Kodiak football team is playoff bound after 49-20 win over Chelan

The Cascade Kodiak football team rebounded after back-to-back losses to Cashmere and Okanogan to beat Chelan 49-20 on Oct. 26 in Chelan. With the victory, Cascade improved to 2-2 in Caribou Trail League play and 6-3 overall. 

The Kodiaks secured third place in league and a crossover game on Friday at Newport. A victory over Newport secures a place in the state playoffs. Newport is the number two team in the NEA League, behind Colville. Their only loss is to Colville, one of the top teams in state. 

They’ve only allowed 54 points on defense. 

“I think we bring something different. We’re excited to play a team not in our league. When we play teams in our league, they know what we like to do. It will be fun to play someone that doesn’t know what we’re about and what we do. We’re excited,” said Cascade Head Coach Dom Coffin.  

Coffin figures the Kodiaks will have to play their best game to win. 

“We have to take care of the ball. We have to make sure we bring it on offense, defense and special teams. Cut out the big plays for their offense. Any time we make a big play, we have to capitalize,” Coffin said. 

Cascade rolled up 516 yards in total offense against the Goats. They opened the scoring with a 5-yard pass from Jose Mendoza to Dillon Samuel. Also in the first quarter, Mendoza found Samuel from 38-yards to put Cascade up 14-0. 

Chelan scored on a 28-yard run by Erik Alcala to cut the lead to 14-7 in the second quarter. Cascade answered with 13-yard Teague Duncan run, then with 2-yard TD pass to Quinn Ashcraft. 

The Kodiaks led 28-7 at the half. 

In the third quarter, Mendoza passed 28-yards to Jose Valdez for the score, but missed the point after. Cascade led 34-7. Chelan came back with a 27-yard pass play to cut the lead to 34-14 in the fourth quarter. 

Mendoza connected with Valdez again for 51-yards, and with the two point conversion, led 42-14. 

Chelan hit an 80-yard pass to complete the scoring. 

Cascade passed for 260 yards and ran for 256. Chelan was not stacking the line to stop the run. Coffin said they passed the ball because it was clicking. 

“Over the past couple games, Mendoza really had his confidence up. We’ve really be able to throw the ball,” Coffin said. “We were running the ball. They tried to throw a couple things at us which caused us to throw a little more. We were still successful on both.”

Mendoza had a career night, going 11-for-19 for 260 yards and 6 touchdowns. 

“He had an awesome night. He officially broke the mark for yards in a season. Last week, he broke the record for yards in a game. Last night, he broke the record for most touchdowns in a game,” Coffin said. 

Interesting, the records Mendoza broke this season belonged to Cascade High School Principal, Elia Ala’ilima-Daley, quite the quarterback in his day. The records stood for 30 years. 

Isaiah Dayton led the Kodiaks in rushing with 104 yards on 16 carries. Duncan had 94 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries. Samuel had 3 catches for 93 yards and 2 touchdowns. Valdez had 2 catches for 79 yards and 2 touchdowns. 

Even with the dominating victory, Coffin said there are things they need to work on. 

“We gave up 20 points, which should not have happened. We gave up two long throws. We have a lot of little things to fix. We’re happy with the win and to achieve our goal of giving ourselves an opportunity to make the state playoffs,” Coffin said. 

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