Upset bid slips from Toppenish’s grasp

Miscues keep Wildcats from upending Othello ||

TOPPENISH, Wash. — The frustration of what might have been did nothing to dim the fervor of the Toppenish football players who knew, the lie told in the orange glow of the scoreboard lights notwithstanding, that they had arrived.

“I’m a Wildcat, I’m a Wildcat, I’m a Wildcat ’til I die,” they sang with gusto, surrounding head coach Jason Smith and his staff, who in three years have transformed Toppenish from a CWAC lesser light into a team to be reckoned with.

The 33-14 score of the Wildcats’ Friday loss to Othello didn’t begin to tell the story of a slugfest between two evenly matched teams. Had not the Wildcats lost three turnovers deep in the Othello end … had a certain touchdown pass not dribbled off a Wildcat receiver’s fingers … and had not Toppenish fumbled the ball away on three consecutive touches down the stretch …

Toppenish’s Peter Equihua tries to pull in a pass Friday against Othello. (TJ Mullinax/Yakima Herald-Republic)

“Just simple mistakes we can improve on,” sighed Toppenish senior Carlos Ramirez, who rushed for 142 yards and a touchdown. “We were there. We killed ourselves with mistakes.”

And, in the end, Othello junior running back Caleb Garza broke the Wildcats’ backs, rushing for three of his four touchdowns and 149 of his 216 yards in the final 1 1/2 quarters.

“The first half was tough. They were tough,” Garza said. “That first half, they were hitting us hard and we were hitting them hard. I think our offensive line started to take over in the second half, and when I saw green, I took it.”

In the first half, though, it was the Wildcats who were eating up more yardage than the perennial powerhouse Huskies (2-1 CWAC, 2-2 overall). Toppenish had 181 first-half yards to Othello’s 104, and only two turnovers deep in Othello territory and that dropped would-be scoring pass kept them from being ahead.

Instead, the game was tied 7-7 going into the second half, and after Othello scored on its opening possession of the third quarter, the Wildcats’ problems began in earnest. Toppenish (2-1, 3-1) lost a fumbled snap on a second-and-five at the Othello 23, and after forcing the Huskies into a three-and-out, fumbled the punt return. That set Othello up for the go-ahead touchdown, and when Toppenish muffed the ensuing squib kickoff, Garza made them pay with a 25-yard scoring run.

Just like that — because of three consecutive Wildcat miscues — a game in which Toppenish had played head-to-head with their longtime nemesis suddenly looked one-sided.

“We didn’t do what we needed to do,” said Smith, whose Wildcats had been trying for their first 4-0 start since 1991. “We came out and tried to do what we needed to do, and didn’t get it done — maybe it was nerves, maybe it was the game plan, I honestly don’t know.

“Maybe if we do our jobs, maybe we take it down to the end or into overtime. But we didn’t.”

That’s the thing, though. It’s been years since Toppenish was in the position to knock off one of the CWAC’s heavyweights.

Now, just maybe, they are one.