LYNDEN – Generally, a junior quarterback getting his first varsity start would be a little rattled. Maybe he would want to hand off more often than not, and slow the pace down. Lynden Christian junior Trajan Schouten did none of that in his debut. Instead, he picked up the pace, threw the ball all over the field and led his team to a 23-0 victory over Bellingham on Friday night.
The Lyncs marched down the field on their opening drive, but they were stopped at the 1-yard line on both 3rd and 4th down plays by the Red Raiders when Christian Butenschoen, Butch Mullins and Jack Fields made big stops at the goaline. Junior quarterback Morgan Cavalier was able to lead his team out of his own end zone, but Bellingham eventually had to punt.
A handful of first down runs by Levi Korthuis put LC right back into the red zone, and Schouten found fullback Sam Faber streaking across the field wide open and the Lyncs scored on the 9-yard touchdown pass.
It was deja vu all over again in the second quarter when Lynden Christian found itself on the Bellingham 9-yard line again. The Lyncs ran the exact same play, and got the exact same result.
A beautiful touchdown pass from to Tanner Feenstra from 14 yards out came in the third quarter when Schouten put it in the corner of the end zone where only his athletic wide receiver could make a play on it. The extra point was missed, which kept it at a 20-0 score at the time, but senior kicker Blake DeRuyter made up for it with a 25-yard field goal at the end of the third quarter, to solidify to final score.
Cavalier tried to make as many plays as he could with his feet, rushing 18 times for 63 yards, including a 25-yard scramble around the left end that involved numerous broken tackles, a few juke moves and some “Walter Payton-style” high stepping. However, the passing game never got on track. That could have been because of an early injury to Bellingham star receiver Spencer Lee.
Schouten finished the game with 178 yards passing, completing 16-of-23 passes. He also distributed the ball very well, hitting seven different receivers.
Fields led the Red Raiders on the ground with 75 yards on 13 carries, and was also in on most of the tackles on defense.
Bellingham 0
Lynden Christian 23
Bell. 0 0 0 0 – 0
LC 7 7 9 0 – 23
LC – Faber 9 pass from Schouten (DeRuyter kick)
LC – Faber 9 pass from Schouten (DeRuyter kick)
LC – Feenstra 14 pass from Schouten (kick failed)
LC – DeRuyter 25 FG
BELL LC
Rushing Att-Yards 36-153 35-201
Comp-Att-Int 2-9-0 18-25-0
Passing yards 2 191
Penalties-yards 6-51 7-50
Fumbles-lost 0-0 0-0
Individual Leaders
RUSHING – Bell: Fields 13-75, Cavalier 18-63, Goodman 3-11, Serrano 2-4. LC: Korthuis 12-74, Stremler 15-57, Corkill 3-41, Bouwman 1-12, Schouten 2-11, Bootsma 2-6.
PASSING – Bell: Cavalier 2-9-0-2. LC: Schouten 16-23-0-178, Bouwman 2-2-0-13.
RECEIVING – Bell: Triplett 1-8, Fields 1-(-6). LC: Faber 4-47, Apol 3-54, Feenstra 3-39, Zylstra 3-11, Corkill 2-9, Sipma 1-13, Stremler 1-10, VanderWerff 1-8.
*All statistics were hand recorded by Tyler Anderson, and are not to be re-produced without permission.
