Lake Oswego beats Jesuit, 32-28 Sunday, November 30, 2008

Micah Hatfield (no. 3) of Lake Oswego juggles the ball in the end zone in the third quarter of the 6A semifinal against Jesuit Nov. 28 at PGE Park in Portland. Hatfield made the catch to put the Lakers up 26-21.

Last Friday night, the top four 6A teams in the state squared off at Portland's PGE Park for a ticket to the championship game next weekend in Corvallis.

The OSAA couldn't have planned a better bill, with both contests being rematches between fierce rivals. And, with all four teams hailing from the Portland metro area (three from the powerful Metro League), the games drew about 12,000 fans to watch the action.

In the first game of the night (which I didn't photograph), Southridge avenged one of their two regular-season losses by beating Beaverton 44-14. Their only other loss this year was to Jesuit, who ended up in the other semifinal against Lake Oswego.

Going into Friday night's game, the Lakers were undefeated and had been ranked top in the state all year long. Jesuit's only loss was a 36-33 defeat at the hands of ... Lake Oswego.

The game lived up to its billing. Although Lake Oswego jumped out to a 14-0 lead by the end of the first quarter, Jesuit evened the score less than four minutes into the second. From their they traded touchdowns. In the end, the Lakers' passing game proved bigger than the Crusaders' ground attack, and Lake Oswego won 32-28.

As promised, here is a slideshow of some of my images from the game.




Here is a second slide show with the sequence of Micah Hatfield's amazing touchdown reception from the third quarter.