Although it took most of the game, the Washington Demon football team managed to wear down conference and district rival Fairfield Friday night at Case Field for a homecoming night victory by a final score of 42-30 in a game heard live on KCII.
Washington would begin the night with the football, wasting little time in finding the end zone. Kael Williams capped a seven play drive that lasted over three minutes with a five yard touchdown scamper and two point pass to Liam Roberts to place Fairfield in an early hole. The Trojan offense proved they traveled off the bus as well, launching a six play response that was aided by a Demon penalty to make the game 8-6 with a failed two point attempt. Washington would stretch the lead seven more with a Caden Greiner run of four yards before the quarter would end to open up a 15-6 advantage. The back-and-forth fury continued through the end of the first half, seeing a 22 all tie at the break. Out of intermission, it was the Demon defense that set the tone early on in the third. Washington would give up just two unofficial yards in the quarter while racking up 114 of their own. A majority of the yards came when the Demons drove 87 yards in 10 plays, ended by a 46 yard dash from Williams out of the shotgun on third and long to give themselves a one possession lead headed into the fourth. Fairfield seemed to have one more burst left in them when defensive back Jackson Hollander picked off Williams deep in Fairfield territory to set up the Trojans for a game-tying drive. Once quarterback Voss Richardson handed the ball off to junior Ethan Bisgard, the rest was history. Bisgard went 62 yards to the house, and after a successful two point attempt, the Trojans had the lead 30-29 with 11:38 to play. From that point on, Washington would hammer away at Fairfield with the thing they knew best: running the football. Williams and junior Nic Stone bullied their way into the end zone on tough runs for the Demons in the closing stages after being aided from two Richardson interceptions by Williams and Clayton Evans to finally put the Trojans away.
Unofficially, Washington won total yards 458-366, including a 387-298 rushing gap. Both teams had two turnovers. For the Demons, Williams went five for eight for 71 yards and carried 19 times for 220 yards and three touchdowns to bring himself to 13 rushing scores on the season. Greiner carried nine times for 60 yards and a TD, while Carson Brown, Stone and Roberts combined for four catches for 69 yards. For the Trojans, Richardson completed four passes for 68 yards. Zandrik Allison, Bisgard and Brady Wigle combined for 26 carries, 254 yards and three TDs. Tucker Robertson had a 38 yard touchdown run, and caught a pass for 23 yards.
After the game, Washington’s leading tackler on the season Blaine Rees joined KCII Sports live on the Community First Credit Union postgame show to talk about what the homecoming win means to him. “For one, this game was electric,” Rees said. “When we came out of the locker room for warmups, you look up in the crowd and its packed full and then you look along the fence and its two people deep. There was kind of a mutual understanding that this is a special game. This was going to be a fistfight all night on the line of scrimmage. I feel like we rallied together. We knew the importance of this game. We came together as a brotherhood. We cared about one another. We kept each other accountable. It was a great week!”
With the win, the Demons improve to 3-3 on the season, while Fairfield drops to 1-5. Washington is also now 1-1 in district play ahead of next Friday’s road trip to No. 1 Solon. You can hear the Demons take on the Spartans next Friday beginning with the La Morenitas pregame show at 7 p.m.