Show’em some love!

Those Highline Pirates made the Mount Rainier football team walk the figurative plank on, of all nights, the Rams’ homecoming night, and, in this 23-12 win the purple and gold showed a lot of promise for future success on the Highline Memorial Field turf where this game was played to a full house of fans in both stands Friday.

“We finally got some blocking schemes down and Hans (Larson) had some great runs,” said Pirates head coach Juan Cotto.

The Rams were 2-0 coming in and the Pirates were 0-2 in the Seamount League. So the favorites coming in had to be the blue and white clad uniform young men.

And the Rams scored first in this one. Freshman Stephon Varifale’s 8-yard run and Oscar Eason’s 5-yard pickup set up an Ezon James 5-yard run into the end zone to make it 6-0, Rams. But the Pirates watched that Rams’ three-play, 1:05 duration touchdown drive that went 24 yards and they must have said something like: ‘We can do that.”

Because the Pirates did do that, scoring a TD of their own on their next possession, a 4-yard connection of QB Jacob Hignite to receiver Marlon Moa that capped off a 10-play, 80-yard drive that took 4:34 of time off the clock. With Umelo Ugwoaba’s extra point, it was 7-6, Pirates, with 2:49 left in the first quarter.

“Marlon had a big game, two TD’s for us,” said Cotto.

The Rams turned the ball over on downs their next possession, and, with the ball on the 50-yard line, led by Larson’s 8-yard run in to the end zone to frost off the next Pirates’ drive, the winless ones coming in were up, 14-6, as Ugwoaba made another point-after.

Larson did indeed run great in this game, which was really a continuation of the second quarter of Guyson Jaramillo-King doing the same thing—running strong to start. Actually, three different running backs came like bulls through the offensive line for the Pirates. In the first half, Jaramillo-King rushed for 40 yards on five carries. Larson went 22 yards on four carries and Lewis Andrews went 48 yards on nine carries. And that was just in the first half!

Larson broke a few tackles and sped a long ways through the gut and around the outside on his runs.

Jaramillo-King mostly pounded his body inside with the pigskin tucked tight under his arm, as did Andrews inside running to the outside.

For the game, Larson carried the ball 8-for-46, Jaramillo-King, 10-for-71, and, Andrews, 21-for-81. That running chewed up a lot of clock in this one.

“I thank my line,” said Jaramillo-King.

“The love,” added Larson.

Who are the line?

Jaramillo-King and Larson took turns naming the names of the Pirates’ offensive line that opened up the holes for these two young men, and Andrews, to run through.

“DeWayne Perry, Jeremy Rowden, Tim Schultz, Doug Owosu,” they said, collectively.

“And Marlon (Moa) did a great job blocking as our tight end,” added Cotto, who was standing nearby, listening.

Well, after the second Pirates’ TD came a field goal from Ugwoaba as the second quarter clock expired, a 28-yard attempt right through the uprights that made it 17-6 Pirates.

Then, in the third quarter, it was more Pirate power as Jaramillo-King, Larson and Andrews took turns running the ball for a lot of yards each carry. And Hignite, for the score, gave another short throw (eight yards) to Moa with 8:35 left in the third quarter. That capped a nine play, 61-yard drive taking 3:25 time. Now Highline led, 23-6.

Who did Moa thank for this win? Many people. Including....

“Great blocking by the offensive line and the coaches did a good job of showing us stuff in practices that we did not know before,” he said.

The Rams were not done after that Hignite-Moa connection, however, scoring right after that in going 44 yards on four plays in 1:18 elapsed time to make it 23-12 with 5:18 to go in the third quarter. But then the Rams could not take advantage of an ensuing roughing the kicker penalty their very next possession, in fact fumbling the ball away -- their sixth of the game. That explains a lot. The Rams could not hold onto the football while the Pirates were not perfect but only had two turnovers that way.

Give credit to Pirates players like defensive lineman Devanta Black, who caused fumbles in this game, and, how about the quarterback, Hignite, who doubled as a pretty good defensive guy -- hitting a guy in the feet to cause a fumble in the third quarter by the Rams. And recovering it!

So, what about this Pirates team? Will they be recovering from subpar seasons in Seamount League football, at least going back a decade, or, two?

Maybe.

For sure, this is a classy Pirates team of new faces, starting with a new, first-year coach, Cotto. When the game was over, Cotto let his coaches talk, his players talk, and then he also talked in this aftermath of victory.

“Listen,” he said, all players on him while taking a knee on the field after the game. “Listen. Listen. Listen. Great, great, great victory. Kennedy is the champions of this league and they deserve that. We need everyone to get their butts in class on time Monday and every day come to class all week and to practice after that, work their tails off in practice....”

And what else?

“And we are going to beat Kennedy,” said Cotto, getting a bunch of cheers from the consortium of players, kneeling on one knee, raising helmets at that statement.

With Pirates’ No. 53, Denzell Deloney, who was a force in the middle stopping the Rams run this game, getting in some words after the game that must have rang in the ears of teammates nearby on the turf.

“Let’s repeat this,” he shouted.

Players thanked each other after the game. A whole slew of positives dripped off the lips of players like Larson, who thanked the offensive line and others for stepping it up and “working every play.”

As everyone was getting together in a circle one last time to do a cheer before calling it a night, and everyone was thanking some one individually, Moa stepped in with words that seemed a nice ending to this one.

“Thanks to everyone,” Moa said.

Yeah, yeah, yeah...,” players said.

Next up for the Pirates is Kennedy on Friday at 7 p.m. at Highline Memorial Field.