On Saturday on Oct. 1, the Puget Sound football team faced off against cross-town rival, Pacific Lutheran, at Sparks Stadium in Puyallup. As the Loggers battled for a win, the game sadly ended in a 21-7 loss. However, from the many turnovers forced by the Logger defense and the way they played, it would appear that the Loggers should have scored more than one touchdown. Either way, this was a hard loss for them.
During the first quarter the pressure was apparent as both teams tried to score the first touchdown of the game. The Logger defense forced two turnovers when the Lutes attempted to drive the ball down the field. They also recovered a fumble made by PLU. An exciting moment in the first quarter occurred when senior Tyler Vlasak (Sumner, Wash.) intercepted a pass from the PLU quarterback, and rushed 10 yards. In addition, Vlasak led the Loggers with 13 tackles during the game.
Freshman Connor Savage (Bothell, Wash.) also intercepted a pass from PLU and returned it 11 yards for the Loggers.
An amazing game of defense was played for the Loggers. This was quite noticeable the moment they stepped onto the field and they held strong in the beginning of the game. The first quarter ended in a 0-0 tie, but in the beginning of the second quarter, the Lutes scored a touchdown, making the game 7-0.
The Logger defense continued to make big plays, one being senior Darmakus Milner (Tacoma, Wash.) forcing a Lute fumble on the one yard line that senior Justin Erickson (Eatonville, Wash.) recovered. The second quarter ended favoring the Lutes 7-0.
In the second half, the Logger defense could no longer hold back the Lute’s offense, as the Lutes scored twice to gain a 21-0 lead in the game. The Loggers were in scoring distance three times during game play but could not manage to score until the last minute of the fourth quarter. Senior George Ka’ai (Aiea, Hawaii) threw a touchdown pass to senior Ryan Rogers (Tacoma, Wash.) to bring the final score of the game 21-7.
Overall, the Loggers threw 326 yards, but were held to only 7 yards of rushing. This is the first conference loss for the Loggers, making them 0-1 in the Northwest Conference.
“It was a really tough loss on many different levels. What makes it so hard is not that it was against PLU or that it was our first conference game, but that we had a really good game plan going in and just didn’t execute. We were expecting to win, and we should have. We’ve got to find a way to put all the pieces together. From here we just have to keep working hard and expect that it will pay off, and I truly believe it will,” Erickson said.
This team will have a chance to win and hopefully make everything come together this weekend as they face off against the nationally ranked Linfield Wildcats.