Whatever hopes No. 10 Kentlake had of playing the same Auburn football team that lost road games to Kentwood and Curtis the previous two weeks were dashed Thursday night.
The revived Trojans manhandled the Falcons 42-7 for a much-needed South Puget Sound League North 4A victory at Auburn Memorial Stadium.
“I think we caught them on the wrong week, to tell you the truth,” said Kentlake coach Chris Paulson. “That’s the team that I’ve been expecting to see. We’ve followed them through the schedule, and we hadn’t seen that yet.”
The Trojans improved to 5-1 league, 5-2 overall. The Falcons dropped to 5-2 in league, 5-2 overall.
Auburn hadn’t lost two games in a row since 2002, coach Gordon Elliott’s first year at the helm. But the Trojans roared back at Troy Field by doing what they do best, controlling the line of scrimmage and running the ball.
“They just get so much push up front. They’re just so big and so physical,” said Paulson, who is Elliott’s son-in-law. “I knew it was going to be tough matchup for us. I thought we had some kids on the perimeters who could make some plays, but their physicality just took its toll on us.”
After recovering a fumble at the Kentlake 42-yard line, Auburn’s Alphonse Wade broke off a 37-yard run, setting up quarterback Max Pratt’s 3-yard touchdown run.
Auburn added two more touchdowns in the first half – a Tarin MacDonald 33-yard run and another Pratt touchdown, this one from 2 yards out, to put the Trojans up 21-0 at the intermission.
Kentlake responded in the third quarter, with Caleb Mathena punching one in from 13 yards out to put the score at 21-7.
The rest of the game it was all Auburn, with Austin Embody, Pratt and junior Tilden Sansom all adding rushing touchdowns.
The Trojans finished the game with more than 350 yards rushing.
“The kids played well. It’s like I told Chris, ‘You got us on the wrong week,’ ” Elliott said. “We haven’t played very well the last couple of weeks, so our kids wanted to come back and play the way we’re capable of.”
The key this week was simple execution, Elliott said.
“We just executed better. The last couple of weeks we haven’t executed well,” he said. “This game we executed, we blocked the people we were supposed to block, and obviously our running game was back where we were supposed to be.”
Auburn responded with a solid effort.
“Kentlake played a good game, but we were just tired of losing. We wanted to come back and play a good game,” Embody said. “Our main objective was to come out and make a statement that the Auburn Trojans were back.”
The Trojans will continue their march toward the postseason on Thursday with a 7 p.m. contest at Kent-Meridian (3-2, 4-2). Auburn closes out its regular season at 7 p.m. Oct. 29, hosting Auburn Riverside at Auburn Memorial Stadium.
