EPHRATA — The Ephrata Tigers (4-4) earned a much-needed win Friday, as they stormed their way to a 39-12 win over the Ellensburg Bulldogs. Paired with a dominant defensive outing, the Tiger victory was spearheaded by Chance Lee's 265-rushing yard performance.  

"(It's) a testament to all of the work that he's put in (during) the offseason to get to where he's at," Head Coach Patrick Mitchell said. "And also a testament to our offensive line, who we challenged at the beginning of the week to get back to a little bit more of who we were. It had been a couple of games since we'd broken that 200-yard rushing plateau, which we set as our standard around here, and that was big on them. I thought the O-line blocked really well." 

Before Lee found the endzone on three occasions, it was Krue Judkins who got things rolling for the Tigers with a 20-yard rushing touchdown in the first quarter. From there, Lee dominated the run game with three touchdowns while quarterback Cooper Vasquez layered in passes throughout the half to build a 33-0 lead at halftime. The QB found the endzone once more with a 6-yard passing touchdown to Jake Ayers to make it 39-0 in the third quarter.  

Ellensburg managed to find the endzone twice in the fourth to avoid a shutout loss.  

Mitchell praised his front line for taking the challenge to heart and responding the right way.  

"It was their attitude and the mentality of our guys up front in owning the fact that everything we do starts with them," said the coach. "They're the most important part of what we're trying to do around here, which is establish the line of scrimmage, and they took it and ran with it, and that was awesome to see." 

By the final whistle, Vasquez completed five of 15 passes for 47 yards, two touchdowns and a pick. Leading the receiving corps was Mitchell Morford, who caught three balls for 39 yards and a score.  

On defense, the Tigers held the Bulldogs scoreless for three quarters, mainly through stopping their rushing efforts. The Bulldogs ran the ball 47 times and recorded a team total of 215 yards. The pass game was not much of a factor, completing two of their six passes, one of which was picked off by the Tigers' Ezaiah Mabry. Five players on defense were successful at getting into the backfield for tackles for loss.  

"Our defense has been playing great," Mitchell said. "The kids are understanding what we're trying to do gameplan-wise, and they're doing a great job of flying around and playing with each other and making tackles, and we're definitely tackling a lot better than we were probably in the first couple of weeks of the season." 

The coach further emphasized the importance of execution when facing a run-first team like Ellensburg.  

"Whenever you're playing an option team like Ellensburg, it's super important for our guys to understand that everybody in that sequence of the option needs to get tackled," he said. "I thought we did a really good job of everybody playing that assignment and tackling their assignment, whether those people had the ball or not. There were only a couple plays where we had some miscues, where we didn't get the right person tackled, and I thought that was big for us as well." 

The Tigers offense was efficient on key downs. On third down, they converted six of nine while also being effective on fourth, converting three of four plays. While it's the execution in the moment that leads to the final result, the ability to do so starts in practice, said the coach.  

"We practice it a lot," Mitchell said. "We try to put that situation into our practice planning throughout the week. We're not just running plays, it's trying to develop that situational awareness of, 'Hey, it's third and 10. We got to have this play,' and so building it into the practice and having the kids be in that tough situation." 

Mitchell credited the scout team's ability to push the varsity players in practice and have them prepared for when these situations do arise in game.  

"We're keeping score of who's winning the series and who's winning the period that we've got going on in practice, whether it's the scout team or our varsity team. That added little competition in practice has been helping us out a lot lately," said the coach. 

The Tigers turn their focus to their final regular season game on Friday when they host the undefeated Prosser Mustangs (8-0) at 7 p.m. Currently tied with the Othello Huskies in the Central Washington Athletic Conference standings for fourth, the Tigers know a lot is out of their control at the moment.  

If they want to clinch that fourth spot, they'll need to beat the Mustangs and hope the Toppenish Wildcats overcome the Huskies this Friday. However, Mitchell put a positive spin on the situation, noting his players can play more freely going forward.  

"We're going to treat this game like it's the only game this year," he said. "Regardless of what people's records are, we're looking at this as the biggest game that we have this year. It's senior night, we've got a good crew of seniors, and we can't wait for the challenge because it will be a challenge, but that's what you want." 

BOX SCORE: 

EPHT: 12-21-6-0: 39 

EBRG: 0-0-0-12: 12 

    The Tigers' Caleb Newton (4) and Kai Kaleohano (19) swarm a Toppenish ball carrier at an early-season game. Ephrata Head Coach Patrick Mitchell praised his defense for making a lot of tackles on Friday against Ellensburg.
  

    Cooper Kriete (63) and Daniel Wurl (99) line up on defense for the next Toppenish play earlier this season.