Moses Lake mounts comeback but still falls

MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake High School Mavericks football team fought back from a 14-point deficit but the Kamiakin Braves scored late to take the win, 36-29, in Moses Lake’s first home game of the season.

Head coach Brett Jay said that while it was a tough loss, he was encouraged by the way the team came back after some costly mistakes in the first half.

“We finally started to see what our team was capable of,” Jay said.

Moses Lake opened the scoring when Isaiah Jackson-Moreno scored on an 11-yard pass from Brock Clark with 7:50 left in the first quarter. The Mavericks defense held the Braves on downs, but Kamiakin took advantage of a Moses Lake mistake. A bad exchange led to a loose ball, and Walker Fabbri picked it up and returned it for a touchdown. The game was tied 7-7 at the end of the first quarter.

Moses Lake took a 14-7 lead when Jackson-Moreno scored on a 30-yard pass from Clark with 10:45 left in the half. Kamiakin came back to tie the game 14-14 on an eight-yard touchdown pass from Carter Poland to Gabriel Tahir and a successful extra point.

Kamiakin’s Fabian Hernandez scored on a punt return to give the Braves the lead with 44 seconds remaining in the half.

“That’s a 14-point swing,” Jay said. “There were a couple of plays in the first half that slowed us down.”

Coaches and players talked about the mistakes at halftime, Jay said.

“We tried to get our guys to play four quarters of football,” he said. “They really responded well. We came out in the second half and did exactly what I thought we could do.”

Kamiakin had the only score in the third quarter, with Isaac Williams scoring on a 36-yard pass from Poland with 6:16 left. Moses Lake trailed 28-14 at the end of the third quarter, and that was when the Mavericks started making a comeback.

Jonah Robertson scored on a three-yard run with 10:56 left in the game to cut the lead to 28-21. Moses Lake intercepted an errant pass with 6:23 left, drove the ball downfield and scored to cut the lead to 28-27. The Mavericks then went for a two-point conversion and got it, to go ahead 29-28 with 3:29 left in the game.

The Mavericks defense held the Braves, forcing an incomplete pass on fourth down. But a pass interference penalty gave Kamiakin another chance, and Hernandez scored on an 11-yard pass from Poland to take the lead back, going up 36-29 on a successful two-point conversion with 1:10 left in the game. That was the final score.

Jay said the comeback was encouraging - Moses Lake got more physical, more opportunistic and improved their performance in the second half.

Being at home provided a boost, Jay said.

“It was a packed house,” he said. “We’re really grateful for our fan base.”

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.

Box score

Moses Lake 7-7-0-15 29

Kamiakin 7-14-7-8 36