From the start of the season, Cascade stood above the fray in 4A football.
The top-seeded Cougars made that official Saturday, brushing aside No. 3 Henley 52-0 in the OSAA/OnPoint Community Credit Union 4A final at Cottage Grove High School.
Drawing motivation from a semifinal overtime loss to the Hornets last year, the Cougars (13-0) cranked up their play this season and blew away the competition. It resulted in their third state title and first since 2015.
Cascade showed its balance against the Hornets (9-3) on Saturday by rushing for 178 yards and passing for 179. Senior star running back Bryce Kuenzi had another big game, rushing for 127 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries. Senior quarterback Cade Coreson completed 7 of 9 passes for 179 yards and two touchdowns and ran for a score.
“We've been doing that all year, so it's not new to us,” junior receiver Josiah Hawkins said of the balanced offense. “We definitely changed from last year, and we are able to spread it out more. Everything was going our way.”
The overall domination provided an exclamation point for the season.
“It was certainly a peak,” coach Shane Hedrick said. “You like to see that, when you get to your last game, and it's the championship game. The feeling I have in my gut is it was a peak performance on both sides of the ball.”
Coreson's touchdown passes of 38 yards to Hawkins and 57 yards to senior Matt Hinkle – and the ensuing two-point conversions – put the Cougars ahead 16-0 early in the second quarter. On the touchdowns, Hawkins and Hinkle showed their athleticism by turning short passes into breakaways.
Kuenzi scored on a four-yard run and Hinkle added a one-yard touchdown run as the lead expanded to 32-0 in the final minute of the first half. Cascade went 4 for 4 on its two-point tries in the half, the final one coming when junior Jay Erickson took a hand-off on a reverse and passed to Coreson in the end zone.
An interception by senior Morrison Craig set up the next score, a 21-yard run by Coreson that pushed the lead to 39-0 and started the running clock with 9:31 left in the third quarter.
Kuenzi ran for a 20-yard touchdown and junior Andrew Moore ran for a three-yard score – set up by a strip sack by Hinkle – to make it 52-0 early in the fourth quarter.
Cascade held Henley to 164 total yards. The Hornets struggled to sustain drives, especially after senior quarterback Joe Janney left the game with a separation of his right (throwing) shoulder after attempting a tackle on Hinkle's touchdown catch early in the second quarter.
“We just had to shut down their pass game, and with their QB coming out, I feel like that was a big factor,” Hinkle said. “But overall, I felt like we played as a team. We all had good focus.”
Hinkle had two sacks, including the strip. Craig and senior Kaiden Bernards each had interceptions. Hawkins broke up two passes.
“Defensively, we just wanted to fly around and hit guys,” said junior defensive lineman Jamison Walsh, who had one of Cascade's seven tackles for loss. “We just wanted to put big hits on whoever has the ball.”
Hinkle, a state champion wrestler, was the catalyst.
“Holy smokes, was he just a workhorse?” Hedrick said. “They were double- and triple-teaming him, but that left other guys wide open to make the play. And then offensively, he was just a train running the ball.”
The Cougars found redemption for last year's semifinal loss, a game they led 14-0 in the fourth quarter before giving up a tying touchdown and two-point conversion with 19 seconds left and lost 21-14 in overtime.
Kuenzi, who did not play in last year's semifinal loss due to a knee injury that forced him to miss the second half of the season, was determined to make a difference Saturday. On the game's first series, he broke several tackles on a 32-yard run that set up the touchdown pass from Coreson to Hawkins.
Hedrick said that Kuenzi was laser-focused heading into the game.
“He had a week of practice,” Hedrick said. “I'd get to school early and he was the first kid I saw in the locker room. I was like, 'You know what, we're going to be OK.'”
In four playoff games, Kuenzi rushed for 803 yards and 13 touchdowns, pushing his season totals to 2,283 yards and 34 scores. In his career, Kuenzi rushed for 4,876 yards – No. 15 on the state's all-time list -- and 68 touchdowns.
Hedrick has called Kuenzi, a virtual shoo-in to be first-team all-state for the third time, the best running back he has coached. Kuenzi has not committed to a college.
“This was a year that gave him a lot of confidence physically,” Hedrick said. “He had that confidence, but the knee set him back. He proved to himself, without a doubt, that it was rehabbed. And as the season progressed, he got bigger in terms of production. He was unstoppable.”
Hedrick won his first state championship in 29 seasons as a head coach. Despite his 194-122 record at five schools, he had not coached in a final until Saturday.
“I guess the word would be humbling,” Hedrick said of the title. “It feels good. So much credit goes to the kids and the coaching staff and community, sometimes you don't realize what it all takes to put something like that together.”
Hawkins, who left a semifinal win over Scappoose early with an injury, returned to action and had three catches for 77 yards, including his 11th score of the season. Hinkle had two catches for 91 yards.
Henley, the champion in 2023 and runner-up last year, was riding the momentum of an eight-game winning streak since losing to 5A Thurston and 3A Cascade Christian. But the Hornets could not find first gear against Cascade.
Janney completed 2 of 5 passes for 4 yards before yielding to sophomore Derrick Cox, who went 4 for 10 for 61 yards with two interceptions. Senior Conner Shively had two catches for 63 yards and senior Jeremiah Brunick rushed for 47 yards on seven carries.
-- Jeremy McDonald contributed to this story
jerryu@osaa.org
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