our mouth from last week, losing on our homecoming,” said Milyard, who spread the ball around to six receivers for 222 yards on 14-of-25 passing with three TDs and no interceptions.
“We just wanted to come out and punch them in the mouth right away. The two first plays got the momentum on our side and just helped us along the road.”
Every time Port Angeles appeared ready to take that energy back from North Kitsap on offense, it simply couldn’t break through.
A pair of costly special teams errors in the first quarter had the Riders starting drives on their 3- and 1-yard line.
The team’s one big play in the first half, an 86-yard scoring pass from Keenen Walker to Skyler Gray, was brought back to the Rider 32 because of an illegal block downfield and an unsportsmanlike penalty.
Port Angeles entered North Kitsap territory just once the entire half, on its final drive, and that came to a halt at the Viking 29 after Walker’s fourth-down pass fell incomplete.
The Riders failed to come up with a first down on its first three fourth-down conversions — all in North Kitsap territory.
The second, on fourth-and-7 at the Vikings 20, ended the Riders’ first drive of the second half.
North Kitsap immediately answered the stop with an 80-yard toss sweep from Dan Mitchell on the very next play for a 28-0 lead.
“Football is a game about momentum, and we just didn’t have the momentum off the start,” Rider running back Dylan Brewer said.
“They read plays well, they gang-tackled well and we were kind of shooting ourselves in the foot.”
Port Angeles was able to move the ball to some degree against North Kitsap with a special two-back set, totaling 15 first downs and 337 yards for the game, 204 coming on the ground.
Brewer had 126 of those yards on 18 carries.
But with Walker pressured consistently on pass dropbacks, and the Riders missing their leading receiver in Braithwaite, the passing game struggled.
Walker completed just 1 of his first 12 attempts and finished with 133 yards on 7-of-25 passing with one touchdown and two interceptions.
The senior quarterback scored the Riders’ first touchdown on a 5-yard keeper to put the score at 28-7 midway through the third quarter, but he was intercepted on the team’s next drive.
North Kitsap then scored six plays later on Milyard’s third passing touchdown of the night, a 26-yarder to McCorkle, to put the game away.
“We had a tough one last week,” said North Kitsap coach Jeff Weible, the recipient of a post-game Gatorade shower. “The kids just had a rotten taste in their mouth all week.
“They really came to work this week, and we had really good practices. Our coaches put together a good game-plan, and they just executed it.”
Eli Fiscalini scored the final touchdown of the game late in the fourth quarter on a 17-yard pass from Walker.
Fiscalini compiled 114 yards of offense, including 51 rushing yards on four carries, and Gray added 70 yards on three receptions.
But that wasn’t enough to overcome a motivated and tricky North Kitsap offense that rolled for 384 total yards, including 162 rushing.
“They did well controlling the ball,” Wahl said. “They made very few mistakes, as far as giving up the ball.
“They were able to do a variety of things. I thought they had a very nice balanced attack. They just really kept us off balance.”
N. Kitsap 35, Port Angeles 14
North Kitsap 14 7 7 7— 35
Port Angeles 0 0 7 7— 14
First Quarter
NK—Nettleton 26 pass from Milyard (Gracey kick)
NK—Fisher 2 run (Gracey kick)
Second Quarter
NK—Nettleton 25 pass from Milyard (Gracey kick)
Third Quarter
NK—Mitchell 80 run (Gracey kick)
PA—Walker 5 run (Haskins kick)
Fourth Quarter
NK—McCorkle 26 pass from Milyard (Gracey kick)
PA—Fiscalini 17 pass from Walker (Haskins kick)
Individual Stats
Rushing— PA: Brewer 18-126, Fiscalini 4-51, Walker 12-40, Gray 4-(minus 13). NK: Mitchell 7-107, McCorkle 6-33, Golden 9-30, Fisher 3-9, Loveless 1-2, Young 1-(minus 8), Gill 1-(minus 2), Milyard 3-(minus 9).
Passing—PA: Walker 7-25-2, 133. NK: Milyard 14-25-0, 222.
Receiving—PA: Gray 3-70, Fiscalini 4-63. NK: Urquhart 4-77, Nettleton 4-51, McCorkle 2-39, Hadden 2-36, Golden 1-11, Adams 1-8.