In the gauntlet that is the 1A Evergreen League football season, no team escapes unscathed.

The Montesano Bulldogs found that out the hard way on Friday in suffering a 38-23 homecoming humbling at the hand of the Tenino Beavers at Jack Rottle Field, and saw its hopes of a league championship slip away in the process.

The 9th-ranked Beavers (7-1 overall, 3-1 1A Evergreen League) controlled the clock and made big plays when it counted to hand Monte its first league loss and first defeat since a loss to Black Hills in Week 1.

“My hats off to Tenino, they were way more physical than we were tonight and we made way too many mistakes,” Montesano head coach Terry Jensen said. “We are playing a state-playoff team, a really good football team and we didn’t play well enough to win.”

After No. 4 Monte (6-2, 2-1) forced a Beavers punt on the opening drive of the game, the Bulldogs offense drove inside the Beavers 30-yard line. But the drive stalled as Monte turned the ball over on downs, failing to convert on 4th-and-6.

The two teams then traded punts before Tenino would embark on a long drive that ended on a 4-yard bootleg touchdown run by quarterback Cody Strawn on a 4th-and-goal play early in the second quarter.

Monte responded with a 22-yard field goal by kicker Felix Romero after the Bulldogs had a 1st-and-goal from the 4-yard line.

With just 15 seconds left in the first half, Beavers running back Dylan Spicer burst through the Monte defense for a 27-yard touchdown run, putting Tenino up 16-3 at the half.

“I thought for a quarter and a half we played really good defense, and then it was like we took a breath, meaning that maybe we let up a play,” said Jensen, adding he felt his team left two touchdowns on the field in the first half. “They hit the trap for the touchdown at the end of the first half and that was big.”

Hoping for a homecoming comeback, Montesano received the second-half kickoff and overcame a 1st-and-20 situation — after two straight false-start penalties — when quarterback Jayden McElravy connected on a 26-yard pass play to receiver Kaleb Ames.

A few plays later, running back Gabe Bodwell punched it in from three yards to bring Monte to within a touchdown at 16-10.

But Tenino’s offense — which has been oft described using terms such as “smash-mouth” and “phone booth” by local coaches — rambled off a 13-play, 80-yard drive that chewed up nearly seven minutes of game time. The possession culminated on a 30-yard touchdown run from Spicer on a 3rd-and-15 play.

Down 24-10 early in the fourth quarter, Monte stopped a Tenino drive inside the Bulldogs 10-yard line, stuffing a running play by Tenino running back Tristan Whitaker to regain possession.

Then disaster struck.

On the next play from scrimmage, McElravy dropped back to pass and was chased out of the pocket by Tenino lineman Andrews Zamudio, who got a grasp of Monte’s senior quarterback and knocked the ball backward toward the Bulldogs goal line.

Tenino defensive back Brody Noonan picked up the ball and ran into the end zone for a fumble recovery touchdown and a commanding 32-10 lead with 8:00 left in the game.

Bodwell would score on a 9-yard run to make it a 32-16 game with 6:35 left to go, but once again, Tenino had an answer.

The Beavers scored on the ensuing possession when running back Randy Marti scored from the 2-yard line for a 38-16 lead with 1:30 left.

McElravy scored from a yard out with seven seconds left in the game to complete the scoring.

Tenino had 296 total yards — all on the ground — and were good on 4-of-5 fourth-down conversions.

By contrast, Montesano had 275 yards of total offense and went 3-for-8 on third down (1-5 in the first half) and 0-for-2 on fourth-down conversion attempts.

“Tenino has three phases — the trap, power and quarterback out of the back end,” Jensen said. “You have to be disciplined with that and if one person is not disciplined in their gap, it creates a big play and that is what we saw tonight.”

With the 15-point victory, Tenino wins the league championship on a point-differential tiebreaker and will be the 1A Evergreen League No. 1 seed.

If Montesano wins its regular-season finale next week at home against Elma, the Bulldogs will be the No. 2 seed with Eatonville in the No. 3 spot.

Jensen said that Monte’s goals of qualifying for the state tournament and winning a state title are still within the Bulldogs’ reach, but some corrections will need to be made if those goals are to be accomplished.

“Our goals are still there, everything is still reachable, but we can’t play a playoff game like we did tonight. … We just got to be better all the way around and that includes me,” he said. “We’ve got to find a way as a football team to overcome adversity. In the two games we lost, we have not done a good job of doing that and that is my responsibility as a head coach. We’ve got to find a way to turn the light on at a certain point.”

After the game, some Tenino players and fans — appearing to be mostly from the student body — stood at midfield and uproariously sang the Tenino fight song, drawing the ire of some Montesano faithful.

In a gesture of good sportsmanship after what his team had just done, Tenino head coach Cary Nagel walked over to the Montesano post-game huddle and vehemently apologized for the actions of his players, stating that it was unacceptable and that “we need to be better.”

Multiple Montesano players and coaches responded to Nagel by shaking his hand and congratulated him on the victory.

RYAN SPARKS | THE DAILY WORLD Montesano linebacker Peyton Damasieciwz (55) chases Tenino running back Randy Marti during the Bulldogs’ 38-23 loss to Tenino on Friday, at Jack Rottle Field in Montesano.