Dec. 3, 2000: Inchelium passes torch

 

(PHOTO: Inchelium's David Tonasket starts the celebration after batting down a ball on the game's final play.)

Hornets rely on Simpson's arm in B-8 thriller

TACOMA - Walking off the Tacoma Dome field Saturday evening, Jacolby Simpson tossed the game ball to his dad and joked, "I can shut him up now."

It was different 17 years ago, but the same.

With Lonnie Simpson finishing off a record-breaking season for career and single-season rushing yards, Duane Gatlin's Inchelium Hornets won the 1993 State B-8 football championship.

Gatlin's second Simpson put together a record-breaking day on Saturday in leading the second-ranked Hornets to a wild 34-30 win over No. 3 Odessa for the 2000 title.

This Simpson, however, is a quarterback, and the 6-foot-2, 175 pound junior completed 11 of 13 passes for 282 yards and three touchdowns, the last with 28 seconds left.

"I thought we were going to run it a lot," Simpson said. "I started hitting my receivers, and they (the coaches) kept calling them. The most important thing was my line. They gave me time."

 

Jacolby Simpson holds onto the football and his dreams of the State B-8 title

Actually, the Hornets had to pass as the Tigers bottled up the running game. That proved to be a double-edged sword because, when Odessa's Paul Dart scored his third touchdown with 1:43 to play for a 30-28 lead, that left too much time for Simpson.

Inchelium went 51 yards in five plays, capped when Simpson threw against the grain to wide-open Chris Burch for a 16-yard TD.

Odessa's Heath Voise then hit Dart for 20- and 21-yard gains and had two shots into the end zone from the Inchelium 20 before time ran out.

Ironically, Odessa defeated Inchelium 22-8 in the first game of the season by stuffing the run game. In 1983, the Hornets' only loss also came at Odessa.

After this season's opening-game defeat, the Hornets won 10 straight (the Tigers finished 10-2). Much of that success is owed to the legs of David Tonasket, who rushed for more than 1,600 yards, and a stingy defense.

"I wish I could have run for more yards, but we knew they were going to key on me," said Tonasket, who carried 23 times for 108 yards, just 13 more than he had on three receptions. "I knew Jacolby had a good arm, but we really didn't need it all year."

"We've been a running team all year," Gatlin said. "That first game, I absolutely panicked. The plays you saw tonight were being dropped."

The defense also had a tough time Saturday as Dart rushed for 117 yards for Odessa and Nick Sebesta added 112.

Simpson opened the scoring with a 53-yard pass to Howard Finley on Inchelium's second possession. It went to 14-0 in the second quarter on Burch's 1-yard run after the TD was set up by 37- and 27-yard pass plays. 

Odessa went 68 yards, capped by Dart's 1-yard run to make it 14-8 at halftime. 

The Tigers opened the second half with a long drive that came up empty, but the drive set the tone for two quick scores that had them up 24-14 early in the fourth quarter.

"I was pretty mad," Simpson said. "We were playing bad on defense. We let down and they came back. Defense was the best part of our game all season."

That's when Inchelium came alive.

"They started to wear me out, but when it came to the fourth quarter, I told the team we all have to set up and stop them," two-way lineman John Swan said. It was Swan's uncle, Joe Bear, who said the '83 team wouldn't lose again after its loss in Odessa and it was Simpson, Swan's cousin, who made the same pledge this year. 

Simpson's passes of 17 and 28 yards set up Tonasket's 1-yard scoring run before Simpson and Tonasket hooked up on a 51-yard scoring play that put the Hornets up 28-24 with 4:39 to go.