It was a wild football game on the Camas Prairie in Fairfield Friday afternoon—92 points, 13 touchdowns including six scores of 64 yards or more and 1,344 total yards.
Just another hair-raising meeting between the Carey Panther and Camas County Musher football teams, with the Sawtooth Conference West championship at stake as well as the homefield advantage for the first round of the State 1A Division 2 eight-man playoffs.
And it's not even October.
Undefeated Carey (4-0, 1-0 league) prevailed in Friday's grudge match, scoring 30 unanswered points in the middle quarters to break open a close 22-20 game and turn the outcome into a 60-32 laugher over reigning Sawtooth West champion Camas County (2-2, 0-1).
Coach Randy Jewett's Camas County Mushers had won three of the last four games between the two rivals including two mercy-rule beatings—52-6 last fall in Carey and 48-0 in Fairfield in 2003.
"We've been waiting for this for about three years," said a winded Carey coach Lane Kirkland after the hard-fought game. "It was a great win for us, a good confidence builder for the rest of the season and a good start on winning the conference championship."
Senior quarterback Tyler Cook was on fire for Carey, completing 15-of-22 passes for 412 yards and five touchdowns. His main target was junior Brad Hunt (9 catches for 249 yards, 3 TD). Sophomore scatback Connor Rivera rushed 26 times for 140 yards and one TD.
But it was junior Cody Baird (4 tackles, 9 assists), the heart-and-soul of Carey's defense, who said it best afterwards. "It was Carey pride," Baird said.
After Carey yielded two long kickoff TD returns and one 73-yard scoring pass and found itself in a 22-20 ballgame with tempers flaring on both sides, it was gut-check time in the wide open, back-and-forth contest.
Baird said, "We kept together as a team and kept talking to each other. We knew we had to stay together and not talk back. Right after the half we got the ball back and went down and scored. That boosted our momentum."
Actually it was Baird who provided perhaps the biggest play of the game on offense.
Forty-two points were scored in the first 16 minutes and Camas County's emotion was building. Each time Carey scored in the first two quarters, the Mushers answered immediately, the final time on Chase Lee's 73-yard TD reception from Trevor Dalin. It was 22-20.
With the Camas defense stiffening and Carey's offense backpedaling with two holding penalties, the Panthers had third-and-21 at the Carey 27.
Cook tossed a screen pass in the right flat to Baird. Baird looked for his blockers and decided to go it alone, accelerating through a seam and finishing with a 73-yard TD run. Quite a moment, just four minutes before the half, and Carey went to the break leading 28-20.
"The kids never smiled at halftime. We were upset at ourselves," said Kirkland. "The first half was not the way we planned to start. Our communication lines broke down and we didn't score in the red zone. But we made up for it in the third quarter. We executed."
Carey's Cook-to-Hunt combination connected six times for 194 yards in the second half alone, starting with an 80-yard TD aerial less than a minute into the third. A fumble recovery led to a two-yard Baird scoring run, and another Panther fumble recovery gave Hunt a chance for a fine diving TD catch from 21 yards for a 52-20 lead with four minutes gone.
Kirkland said the Panther players came out of the game healthy, even senior co-captain Devin Simpson who had to leave prematurely with a slight muscle pull above the knee.
Besides quarterback Dalin (3 TD passes), the top Musher player was 6-0 senior Josh Shroyer, who shrugged off his own knee injury and rushed 24 times for a game-high 170 yards and one TD on a kickoff return. Shroyer (8 tackles) was a top defensive player. Others were Tucker Hathaway (11), Jordan Lemons (11) and Dalin (10).
Game at Richfield Friday
Carey (55.5 points per game) has enjoyed a high-scoring renaissance this fall, but it's been a tough season for a shorthanded and injury-plagued Richfield Tigers eight-man squad.
After winning five straight games last fall including a 38-34 victory at Carey Oct. 22 that snapped a 15-game losing streak to Carey grid teams, Richfield (5-4) qualified for the State 1A Division 2 playoffs and lost at eventual state runner-up Mackay 66-20 last Nov. 5.
Richfield graduated a fine senior class including stud Victor Vasquez (337 all-purpose yards against Carey). This season the Tigers (0-4) are on the outside looking in with three losses by a 138-24 score and a forfeit loss to Mackay.
Carey coach Kirkland said the Panthers will take a full squad to Richfield for Friday's 7 p.m. Sawtooth Conference West tussle, then Carey will set its sights on a huge Division 2 eight-man game at Mackay (4-0) Wednesday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m.
