MOSCOW, Idaho - Inchelium's 240-pound crusher Aifala Ama provided the sting Saturday afternoon as the Hornets defeated Tekoa-Oakesdale 36-20 in the semifinals of the state eight-man high school football playoffs.
Ama, a senior tailback, carried the ball 31 times and bashed out a game-high 193 yards with three touchdowns as Inchelium (11-0) knocked off the previously undefeated and top-ranked Nighthawks (10-1).
Inchelium will meet the Pateros Billygoats (11-0) in the eight-man championship game at Kingbowl XV, Saturday, at the Seattle Kingdome. It is Inchelium's first trip to the Kingbowl finals since their 1983 state championship season and eases the sting of two-straight 1-8 seasons.
"From 1-and-8 to state — it's incredible," said Hornet defensive back Ryan Stensgar. "I've never even been to Seattle."
Two unanswered touchdowns — one at the end of the second quarter and one to start the third quarter — helped the Hornets overcome Tekoa-Oakesdale.
T-O had opened the semifinal battle on a high note playing its trademark frenzied defense to push Inchelium backwards 7 yards and force a punt on the game-opening drive.
The Nighthawks then flashed 62 yards in four plays to grab a 6-0 lead on a Travis Fox run from the 4.
The Hornets fought back with two straight scoring drives — the latter an 18-play monster that consumed nearly seven minutes of the second quarter.
Ama scored both TDs, the first when he took a pitchout 15 yards, blasting through four would-be tacklers. He scored the go-ahead TD on a 33-yard rampage, helping Inchelium overcome a personal foul that had pushed them back to third-and-28 at the 33.
Ama's cousin, Eti Ena, ran in the conversion, putting the Hornets ahead 14-6.
The first drive lasted 4:17, the second 6:46.
"I thought it was important for us to have sustained drives," said Inchelium coach Ron Washington, "in order to keep (Tekoa-Oakesdale's) offense off the field as much as possible."
His concerns over T-O's explosiveness were underscored on the next possession, when the Nighthawks flew 72 yards in just three plays and clawed back into a 14-14 tie.
Nighthawk quarterback Carl Crider teamed up with Josh Brandt on a 69-yard TD pass play. The 6-foot-5 Bandt out-jumped his defender for the short pass at the Inchelium 40 and then outran tacklers to the end zone. Travis Fox ran in the extra points.
But Inchelium put the game away with two unanswered TDs. The Hornets marched 65 yards in nine plays, quarterback Mike Heath plunging in from the 2, and led 22-14 at the half.
Four plays into the third quarter, the Hornets recovered a Brady Burnham fumble — it was the first turnover of the game — and punched out a 31-yard scoring drive capped by Ama's run from the 3.
A Heath pass to Ama made the score 30-14.
The Hornet defense played especially tough in the second half, forcing the turnover, two punts and stopping T-O on downs on five Nighthawk possessions.
T-O scored on a 4-yard pass from Crider to Casey Lawson with 17 seconds remaining.
"Sometimes you say you'd like to play a team again," said T-O coach Marv Wigen, "but I don't think we'd be able to handle them if we played them 10 times.
"They did an awful good job taking things away from us — our backs out and some crossing patterns. I think we caught them off-guard on the first series, but they regroup pretty fast."
"This is totally flip-flopped," Hornet QB Mike Heath said. "The last three years we took some beatings. But now it's like we're the big guys on the block and get to be the bully for once."
And the "big guy" — Ama — could only shrug as he was unwound out of tape after the game.
"We're just doing the same thing we always do," he said.
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