GSL football: Mt. Spokane uses two late drives, opportunistic defense to outlast University in GSL 3A battle

Mt. Spokane entered Friday’s home game against University riding high from its 16-14 win over Mead in their annual rivalry game last week.

But U-Hi was feeling pretty good too, with two league wins through four games putting the Titans squarely in the race for one of the three Greater Spokane League 3A berths to the Week 10 Round of 32 playoffs.

It was not pretty on occasion, but ultimately Mt. Spokane used two long fourth quarter drives and some opportune defense to hold off the Titans 21-9 – and hold onto a share of the top GSL 3A seed.

“We’ve been doing this long enough that after the Battle of the Bell, it’s always tough to find the emotion to play well the week after,” Wildcats coach Terry Cloer said. “So, you know, it was on us. We didn’t do a great job of keeping our composure and playing mistake-free football.”

The Wildcats have a showdown with Cheney (4-1) – which beat Shadle Park 61-0 on Friday – in Week 9 which could determine the top seed.

“I think there’s some teams (in the league) that are solid and that can beat you night in and night out,” Cloer said. “We’ve got to make sure that we get better every single week. … The goal for us is to peak at Week 10 and we took a step back tonight, and we can’t do that. We need to get going in the right direction and play our style of football and play better football regardless of the opponent.”

“We kind of got punched in the mouth a little bit,” Mt. Spokane junior quarterback Cade Strocsher said. “We had to, like, reset our focus. Shows a lot for our guys coming together.”

After a long scoring drive, Mt. Spokane led 21-2 early in the fourth quarter. But Titans quarterback Aidan Sauter hit Jaxon Lefler in stride in the middle of the field for a 57-yard touchdown catch-and-run to pull U-Hi within 21-9.

Mt. Spokane chewed up 5-plus minutes off the clock on its next possession, though it did not score, then the defense – namely linebacker Brendan Hughes – produced a strip-sack at the Titans 31 which sealed the win.

“He’s a tough guy to block, and he defended the strong side all night for us,” Cloer said. “He beats up the tight end and came in and got the trifecta – got the sack, the strip and the recovery.”

“I saw (Sauter) roll out, just came up and swatted the ball down and picked it up,” Hughes said. “I wanted to make a touchdown, but it sealed the game. We could have played better, but we still got the win. We’ve got to clean up a lot of things going into next week.”

Mt. Spokane took the game’s opening kickoff at its 22. After a couple of first downs, Strocsher connected with Rock Franklin on a 20-yard gain to the U-Hi 26. On second-and-2 at the 18, Strocsher hit Franklin again in the back corner of the end zone for a touchdown and 7-0 lead.

Sauter hemmed the Wildcats in at their 1 with a 56-yard punt and on the next play, Ethan Williams was tackled in the end zone for a safety.

Early in the second, Sauter dropped back to punt again. This time, Wildcats linebacker Logan Dawe broke through the line and blocked the punt, which was recovered at the U-Hi 41.

On the next play, Strocsher handed to Franklin, who rolled to the right and hit Andrew Thomas streaking down the right sideline uncovered for a touchdown and 14-2 lead.

The Titans moved the ball into Mt. Spokane territory on its next two possessions, but the drives ended on an incomplete fourth-down pass and a punt.

Wildcats defensive back Zander Nadherny picked off Sauter early in the third quarter, but Mt. Spokane had to punt it right back. The Titans went on a 14-play drive to the Wildcats 14, but Sauter’s fourth-down pass was knocked down by Maks McKee to turn it over on downs.

Mt. Spokane had to overcome a pair of unsportsmanlike penalties on its next drive, but the Wildcats went 86 yards in 10 plays, with Franklin taking a counter 13 yards for the score to make it 21-2 with 8:37 left in the game.

“It’s discipline. We’ve just got to be better,” Cloer said. “We can’t make those stupid mistakes. We have to celebrate with our team and find our guys and celebrate together as a team.”