With the No. 2 Kingco 3A playoff spot wrapped up and a home playoff game Saturday, the main goals for the Mount Si Wildcats football team last Friday night as they wrapped up their regular season schedule at home against the Interlake Saints were two-fold: first, make sure there were no serious injuries to key Wildcat players, and also give as many players quality playing time as possible.

Both goals were achieved with flying colors as Mount Si used a four-touchdown night from their senior star running back Brandon Yakaboski to easily take care of the hapless Saints 38-14. “Well, we stayed healthy for sure, and we did enough good things in the second half to not have a bad taste in our mouth,” Wildcat coach Charlie Kinnune said.

The scoring started early for Mount Si. After Interlake went three and out on the opening possession of the game, the Wildcat offense took over. The end result of Mount Si’s first drive was a wide open Yakaboski touchdown run from 3 yards out. The kick was blocked, but the Wildcats broke the ice and were up 6-0. With less than a minute left in the first quarter, Yakaboski ran his second touchdown of the night from 22 yards out, and after Dexter Moetului caught a pass in the end zone from Ian Atkinson for a two-point conversion, Mount Si was in business, up 14-0.

Dan Reeves got into the act in the second quarter, running in from 10 yards out for a touchdown, and the Wildcats went up 21-0 with 8:24 left in the quarter. Mount Si rolled into halftime up by that score. “The first half of the game, we just wanted to send a message to the team we’re playing Saturday, whether it be Kelso or Hudson’s Bay, that we can play. Play physical,” Reeves said.

A 35-yard run by Yakaboski set up the opening score of the third quarter for the Wildcats. Yakaboski’s fingerprints were all over the ball as he ran to the end zone for his third touchdown of the game from 10 yards out, and the lead grew to 28-0. Yakaboski scored another touchdown later in the quarter from 2 yards out and after that score, which put the Wildcats up 35-0, Kinnune pulled his key offensive players and put in younger reserves. “We know we can come out and run the ball on anybody and we did that tonight,” Atkinson said.

It started out a bit slow for the future Mount Si stars, but after Isiah Barber popped into the end zone from 32 yards out early in the fourth quarter to put Interlake on the board for the first time in the game, the Wildcats’ future came into focus. Joey Evans and Brandon Smith were keys, but an amazing 14-yard scramble for first down by backup quarterback Tyson Riley set up a great drive that resulted in a nice reward for the reserves: a 38-yard field goal by Gibson Bardsley with 4:59 left, closing out the Mount Si scoring. “I think the fans got a good chance to see what’s in store for this program in a couple of years. We have some good young talent, so we’re excited about our prospects,” said Kinnune.

Ricky Smidt caught a 30-yard touchdown pass for Interlake after the Wildcat field goal, but by then it was all she wrote. Mount Si had done what they needed to do and it’s now onto the playoffs.