After a rough start to the season, the Camas High School varsisty football team has gone undefeated in league to become league champs. At the beginning of the season expectations were lower than usual: a change of head coach and new players having to step up and play. After going winless for the first four games of the season, Camas football fought through adversity to win out for the rest of the season. 

Last week Camas took down rival Union in a 17-7 victory. This game would decide Camas as the league champions. The team proved many wrong with the victory 17-7 two weeks ago against league rival Skyview, as well.

This week Camas is playing Mt. Rainer at Doc Harris at 6pm. This will be the first round of the playoffs and CHS head coach Jack Hathaway’s first playoff appearance as head coach.

Hathaway said, “It feels good, but I’m just more happy for our kids. Going through a rough start, I know it’s not what they wanted but we had right mindset moving forward. Those games prepared us for our league and that’s why we were able to finish as league champions. Nothing really changed we just kept at it. Kept coming to work everyday. We got better in a lot of areas and that is because our kids are resilient.”

Despite the rough start, the mindset has stayed the same for the football team: winning one game at a time.

“That’s always the mindset, that is always the goal. But we understand that to win state we have to win big games and tough games and I think we’ve been doing that lately. So right now we are focused on Mt. Rainer. We have goals we have all those things ahead of us but we’ve gotta be 1-0 in the playoffs starting this week… The bar is always high at Camas, ” Hathaway said.

Senior linebacker Luke Jamison chips in on Hathaway’s success, “He’s done a great job and stepped up as a leader and led us to league champions.”

Losing the first four games of the season was a reality check for the players.

“We hated the feeling, so we changed it and came out in league [and] won it out at 5-0. It’s amazing; I love the feeling of winning league and having our hard work pay off,” senior safety Mark Thorkelson said.

Despite the rough start, the team knew a turnaround was within reach.

“We’ve always had the pieces there, we just had to make it click. When that happened we were able to win games and now we’re in the playoffs looking good,” said senior receiver Conner Murphy.

Again, Camas takes on Mt. Rainier at Doc Harris Friday, November 5 at 6pm to start playoff action. Student admission for playoff games is $5 with an ASB card or $7 without.