A heavily contested dog fight teetered the road team’s way last night at Case Field when Grinnell spoiled Washington’s homecoming by downing the Demons 28-21 in a class 3A district 5 opener. 

As heard on KCII, both teams had reservations for six on their opening drive with Washington marching down the field in a wishbone formation and a heavy dose of the run from Tayven Stuart capped off by a three yard touchdown run. Grinnell (2-3, 1-0) opened up the pass game with sophomore quarterback Brady Coffman connecting on back-to-back 21 yard touchdown passes to take a 21-7 lead. Special teams was a savior for Washington when a bobbled punt snap for the Tigers led to a short field and a three yard touchdown scamper by Ethan Patterson closed the gap to 21-14 by half. Out of break, the punting woes continued for Grinnell when sophomore Jude Carter made the biggest Demon play of the night with a block and then falling on the football in the end zone for the equalizer. That 21-all deadlock stayed true until the final minute of the game when Coffman delivered his final blow to Demon faithful with a six yard run to pay dirt that proved to be the game winner. The Tigers out gained Washington 342 to 184 yards including 215 to 63 passing. Patterson completed seven of 16 throws for 63 yards and 45 more on the ground. Stuart toted the rock 19 times for 62 yards. Alec Ulin paced the defense with eight tackles. 

Head Coach Nick Ehret tells KCII Sports the third phase of the game was a bright spot for his team. “Special teams has been a struggle for us for most of this year so it was good to see us make big plays tonight. Our guys battled hard and came back down two scores. We did some good things, but fell a little short.”

Washington drops to 2-3 overall and start up district play 0-1. They hit the road to Solon next week.