Washington defeats WSU 35-28 in Apple Cup

PULLMAN – A rivalry game can turn on any number of things. A trick play. A missed tackle. An unknown’s career day. A drawn-out replay. A surprise comeback. A last-second perfect throw. Any of them. Or, like Saturday’s 103rd Apple Cup, all of them. And most were made by the Washington Huskies. That included the last one, a 27-yard pass from senior Jake Locker to junior Jermaine Kearse in the front corner of Martin Stadium’s east end zone, lifting UW to a 35-28 victory and into the postseason. “I don’t really have the words to explain how I feel,” said Locker, who capped a four-year college football career that included seemingly everything but a bowl game by running for 29 yards and throwing for another 226. That outcome had seemed a foregone conclusion when Chris Polk, the 5-foot-11, 214-pound sophomore, exploded off right tackle, avoided safety Deone Bucannon in the hole – one of innumerable WSU missed tackles – for a 57-yard touchdown run with 13 minutes, 18 seconds left to play. The run, part of Polk’s bruising career-best 284 yards on 29 carries, gave UW a 28-14 lead and quieted the 30,157 who braved the freezing temperatures. But Jeff Tuel, whose season ranks among the best for a Cougar sophomore, led WSU on two quick scoring drives, finishing the first with a 1-yard sneak and the second, with 4:26 left, with a bullet from 16 yards out to Marquess Wilson, giving the freshman receiver 1,006 yards on the year, eighth-best in WSU history. The Huskies, who finish the regular season 6-6, 5-4 in the Pac-10, needed three consecutive season-ending wins to go bowling for the first time since 2002. The kept the hope alive last week with a last-play win at California, so more than 4 minutes must have felt like an eternity. Starting at its 10 shouldn’t have seemed daunting either as UW opened the game with a 16-play, 98-yard scoring drive. It wasn’t. Especially when, on the third play, Polk broke off right tackle again for 36 yards before Aire Justin could bring him down. In WSU territory, the Dawgs ran three times. That left them with a fourth-and-1 at the 31. Out trotted kicker Erik Folk, slowly. Too slowly. The play clock ran out just as coach Steve Sarkisian called time. “I was little surprised they weren’t going to go for it,” WSU coach Paul Wulff said, “because it was a long (48-yard) field goal. But when they called timeout, I knew they would come back with their offense.” “Luckily for us the clock was running down so I had to take a timeout,” Sarkisian said. Lucky because he changed his mind, sent the offense out and ran Polk one more time. Off right tackle. It worked again, this time for 15 yards. As time ticked away, a run and penalty pushed UW back to the 27 where they faced a second-and-21. “It was a gutsy call on their part to throw it,” said WSU co-defensive coordinator Chris Ball. Locker, who was 13 for 21 for 199 yards at the time, did just that. Kearse, who early had outbattled cornerback Nolan Washington on a fake-punt pass just prior to UW’s second touchdown, was matched against him again. They were stride for stride down the right sideline until the end zone. Then Kearse got separation, got the ball and got a foot down for the win. “He pushed off at the last minute and, when I looked up, the ball was behind me and I couldn’t get to it,” said Washington, who gave up 3 inches to the 6-2 Kearse. The Cougars got the ball back with 36 seconds left, completed a couple passes – the first took 8 minutes of replay to confirm – but Tuel’s last-second heave was picked off by Nate Fellner. Tuel finished 25 of 35 for 298 yards and three touchdowns in his first Apple Cup experience, 132 of those yards going to Daniel Blackledge in his last. Blackledge, who had seven catches, giving him career highs in both categories, made a series of impressive grabs on the two fourth-quarter scoring drives. But nothing helped in the first half, when WSU (2-10 overall, 1-8 in the Pac-10) had four consecutive three-and-out possessions while UW built a 14-0 lead. “You could put it on a lot of things,” Tuel said of the slow start after WSU’s back-to-back bye weeks. “Lack of execution, plain and simple, for the most part. Penalties had a toll on us. We seemed to have quite a few in the first half.” But Bucannon kick-started the offense with a defensive play, an interception of Locker in the end zone with 1:41 before the half. “It gave us momentum and we came out and pushed it down the field,” said James Montgomery, who rushed for 78 yards in his last appearance in a WSU uniform. Tuel completed four passes on a 1:13 drive, the final one to Jared Karstetter from 5 yards out. It was Karstetter’s seventh touchdown of the season and cut the lead to 14-7. The momentum lasted until the third play after intermission, when Locker outwitted a WSU blitz and hit Kearse on a quick slant. Kearse, who finished with 178 yards on six catches, caught Anthony Carpenter flatfooted and raced 66 yards for a score. Carpenter was in the game because Washington had hurt his foot and the tape job wasn’t done in time to get back on the field. And on such things do rivalries turn.