Washington survives Cedar Falls upset bid

CEDAR RAPIDS - They needed a gutcheck and got one.

'It was a matter of time before it happened, and we are very proud of the way our offense and defense, our entire team, responded,” Cedar Rapids Washington Coach Paul James said, after his top-ranked Warriors overcame Cedar Falls, 25-14, in a Class 4A second-round playoff game Monday night at rainy, windy Kingston Stadium.

This is a Washington group that ran over everyone and everything in its regular-season path, not having a game any closer than 17 points. It led Clinton in the second quarter of its first-round playoff game last week, 64-0.

The Warriors still haven't faced a deficit in a game, yet, but this one was close to it. And, as James said, they responded.

Washington (11-0) plays a 4A quarterfinal Friday night against an undetermined opponent.

'It was a good way to see how we would overcome adversity,” said Washington two-way lineman Julian Good-Jones, whose interception in the final two minutes finally put Cedar Falls (8-3) away. 'This is definitely a good thing because I know we're going to keep seeing good teams further on in the playoffs.”

A touchdown pass from Taylen Alexander to Ben Fineup brought Cedar Falls within 18-14 early in the fourth quarter, but Washington went on an 11-play, 77-yard drive that chewed over five minutes off the clock and helped save its season. Fullback Connor Vincent banged over from the 6-yard line to punctuate an entirely ground-based march.

It was tailback Tavian Patrick and fullback Caleb Smothers who did virtually all of the heavy lifting, trading carries that matriculated the ball downfield.

'We played well in the first half, but we wanted to execute a little bit better,” Smothers said. 'We wanted to go into the second half winning every play. If we lost a play, don't let it get into your head, just keep going and pushing. That drive, there was a couple of times where we didn't get any yards, but we kept pushing, kept going, never gave up on any play. That's just how we pushed through it.”

'We were really amped up in the huddle,” Good-Jones said. 'We were like ‘OK, let's go. We've got this.' We had to stay on our blocks, and that's exactly what we did. We exerted our will.”

Patrick scored from 22 yards out midway through the first quarter for the game's first points, though the extra point was blocked. Patrick then blocked a Cedar Falls punt in the second quarter that Jared Thorson pounced on just before it went out of the end zone for a TD and 12-0 Washington lead.

Cedar Falls got back into the game right before the half with a Fineup 1-yard touchdown run. That came on 4th-and-goal.

The Tigers made another fateful mistake at the start of the second half when punter Tyler Schmidt couldn't handle a low snap and was tackled at the Cedar Falls 15. Reid Snitker connected with Landen Akers on an 11-yard TD pass on fourth down to make it 18-7 after another botched extra-point attempt.

Washington held CF to just 88 total yards.

'We knew we could play with them,” Cedar Falls Coach Brad Remmert said. 'You just can't have mistakes like we did.”

'We really haven't been challenged this season, have pretty much stomped everybody,” Smothers said. 'This game, they came out and played their hardest. It was a really good football game. We did need that. We really did.”

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