LYNDEN – The Lynden football team showed no sign of an emotional let down after last week’s win over top-ranked Anacortes as the Lions came out and pitched a 35-0 shutout over Burlington-Edison at Rollie DeKoster Field on Friday night.
Both teams were feeling each other out early, and seeing what could work, and eventually traded punts in the first quarter. It almost looked like it would be an extremely close, low-scoring affair until halfway through the second quarter when the Tigers intercepted a pass and brought it deep into Lynden territory.
The Lion defense then tightened up, and Burlington-Edison was forced to settle for a field goal attempt, which came up short. That wound up being the best opportunity for the Tigers to score all night as the Lynden defense was on point throughout the entire game.
Burlington-Edison ran 52 plays, and just four of them went for at least 10 yards. In fact, the longest play covered 12 yards, and leading the Lion defense was senior inside linebacker Landon Tolsma who finished with 16 tackles, one tackle for loss and a pass defended.
After the missed field goal, Lynden put together its best drive to that point by going 80 yards and eventually scoring the first touchdown of the game on a 4-yard run by junior quarterback Austin Postma with less than two minutes left until halftime.
Coach Blake VanDalen was well aware of the time, and when the defense made quick stops on the following possessions, he started calling timeouts, knowing he could get the ball back, and perhaps score.
The Lions did get the ball punted back to them with 1:08 left in the half, and they were at their own 24-yard line. That’s when senior quarterback Gordy Bedlington went to work.
A lofting pass to senior running back Dawson VanDalen covered 15 yards, and Bedlington followed that up with a strike down the middle of the field to fellow senior Sam Arango for 20 yards. With the clock still running, and now under a minute, the Lynden offense hustled to the new line of scrimmage and quickly got off another play which resulted in a 12-yard slant from Bedlington to senior tight end Lincoln Van Ry.
Bedlington then hurried is team back to the ball, and spiked it to kill the clock with 37 seconds left at the Tiger 29-yard line.
After an incomplete pass, Bedlington hit VanDalen in the right flat, which ended up covering 20 yards before he was pushed out of bounds with 20 seconds left in the half. With the ball on the right hash, it brought up the perfect time for Arango to use his superb route-running skills to work as his double-move allowed him to get free and Bedlington found him for the nine-yard touchdown just before halftime.
Lynden continued to dominate in the second half as VanDalen scored on a 7-yard touchdown run, Bedlington found Arango again for a touchdown, this time covering 29 yards, and Postma closed the scoring with a 1-yard touchdown run with two minutes left in the game.
It was the first time Lynden had shut the Tigers out since 2009.
The Lions (6-1) will travel to Civic Stadium on Friday to take on Squalicum (3-4) at 7:00.
Lynden 35 Burlington-Edison 0 B-E 0 0 0 0 - 0 LYN 0 14 7 14 - 35 LYN - Postma 4 run (Maggard kick) LYN - Arango 9 pass from Bedlington (Maggard kick) LYN - VanDalen 7 run (Maggard kick) LYN - Arango 29 pass from Bedlington (Maggard kick) LYN - Postma 1 run (Maggard kick)
B-E LYN
31-107 Rush Att-Yards 38-279
10-21-1 Comp-Att-Int 13-23-1
68 Passing Yards 193
Individual Leaders
RUSHING - B-E: N/A. LYN: Postma 18-130, VanDalen 8-78, Bedlington 10-64, Rentas 2-7.
PASSING - B-E: N/A. LYN: Bedlington 11-19-1-137, Postma 2-4-0-56.
RECEIVING - B-E: N/A. LYN: Arango 5-72, VanDalen 4-57, Brown 2-44, Van Ry 1-12, Pease 1-8.
Leave a Reply