SPIRIT LAKE - Fruitland is a hard enough team to stop over the years, with its bevy of running backs with equal parts speed and beef.

Throw in a quarterback who can throw the ball in Joe Martarano (headed to Boise State to play linebacker), who is also perhaps the Grizzlies' most punishing rusher, and you can see what the Timberlake Tigers were up against Saturday afternoon.

The Tigers fought the good fight for a half against Fruitland, but wore down in the second half of a 33-0 loss in the semifinals of the state 3A football playoffs at Van Tuinstra Memorial Field.

"I'm just really proud of our kids for battling," Timberlake coach Roy Albertson said. "It was 8-0 at the half, and those young kids, they just had to play too much defense."

Fruitland (11-0) will play Shelley (11-0) in the state title game, tentatively set for Friday night at Eagle High. Timberlake, in the semifinals for the first time since 2007, finishes 6-5.

Fruitland scored on its first four possessions of the second half to pull away from Timberlake. Martarano threw a pair of touchdown passes in the second half, both to Hagen Graves. He finished 9 of 13 for 170 yards, after completing just 2 of 4 passes for 45 yards in the first half. The 6-foot-4, 230-pound Martarano rushed for 69 yards on 17 carries, mostly by taking the snap in the shotgun and plowing his way up the middle.

“He was a giant out there today — offensively and defensively,” Albertson said. “He wears out a defense. They’ve got a really big line, and really big backs. We were playing really good defense in the first half. In the second half, the dam broke.”

“We like going to him,” Fruitland coach Bruce Schlaich said of Martarano. “We haven’t done a lot of that this year, simply because he does take a beating. But from here on out, he’s fair game — I told him we’re going to abuse you the next two weeks, and this week was one of them. He’s a load to bring down.”

Fruitland finished with 389 total yards, 219 on the ground. Timberlake was held to 106 total yards, 49 on the ground. Fruitland outgained Timberlake 279-39 in the second half, and had four quarterback sacks.

“I think we just got back to what we do well,” Schlaich said. “Once we were able to throw the ball a little bit, it opened the run game up a little bit and you saw us have success running the ball.”

“We didn’t capitalize when they made mistakes,” Timberlake senior linebacker Forrest Herring said. “We just kept them on the field, and they wore us down.”

In the hours leading up to the game, some 8 inches of snow fell in Spirit Lake, and Timberlake workers put in some yeoman work Friday and early Saturday morning to get the field cleared and playable.

Fruitland scored on its first possession, set up by a 32-yard punt return by Lane LaCrone to the Timberlake 35. Ryan Rule scored on a 10-yard run six plays later, and LaCrone ran in the two-point conversion.

But after that, both teams kept the other from moving the ball the rest of the half.

“They’re very good defensively,” Schlaich said of Timberlake. “They were taking some chances, and with us not throwing the ball, they just stayed in that cover-3 and was bringing a lot of pressure up front. By us being able to throw the ball, they had to widen their linebackers and that allowed us to run the ball.”

Fruitland opened it up in the second half by going to the air. On fourth and 5 from the Timberlake 10, Graves took a pass in the right flat from Martarano, turned upfield and reached the ball across the goal line, just inside the pylon, to increase Fruitland’s lead to 14-0.

Chase Fiddler crashed into the end zone from 2 yards out to make it 20-0 with 3:01 left in the third quarter.

On the first play of the fourth quarter, Graves zipped down the left sideline all by himself and hauled in a 55-yard scoring pass from Martarano to make it 26-0.

Timberlake drove to the Fruitland 18, but Dakota Rice’s pass into the end zone was intercepted by Martarano. The Grizzlies turned that into a 10-play, 80-yard march to their final score.

Mason Cramer of Timberlake aggravated an ankle injury early in the game, costing the Tigers their starting tight end, defensive end and punter. It was another in a long line of injuries the Tigers have had to battle through this year.

“It just takes the continuity out of a lot of things you’re trying to do,” Albertson said.

Fruitland 8 0 12 13 — 33

Timberlake 0 0 0 0 — 0

Fru — Ryan Rule 10 run (Lane LaCrone run)

Fru — Hagen Graves 10 pass from Joe Martarano (run failed)

Fru — Chase Fiddler 2 run (run failed)

Fru — Graves 55 pass from Martarano (kick failed)

Fru — Kris Olinger 3 run (Sid Rangel kick)

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING — Fru, Olinger 12-96, Rule 5-24, Martarano 17-69, Fiddler 6-20, LaCrone 2-9, Graves 1-2, Bumgarner 1-3, Smith 1-(minus 5), Seamons 1-(minus 1). TL, Buck 11-24, Rice 10-(minus 7), Rhodes 7-28, Reese 4-1, Condon 1-0, Herring 1-3.

PASSING — Fru, Martarano 9-13-0-170. TL, Rice 6-19-3-57.

RECEIVING — Fru, Graves 6-116, Rhinehart 3-54. TL, Allen 3-26, Young 1-8, Condon 1-24, Herring 1-(minus 1).