WEST LINN – As the state's top-rated senior basketball player, Nelson's Braylon Gaines has made plenty of dazzling moves at point guard. But the signature move of his high school athletic career came on the football field Friday night.
With the game on the line, the quarterback twisted past three defenders and inside the pylon for the go-ahead two-point conversion with seven seconds left as No. 4 Nelson won at No. 2 West Linn 36-35 in a 6A nonleague game.
After senior Kevin Cohen scored on a two-yard run to make it 35-34, the Hawks opted to go two. The call was for Gaines to look for star senior receiver Malachi Garlington in the end zone, but when Garlington was unable to break free, Gaines rolled right to avoid the pass rush and tightroped the final few yards.
“I had to go make a play,” Gaines said. “I looked over at the pylon, and I had to score. There was no other option. We had to win that game.”
Hawks coach Aaron Hazel heaped praise on Gaines. The first-year starter completed 14 of 23 passes for 230 yards and three touchdowns, giving him 13 scoring passes in four games.
“We called a timeout to make sure everybody was on the same page with the two-pointer, and I just went up to him and I said, 'I'm so happy that you're the guy here,'” Hazel said. “He's hands-down the best leader I've ever been around in 23 years of coaching. Bray is unbelievable.”
The Oregon-bound Garlington, who had six catches for 89 yards and one touchdown, marveled at how Gaines refused to be stopped on the two-point attempt.
“He just handled it. He took it into his own hands,” Garlington said. “He's a dude. He does it in basketball, the point guard. To come out on the football field and lead the team, and have the same role, he keeps our guys up. I'm proud of that guy.”
Gaines' two-point run gave Nelson (3-1) its first lead of the game. West Linn (3-1) pulled ahead by a touchdown five times, and each time, the Hawks answered.
The win is another seminal moment for the Nelson program, which started in 2021. Last year, the Hawks arrived by unseating Central Catholic as Mt. Hood Conference champions and making the state semifinals. Friday's road victory over the perennial power Lions signals that they intend to stay.
“This means so much,” Gaines said. “We've won a couple games we weren't supposed to win, but I feel like this is the first time that no one expected us to come in and win on their turf. We executed.”
The postgame celebration showed that it was no ordinary nonleague win.
“All week we weren't trying to make too much of it, but also not disregard it as a big game,” Hazel said. “Our mindset with the kids was, what an opportunity. There are kids that play high school football for four years and never get the opportunity to play in a game like this, and an atmosphere like this.
“All game, every time we came off, it was like, 'How much fun are we having right now?'”
Gaines threw touchdown passes of eight yards to junior Lucas Gardner, five yards to Garlington and 11 yards to senior Wyatt Blevins. Cohen was the workhorse on the ground, pounding for 124 yards and two touchdowns on 32 carries.
Garlington relished his head-to-head matchup with West Linn senior cornerback Josiah Molden, a fellow Oregon commit. Garlington went up high to beat Molden twice, once on the five-yard touchdown and once on a 29-yard grab.
“Obviously, we're going to be teammates in a couple months,” Garlington said. “But going up against him, and showing I can hold my own and do what I can do, it's good.”
West Linn finished with a 414-365 edge in total yards. Senior quarterback Sloan Baker completed 14 of 23 passes for two touchdowns with one interception and ran for 51 yards and three scores on 10 carries. Junior Cohen Bissell had 24 carries for 121 yards and senior Tyson Donnerberg had eight catches for 131 yards and one score.
The Lions twice took the lead in the fourth quarter. Baker hit Donnerberg with a three-yard touchdown pass to make it 28-21 and Baker ran for a 30-yard touchdown for a 35-28 lead with 2:41 left.
After the latter, Nelson drove 62 yards in five plays to answer on Cohen's second touchdown. The key play was a 53-yard connection from Gaines to sophomore Amir Burton to the West Linn 4-yard line.
The Hawks wasted no time deliberating their decision to go for two.
“That was before we even scored,” Gaines said. “Coach Hazel said, 'We're going for two after we score.' So we knew we were going to get in the end zone, and then we had to make some work for the two-point.”
It was a difficult defeat for West Linn, which heads into Three Rivers League play against No. 3 Tualatin and No. 1 Lake Oswego in the next two weeks. Baker believes the Lions will use the loss as motivation in the same way that single regular-season setbacks fueled their 2022 and 2024 state championship runs.
“It's going to change our season around,” Baker said. “I remember from the years in the past, it absolutely flipped the season around. I was just a kid on the scout team at that time, but I saw it in all the players. I can guarantee it's going to happen to us.”
jerryu@osaa.org
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