Cascade upended in the Pear Bowl 29-6

The Cascade Kodiaks had high hopes heading into the Pear Bowl, the winners of five games in a row. Unfortunately, everything came unraveled against Cashmere as the Kodiaks lost 29-6. 

Special teams gaffs and penalties did in the Kodiaks for the most part. 

“Our special teams really struggled. They blocked two punts which gave them the ball on the 1-yard line and 10-yard line. It really put us in a hole. They also returned a kick for a touchdown,” said Cascade Head Coach Dom Coffin. “We got dominated on special teams, which really hurt. Our defense held them to 158 yards of offense. It’s not like they played terrible, but when the special teams play like that and you get in a hole, it makes it really tough to keep competing.”

Cascade could manage only 187 yards of total offense. They were victimized by 11 penalties for 105 yards. 

“We were still moving the ball, but we just killed ourselves with penalties. That was the big issue of the night. The penalties pretty much stopped all our drives. We dug ourselves holes. We stalled out a lot because some stupid penalties really killed us,” Coffin said. 

Cashmere scored a touchdown in the first quarter, on 4-yard run by Tyler Chipman. The Bulldogs led 7-0. Cashmere scored in the second quarter on an 8-yard Shane McCormick run. With the two point conversion, the Bulldogs led 15-0. Chipman scored on a 4-yard run. With the extra point, that made it 22-0 at half.  

Cascade scored in the third quarter on a 56-yard run by Jose Valdez, but the extra point was missed. Cashmere scored on an 81-yard kickoff return by Chipman. The extra point made the final, 29-6. 

“The penalties has been something we’ve really been stressing. We’ve had issues with penalties this year. We’ve been working trying to cut them out. In big games, you can’t afford to have these types of issues,” Coffin said, and it not because of the youth on his team. “I think it is part of it. We have a lot of sophomores playing and some juniors. We also have older guys making mistakes.”

Quarterback Jose Mendoza was 7-for-11 for 49 yards. Terell Lewis of Cashmere only threw one pass for 14 yards. Valdez had 11 rushes for 109 yards. Chimpman had 31 rushes for 116 yards and 2 touchdowns. 

Okanogan is 2-0 in league, 6-0 overall. Cashmere is 2-1 in league, Cascade 1-1, Chelan 0-1 and Omak 0-2. 

Next up for Cascade, a tough road game at Okanogan on Friday. Last year, Cascade beat Okanogan 34-28 in Peshastin. 

“We’re hoping we can do what we did last year and win the last two and force a three-way tie. We’re thankful to control our own destiny,” Coffin said. “They have a really good team. They are very physical. They haven’t had a team come in and out-hit them. They’ve been hurting teams by coming out and playing physical. Our mission is to play physical with them and try to compete.”

Coffin said they cannot play like they did against Cashmere or they’ll be in the same boat as everyone else and get the score run up on them. 

“If we come to compete like I know we can, we can keep ourselves in the game give us an opportunity to win,” Coffin said. 

If Cascade can beat Okanogan and Chelan, they would likely force a 3-way tie for first place, just like last year. If Cascade wins one of the next two, they can still make the playoffs, as the top three teams go into the crossover playoff.  

Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com.