SPOKANE — One rematch out of the way, the Burlington-Edison Tigers will get the chance to avenge their state championship defeat of a year ago.
The Tiger football team posted its second Class 2A state quarterfinal win over Pullman in as many years Saturday, beating the Greyhounds 14-7.
That win, coupled with undefeated Prosser’s victory over Othello, means the two 2007 finalists will square off next Saturday in Moses Lake. No time has been set, but Tigers coach Bruce Shearer said the game will likely be in the early afternoon.
“We still have some unfinished business from last year,” Shearer said, referring to Prosser’s 42-7 win. “It’s just as well we play them. It’s great to be 11-1 and going into the semifinals two years in a row.”
The Tigers had to come from down at the half to win for the second straight week.
“We weren’t nervous,” senior Cole Sager told The Spokesman-Review. “This team has so much determination. We have some unfinished business. We finished second in the state last year. That’s not going to happen again.
“We knew if Troy O’Neill wouldn’t have caught that ball, we would have found a way.”
That ball was a 79-yard pass from Dylan Boe in the fourth quarter, a ball Shearer estimated traveled 50-55 yards in the air before settling into the waiting arms of O’Neill behind the Greyhound defense.
“It wasn’t a great passing situation, but it was a situation where we felt we could throw,” Shearer said. “Dylan put it right on the money. Troy outran the defender, then really ran away.”
That play, plus a two-point conversion pass from Boe to O’Neill, gave the Tigers their first lead of the game at 14-7 early in the fourth quarter. The Burlington-Edison defense then had to stop two more Pullman drives into its territory. Sager, who had ended one Pullman drive with an interception at the goal line, picked off a second pass to end the first threat.
“It was a combination of pressure from the defensive line,” Sager told The Spokesman-Review. “Their second half was so much better than the first. I just dropped back in my zone and read it and there it was.”
The Tigers held on fourth down with about a minute left to cement the victory.
Dion Wise ended another second-half Pullman threat with a tackle on a fake punt.
“Dion Wise made a pair of huge tackles,” Shearer said. “He just cold cocked these guys — decleated them. That was big.”
Stetson Shearer had 83 rushing yards on 12 carries to lead the Tigers, and also scored the team’s first touchdown on a 3-yard scamper in the third quarter. Boe scrambled 13 yards on fourth-and-6 to keep the drive alive.
A low snap cost the Tigers the extra point, leaving the score 7-6.
Lance Keithley scored on a 5-yard run in the second quarter for Pullman, which finished the year at 9-3.
“We knew we had to play mistake-free football and we didn’t,” Pullman coach Bill Peterson told The Spokesman-Review. “We knew they were good, that league is tough, they have two teams still playing. You have to bring your ‘A’ game.
“They’re our measuring stick and we’re close. We just have to find a way to tame the Tigers.”
• Dave Trimmer of The Spokesman-Review contributed to this report.
