Soap Lake defeats Waterville, 78-36

Friday's game began with Waterville jumping out to an early first quarter lead and it looked as though the Eagles recent slump would continue.

After trailing 22-14 at the end of the first, Soap Lake played one of their best quarters of football this season and it couldn't have come at a more opportune time. The Eagles outscored Waterville 28-0 in the second quarter, gaining the momentum and going on to outscore their opponent 64-14 over the final three quarters en route to a 78-36 win. The recent woes were erased for the Eagles with an impressive win that was an absolute necessity to get the season turned around and things heading in the right direction.

"The game-breaker for us happened late in the second quarter," head coach Joe Worsham said. "On 4th down we threw a screen pass to Ben Winters for 31 yards. Cutshall then completed a 4-yard pass to Nic Kapalo with seven seconds left on the clock. On the ensuing kickoff Julio Gomez kicked and bounced the ball off a Waterville player and Julio recovered the ball with 2 seconds left. Joe Cutshall then threw a 45 yard scoring pass to Kapalo. So, we tallied 16 points in the last seven seconds of the half."

It's one of those sequences you usually only see on a video game, but it played out on the field for the Eagles on Friday and was quite possibly the turning point of the year for this Soap Lake team. Soap Lake's quarterback Joe Cutshall threw for six touchdowns in the first half and remained calm under pressure to lead the team to a commanding 42-22 lead at the half. After the monster first half, the Eagles would turn to the ground game and Cutshall would run in Soap Lake's first touchdown of the second half on a keeper from 25 yards out. Dustin Foster, Neo Wells, and Ruvim Turchik would all rush for touchdowns in the second half, as Soap Lake controlled the time of possession and the pace of the game on their way to a 78-36 much needed win.

"It was a very good game for our team. I think that some of our players' frustrations from the previous two losses were taken out on Waterville this week." Worsham said.

The past two weeks have been rough for the Eagles, who started 3-0 for the first time in six years, only to lose the next two games. The team was having trouble adjusting to different offensive schemes, tackling, and executing their defensive game plan. With team captain David Odarchuk injured, the future looked bleak for this year's Eagles team, but this week they showed their resilience and with Cutshall, Kapalo and Wells all stepping up, Soap Lake showed they still have fight in them and they are going to be a dangerous team down the stretch.

Coming up this Friday Soap Lake will host Pateros in a home game that could determine what direction the Eagles go from here. Is it reverting back to the team that lost two straight and struggled to overcome injury and adversity or is the team that started 3-0 and scored 78 points in a statement win this past week? This Friday the Billygoats make the trip to Soap Lake to find out which Eagles team will take the field.