Othello drops Kelso 42-24

OTHELLO — The Huskies gained more than 350 yards on offense and scored six touchdowns on the ground in Friday night’s 42-24 win over Kelso, using a fast start to take a 20-3 lead into the half.

Disregarding kneel-downs, the Huskies scored on six of their seven offensive drives Friday night.

“Our offense wanted to set the tone after not having a great game last week,” Othello junior Mason Perez said. “We wanted to show what we can actually do.”

Last week’s game was a 17-10 win over Ellensburg.

The Huskies scored on all three of their drives in the first half, with the first touchdown coming on a one-yard run by junior Jordan Deleon just under four minutes into the game. After the Othello defense held the Highlanders to a field goal in the red zone, sophomore Gavin Carl pushed the lead to 14-3 in the second quarter on a one-yard touchdown run.

“Coach (Roger) Hoell’s really good with the film study, and we saw some things offensively we felt like we could exploit,” Othello Defensive Coordinator Kevin Hale said. “Defensively, we were pretty much going to do the same thing because Kelso is very similar to what Ellensburg did the previous week.”

Deleon reached the end zone again in the second quarter, scoring from five yards out to put the Huskies up 20-3 just before halftime.

“All my credit goes to the offensive line,” Deleon said. “They did great opening up for me; second-level blocks, first level — all I saw was green.”

Kelso came out strong in the second half, scoring a touchdown on a 62-yard drive to begin the third quarter. Othello answered with a 10-yard touchdown run by senior Alex Mendez, his first of three touchdowns in the second half.

The Highlanders again got into the end zone on a seven-yard touchdown run by junior Aden Mintonye with 3:18 remaining in the third quarter.

“We knew they were going to come after us in the second half because they had to, and they did,” Hale said. “Give them credit, they are really, really tough. They never gave up, kept fighting and we had to earn it. Luckily, we did.”

Mendez scored touchdowns on Othello’s first three drives of the second half, scoring from 10, 62 and 28 yards out.

“Coaching defense, it takes a little bit of the pressure off knowing that the offense is flowing and we can score points like that,” Hale said. “It’s a good feeling, and hopefully we can keep that momentum. For most of the past weeks we’ve been scoring quite a few points.”

Othello and Kelso were set to play in Kelso last season, but the game was canceled. Hale said the team was anticipating a matchup against the Highlanders.

“We were definitely looking forward to playing them,” Hale said. “A 3A school, looking at them on film they’re big, strong kids. We knew they were going to present some unique challenges for us.”

Othello improved to 6-2 with the win and remains holding a 4-1 record in the Central Washington Athletic Conference, checking in at second place in the league standings according to the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association.

The Huskies travel to East Valley (Yakima) on Friday night. The top two teams from the CWAC qualify for a berth in the 2A state playoffs; Ephrata remains in first place despite losing to Prosser 28-21 on Thursday.

“It’s a pretty big one, we win that game and we have a chance to be league champs depending on other results,” Hale said. “A win gets us to state no matter what without depending on anything else. East Valley’s a really good team, we’ve just got to have focused practices this week.”

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.

Box score

Kelso: 3-0-15-6 24

Othello: 7-13-14-8 42