Camas football team wins state championship

Last season, the Camas High School football team went 5-5 and failed to qualify for the 4A state tournament, losing to Lincoln, Bellevue, Sumner, Union and Bothell high schools.

Entering the 2019 campaign, the Papermakers vowed to be better than they were a year ago, using the memory of those five losses as motivation. They dubbed the season their “Revenge Tour,” a slogan that not only was uttered countless times by coaches and players and ended up on T-shirts, but permeated the culture of the program.

They probably had no idea, though, that the “revenge” would be as literal as it ended up being.

One by one, the Papermakers earned revenge against every one of the teams that beat them in 2018. Camas beat Lincoln in its first game of the year in early September. Three weeks later the Papermakers vanquished Bellevue. In mid-October, Camas defeated Sumner, and closed out the regular season with back-to-back wins over Skyview and Union.

And on Saturday, Dec. 7, the Papermakers earned the sweetest revenge of all, completing their unbeaten season by beating Bothell – the team that ended their 2018 season with a one-point win in a Week 10 playoff game – 35-14 in the 4A state championship game at Mount Tahoma High School in Tacoma.

The title is the second in program history; the Papermakers won their first state championship in 2016, when the current group of seniors were freshmen.

Camas (14-0) took a 21-7 halftime lead thanks to a punishing ground attack featuring Jacques Badolato-Birdsell and Tyler Forner, but Bothell responded on its first drive of the second half with a 39-yard touchdown catch by Jordyn Turner to cut the Papermakers’ lead to 21-14.

Later in the third quarter, after a shanked punt gave Camas great field position, the Papermakers took advantage when Jackson Clemmer outmuscled two defenders for a 28-yard touchdown reception for a 28-14 Papermakers lead.

After the teams traded punts to begin the fourth quarter, the Cougars (11-3) turned the ball over on downs, and Camas went on a long drive finished by Badolato-Birdsell’s third touchdown of the game on a 3-yard rush, giving Camas a 35-14 lead with 2 minutes, 45 sceonds left in the game.

Clemmer made another highlight-reel play, this time on defense with a one-handed interception on Bothell’s next – and final – possession.

Camas scored on its first possession of the game with a Badalato-Birdsell 5-yard run with 9:33 left in the first quarter, capping a seven-play, 85-yard drive. On its next drive, Badolato-Birdsell racked up 63 yards on nine carries, and Forner scored on a 1-yard run to give the Papermakers a 14-0 lead with 4:22 left in the first quarter.

Badolato-Birdsell struck again in the second quarter, taking a pitch 48 yards into the end zone for a 21-0 Camas lead with 5:30 left in the first half. But the Cougars responded on a drive keyed by three Turner catches and finished with a 6-yard touchdown catch by Blake Bickhaus with 56 seconds left in the first half.

Badolato-Birdsell rushed for 207 yards, and Clemmer registered 76 yards on four catches. Forner led the Papermakers on defense with seven tackles and one sack. Camas limited Bothell to 287 yards of total offense.