By Jerry Ulmer
OSAAtoday

Siuslaw, which has made dramatic strides in three seasons under coach Sam Johnson, is showing a knack for making winning plays late in games.

One week after scoring a go-ahead, fourth-quarter touchdown to win at 4A Gladstone, the No. 2 Vikings (4-0) rallied from a 10-point, fourth-quarter deficit to beat No. 3 Cascade Christian 38-34 on Friday in a 3A Special District 2 game.

"They're legitimately refusing to lose games," said Johnson, a 2014 Siuslaw graduate who took over the program after the team finished 0-8 in 2018. "For them to have the will to just not lose a game has been awesome to see so far."

Siuslaw trailed 34-24 in the fourth quarter before surging past the visiting Challengers (1-2).

Senior quarterback Beau Erickson scored on a 10-yard run, and senior Braydon Thornton ran in the two-point conversion, to make it 34-32 with 6:42 left. Cascade Christian drove into Siuslaw territory, but Thornton ended the drive with an interception at the 10-yard line, returning it to the Siuslaw 32 with 1:57 remaining.

Erickson connected with senior Camp Lacouture for a 38-yard touchdown pass to give the Vikings the lead with 37 seconds to go. The Challengers made one last threat, reaching the Siuslaw 17 with one second left, but the Vikings held.

The 5-11, 170-pound Lacouture rushed for 127 yards and one touchdown on 31 carries and threw a 22-yard scoring pass to Thornton.

"It's like we have a grown man in the backfield," Johnson said of Lacouture. "He's just not letting one person tackle him. We rode him a lot the last two weeks."

The game was a late add to the schedule after both teams had open dates to due COVID-related cancellations.

"Going into this year, we knew the knock against us was we hadn't beat a top-tier program since I got there," Johnson said. "But last week we beat a 4A powerhouse in Gladstone, and we feel like that was a huge statement win for us.

"When we called Cascade Christian and put it on our schedule, we knew this was the one we were circling. This is our statement win, as a program, that Siuslaw is back. We're not joking around anymore. We're not halfway back. We've got a lot of work ahead, but 4-0 feels nice right now."