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KENNEWICK -- For more than a little while, the Kennewick Lions looked like they really had something going Friday night.
Here they were, a middle-of-the-pack offensive team, lining up opposite the CBBN's most feared defense, and they were gaining ground.
Chunks of it.
But when it counted, the Southridge defense did what it has done all year -- stood up with the game on the line.
A key fourth-quarter stop proved a game-changer, and the Suns went on to score a pair of touchdowns for a 28-7 homecoming win over the Lions at Lampson Stadium.
Dallin Palmer rumbled for 300 yards and Stephen Garcia ran for a pair of touchdowns and threw for another as Southridge pounded the Lions on the ground.
"Every yard I gained belongs to everyone," said Palmer, who has run for 995 yards this season. "The whole unit blocked so well, it opened everything up."
Indeed it did.
Kennewick came into the game last in the league in giving up yards (377) and points (32), second from the bottom in rushing yards allowed (241), and has given up a league-worst 6.4 yards per play.
Palmer broke off runs of 88 and 72 yards, and the Suns had 11 runs go for 10 or more yards. Once Palmer and Garcia broke through the line, they often were greeted by nothing but open space.
Still, the Suns couldn't break away, in part because of their own mistakes. Holding penalties brought back a pair of big runs, Garcia was picked off deep in Kennewick territory, and Palmer fumbled twice (twice!) on that 88-yard run, the second time on a strip by Kennewick's Drew Loftus that turned the ball over at the Lions' 1.
"You just need to shake that stuff off and go on to the next play," Garcia said.
Southridge led 14-0 at the half after Garcia and Chris Whitney hooked up on a 58-yard scoring play -- Whitney caught all five of Garcia's completions for 102 yards.
But in the second half, the Lions went almost exclusively to the Wildcat set (WildLion?). Loftus, who came in tied with a league-high eight TD catches but faced double teams all night, instead made big gains taking the snap directly, faking to a couple of backs and taking off up the middle.
"We just started that up this week," said Loftus, who topped 100 yards rushing in the second half alone and finished with 131 against a defense giving up just 69 rushing yards a game. "We figured it would be another way to move the ball."
They figured right.
Loftus had runs of 16 and 34 yards as Kennewick drove 80 yards -- all of it on the ground -- to snap Southridge's streak of 10 quarters without giving up a score.
After the Suns went three-and-out, the Lions were driving again, moving from their own 38 to the Southridge 40. But that's as far as they would get, forced to punt on fourth-and-2 with 8:36 left in the game.
"We're always strong in the red zone and under pressure," said Suns linebacker Julian Rojas, who proved that point with a tipped pass on fourth-and-goal at the end of the first half.
On the next snap, Palmer was back in the open field, racing toward the end zone. This time, when the defense finally caught up with him 72 yards later, he made sure to tuck the ball away.
"I was just thinking I was not going to get stripped again," he said. "I was going to hold on to the ball for my team."
Garcia scored from 4 yards out on the next play, and the defense took over from there.
The Suns got to quarterback Trent Brown three times to kill the Lions' last, best hope. In all, Brown was sacked six times, with 31/2 going to Austin Graves.
Southridge heads into a bye week with the No. 2 seed in the Columbia already locked up. The Lions need to finish with a win against Pasco to grab the No. 4 seed for the crossover games.
Kennewick 0 0 7 0 -- 7
Southridge 0 14 0 14 -- 28
SCORING PLAYS
S--Stephen Garcia 28 run (Chandler Mertens kick)
S--Chris Whitney 58 pass from Garcia (Mertens kick)
K--Drew Loftus 6 run (KC Hooper kick)
S--Garcia 4 run (Mertens kick)
S--Dallin Palmer 29 run (Mertens kick)
STATISTICS
RUSHING--K, Loftus 19-131, Zak Albertin 7-45, Nate Woods 6-3, Hooper 1-1, Rowdy Thompson 1-1, Trent Brown 8-(minus 18). S, Palmer 23-300, Garcia 7-57.
PASSING--K, Brown 8-19-1-106, Loftus 2-3-0-27. S, Garcia 5-9-1-102.
RECEIVING--Reggie Clinton 5-98, Hooper 1-20, Albertin 1-14, Brown 1-7, Devven Ramos 1-5, Loftus 1-3. S, Whitney 5-102.
FIRST DOWNS--K 16, S 13. FUMBLES-LOST--K 1-0, S 2-1. PENALTIES-YARDS--K 6-35, S 6-45.
