Resilient Camas tops Olympia 31-14

CAMAS — Resilience was the word of the week for the Camas Papermakers ahead of Friday’s Class 4A state preliminary round game against Olympia, and it could only begin to describe a long list of injuries and their response to that challenge.

But a group of players who were healthy enough to go gritted out an inspired performance to earn a 31-14 win over the Bears and a spot in next week’s the 4A state playoffs.

Senior Cade Lukens caught a game-sealing, 35-yard touchdown pass from junior Ben Druckman with four minutes left after sitting out six weeks with a torn labrum, which will require surgery next Wedensday.

Druckman took charge of the Camas offense by thowing four touchdown passes in a fill-in start for senior Tyson Ruggiero, who suffered an elbow injury suffered last week against Skyview.

The Papermakers’ offensive line started their 10th different combination in 10 weeks, and even needed senior linebacker Hayden Ollmann to switch jersey numbers midway through the game in order to sub in at left guard.

Those were just a few examples of how the Papermakers patched together a win to extend their season.

“It’s a resilient group,” Camas coach Adam Mathieson said.

“Next man up — a lot of programs say that, we say it and I don’t know if we believe it all the time. … But next man, man. Put a guy on the field, and they made a play.”

The Papermakers’ mettle was tested from the get-go.

Olympia’s Tucker Downing threw touchdown passes to Charles DeBord and Kameron Kronmeyer, respectively, on the first two drives of the opening quarter.

That was all the Camas defense gave up.

Senior defensive backs Kyler Jacobson and Joshua Webb forced a pair of second-quarter interceptions, the latter leading to a 3-yard Druckman pass to junior Thor Brody late in the second quarter, forcing a 14-14 tie at halftime.

“We talk about doing your job, and that’s all you can do,” said Jacobson, who had two interceptions. “Do your job and hope for the best. That’s what we did tonight.”

The Papermakers took their first lead on Jackson Tyler’s 31-yard field goal in the third quarter, and were faced with a similar decision four minutes into the fourth quar after getting stopped two yards short of the goal-line on 3rd-and-goal.

Initially, the field goal unit came on to the field before Mathieson called timeout. With the blessing of defensive coordinator Dan Kielty up in the booth, Camas elected to roll the dice. Druckman delivered a strike to Brody for a touchdown, putting the Papermakers up 24-14.

“We just checked with Dan, and Dan’s like, ‘Let’s roll,’” Mathieson recalled. “ … And we said, ‘OK, let’s punch it in then.’”

It was the signature clutch moment in a come-from-behind win, the Papermakers’ second in as many weeks after just like last week’s 16-13 nailbiter against Skyview to clinch the 4A Greater St. Helens League title.

“We know our guys, we trust our coaches, we trust our gameplan at halftime,” Lukens said. “It always takes us a second, but we trust our guys.”

“We’ve always kind of been a second-half team,” Jacobson added.

There’s something to be said for having that clutch gene for a team hoping to make another deep playoff run after reaching last year’s 4A state championship game.

Every extra week of football in the postseason is a blessing, and the Papermakers aren’t taking any of it for granted.

“It means the world to me,” Jacobson said. “We lost in the championship last year, my older brother (Ryder) was on that team and it was devastating, I can’t lie. To come out here and have the season that we’re having, it’s unreal.”