Camas' passing attack too much for Vikings

By MARK NELKE 

Sports editor 

COEUR d'ALENE — One thing you can count on with Coeur d’Alene football in its nonleague schedule — the Vikings look for the best competition they can find, no matter the eventual result. 

The latest example was the unbeaten Camas (Wash.) Papermakers, who came to Coeur d’Alene and put on an impressive passing game display in a 38-21 victory over the Vikings on Friday night at Viking Field. 

Senior quarterback Jake Davidson passed for 396 yards and three touchdowns for Camas (5-0). Senior wideout Chase McGee, a state pole vault champion last year who is now being recruited in football in addition to track and field, had 12 receptions for 195 yards and two scores. 

“Sometimes you can lose a football game like that and still feel OK,” Coeur d’Alene coach Shawn Amos said. “I thought our kids played really hard, kept battling. Tonight they were just better than we were. They were a really good football team, and we knew they were going to be, but I was real proud of how our kids responded, how they dealt with adversity. Very few undisciplined penalties. They answered a lot of questions we wanted them to answer. Sometimes you play teams like that. We’ll learn a lot from that; that’s a playoff-level team. We’re going to play other teams like that, so we’ll have to learn a lot from this one.” 

Camas, which turned the ball over on downs once and punted twice on its first three possessions, then clicked through the air with three straight touchdown drives and led 21-7 at halftime. 

“Again, you’re playing a really good football team,” said first-year Camas head coach Adam Mathieson, who previously was head coach for 16 seasons at Mountain View High in Vancouver. “They were really stout at the line of scrimmage, and we felt like we had some creases based on alignment, but their backers ran really well and their D-line shed blocks really well. We had a plan early on to get going with the ground game, and quickly it was like no, we have get back to the perimeter.” 

The Papermakers scored on three of their first four drives in the second half, mixing in wide receiver screens with runs around the edge. Camas totaled 517 yards. 

“They were very efficient, like we thought they were,” Amos said. “They don’t have a lot of weaknesses. Some of their guys on defense are high-level guys, and you saw the plays those receivers made. We had a lot of spots where we had really good coverage, and they still made their plays. We can live with something like that.” 

For Coeur d’Alene (4-2), wide receiver Kai Wheeler was a beast in defeat. Wheeler caught six passes for 174 yards and two touchdowns. He got behind the defense in the first quarter and hauled in a 60-yarder from Caden Symons for the game’s first score. In the fourth quarter, he caught a screen pass near the left sideline, bounced off a defender and sifted down the sideline for a 30-yard score. 

That pulled Coeur d’Alene within 31-21 with 10:41 remaining. The Vikings got the ball back, but turned the ball over on downs at the Camas 17. The Papermakers sealed the game with an 82-yard, 12-play drive, the big play being a 40-yard completion to Anthony Forner where he got his left hand on the pass while streaking downfield, then gathered it in to keep the drive going. 

Symons passed for 277 yards, 170 of those in the second half. He threw for three scores, including a 12-yarder to Tucker Booth that pulled the Vikings within 24-14 late in the third. 

Coeur d’Alene totaled 353 yards. 

“They’re really good,” Mathieson said of the Vikings. “They’re so well coached, and they play so hard. That’s a good football team — as good as we will see.” 

Coeur d’Alene plays host to Lake City next Friday in the 6A Inland Empire League opener for both teams.

Camas    0    21    3    14    —    38 

Coeur d’Alene    7    0    7    7    —    21 

First quarter 

Cd’A — Kai Wheeler 60 pass from Caden Symons (Jayson Cady kick), 9:52 

Second quarter 

Camas — Tatan Brody 2 run (Jackson Tyler kick), 8:26 

Camas — Chase McGee 45 pass from Jake Davidson (Tyler kick), 6:14 

Camas — Anthony Forner 35 pass from Davidson (Tyler kick), 2:35 

Third quarter  

Camas — FG Tyler 21, 5:50 

Cd’A — Tucker Booth 12 pass from Symons (Anthony Thompson kick), 2:40 

Fourth quarter 

Camas — McGee 39 pass from Davidson (Tyler kick), 11:39 

Cd’A — Wheeler 30 pass from Symons (Thompson kick), 10:41 

Camas — Brody 4 run (Tyler kick), 2:23 

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS 

RUSHING — Camas, Brody 22-61, Davidson 11-57, Ollmann 1-3. Cd’A, Symons 4-22, Young 5-18, Thompson 5-11, Stern 2-3. 

PASSING — Camas, Davidson 27-43-0-396. Cd’A, Symons 17-29-1-277, Stern 1-2-0-12. 

RECEIVING — Camas, McGee 12-195, Speer 6-45, Forner 5-103, Jacobson 2-37, Brody 1-5, Macdonald 1-11. Cd’A, Wheeler 6-174, Williams 6-55, Booth 3-42, Coey 2-7, Sutich 1-11. 

    MARK NELKE/Press Tucker Booth (8) of Coeur d'Alene makes a leaping catch in the end zone for a touchdown in the second half vs. Camas at Viking Field.