On their second trip through the Cascades in as many weeks, the Henley Hornets finally ran into a mountain they couldn’t climb.
After overcoming a 14-0 deficit in the fourth quarter of its semifinal win over No. 2 seed Cascade, Henley (11-2) showed no signs of panicking when No. 1 seed Marist Catholic (12-1) took a 16-0 lead with 47 seconds left in the first half of the 4A championship game at Spiegelberg Stadium in Medford Saturday. In fact, the No. 3 seed Hornets responded almost immediately, with junior quarterback Joe Janney finding senior receiver Mark Carpenter for a 51-yard touchdown with 16 seconds to go.
Having cut the deficit to 16-6 (the 2-point conversion failed) and set to receive the second half kickoff, Henley headed to the locker room with all of the momentum. But the Spartans quickly snatched it back, forcing a three-and-out on the Hornets’ first drive of the third quarter before senior quarterback Nick Hudson connected with classmate Aaron Bidwell on a 59-yard touchdown pass. The score pushed Marist Catholic’s lead to 23-6 with 9:57 remaining in the period.
After two more empty Henley possessions, the Spartans launched a 16-play, 72-yard touchdown drive that took 8:50 off the clock in the fourth quarter, capping it off with a 5-yard scoring pass from Hudson to junior receiver CJ Giustina with 2:51 left in the game. The Hornets’ third consecutive turnover on downs allowed Marist Catholic to kneel out the clock and claim its first state title since 2009.
The 30-6 win avenged both a 19-16 home loss to Henley Sept. 13 and a 42-28 loss to Henley in last season’s 4A championship game.
The trenches were the source of Henley’s struggles on both sides of the ball. The Spartans amassed 10 tackles for loss, including a title-game-record-tying eight sacks, and mostly solid blocking by their offensive line enabled them to put up 433 yards to the Hornets’ 190.
“I think we were injured a little bit, but that’s nothing,” Henley head coach Matt Green said. “They learned how to run the ball, and they ran it well today.”
In the teams’ regular season meeting, the Hornets held Spartans running back Conner Harvey (a sophomore) to 21 yards and one touchdown on nine carries. On Saturday, Harvey put up 177 yards and one touchdown on 29 carries and had two receptions for 52 yards. He was named the Marist Catholic player of the game.
The Spartans took a 3-0 lead with 8:17 remaining in the first quarter when senior Christian Guerrero made a 30-yard field goal on the ninth play of the opening possession. The Hornets defense held Marist Catholic scoreless on its next three drives and forced the game’s only turnover when senior defensive back Bryson Montag recovered a fumble caused by classmate Jason Kern. The Hornets offense went three-and-out on its first four possessions, the last of which gave the Spartans the ball at the Henley 42-yard line after the punt. Five plays later, Harvey scored from the 1-yard line to make it 10-0 with 4:14 left in the half.
Henley moved the chains for the first time on the ensuing possession, but a sack helped stall the drive at the Hornets 36-yard line. Despite starting at its own 22-yard line, Marist Catholic put together a second straight five-play touchdown drive, this one ending with a 43-yard touchdown pass from Hudson to Guerrero (the PAT missed wide right).
The Hornets’ last two third-quarter drives both entered Spartans territory but were undone by identical sequences: sack, incompletion, sack. The turnovers on downs occurred via incompletions on fourth-and-22 and fourth-and-21.
Marist Catholic held Henley to 10 first downs the entire game and recorded 22 itself. The Hornets converted 2-of-11 third downs and 0-of-3 fourth downs, while the Spartans converted 7-of-13 third downs and 1-of-2 fourth downs. Marist Catholic ended up with a 27:16 to 20:44 advantage in time of possession.
Janney, who Green said was a game-time decision Saturday after a knee injury kept him out of the semifinals, appeared significantly less mobile than usual but still completed 17-of-29 passes for 185 yards and one touchdown while tying for the team lead with nine tackles on defense, including one for loss. He was named Henley player of the game, an honor he also won in last year’s final.
Carpenter finished with four receptions for 70 yards and one touchdown while recording five pass deflections on defense. Montag had three receptions for 56 yards, and junior Conner Shively had a team-high five receptions for 40 yards. Junior running back Jeremiah Brunick was Henley’s leading rusher, recording 17 yards on two carries. Kern and junior linebacker Trapper Cundall were Janney’s co-leaders with nine tackles, including one sack for Kern.
Hudson, who threw five touchdown passes and five interceptions across his first two games against Henley, completed 15-of-27 passes for 256 yards and three touchdowns. Bidwell, who holds Division III and NAIA offers, had two receptions for 74 yards and one touchdown; Guerrero had three receptions for 66 yards and one touchdown; senior Cash Andrus had three receptions for 39 yards; and Giustina had a team-high five receptions for 25 yards and one touchdown.
Defensively, junior linebacker Jackson Skinner was responsible for four of Marist Catholic’s eight sacks, breaking the OSAA championship game record of three set by Mike Petroff (6A Jesuit) in 2015. He finished with nine total tackles as well as four quarterback hurries. Senior linebacker Ryan Lemley also had nine tackles, including three for loss with two sacks. Senior linemen Dawson Relling (who owns a total of 10 college offers, all from Division III and NAIA programs) and Jackson Christian had a respective one and ½ sacks. Junior linebacker Brody Buzzard recorded a game-high 14 tackles, including one for loss, and had a ½ sack.
The Spartans join Cascade Christian as the only OSAA teams to record eight sacks in a state championship game. The Challengers set the mark in the 2013 3A title game.
Multiple players involved in Saturday’s game finished the season near the top of the OSAA leaderboard in at least one statistical category: Hudson’s 3,605 passing yards and 40 passing touchdowns are a respective second and third across all classifications; Bidwell’s 1,258 receiving yards and Buzzard’s 105 tackles both rank third (Buzzard is tied); and Carpenter’s 1,121 receiving yards put him at seventh (Bidwell had 18 touchdown receptions, and Carpenter had 16).
Marist Catholic has now won six state titles, which is tied for 10th-most across all classifications. The Spartans had lost their last four state championship games (2010, 2012, 2021, 2023) as well as the 2020 4A first place game that was not sponsored by the OSAA and is not counted in the association’s record books. Saturday also marked Marist Catholic’s first-ever win over Henley; the Hornets now lead the all-time series 5-1.
A win would have given Henley its fourth state championship. The Hornets won titles in 1946 and 1982 prior to last season.
This was the 14th OSAA championship game to feature a rematch from the previous season since the association first held a football title game in 1940. The defending champion is now 7-7 in this scenario.
Marist Catholic’s seniors–Hudson, Bidwell, Guerrero, Lemley, Relling, Christian, Andrus, Joe Thornton, Kaden Bustamante, Owen Hemphill, Logan Kast, Max Helfrich, Tanner Malpass, Luke Salnas, Cade Burggren, Logan Phillips, Dominic Turner, Jonathan Hinson and Juan Pablo Nava Ramos–graduate with a four-year record of 41-8, the most wins by the Spartans in a four-year span since 2009-13.
Henley’s senior class–Carpenter, Montag, Kern, Nolan Sieben, Max Tobiasson, Noah Osterlund, Easton Conner, Brayden Waggener, Allen Perry, KJ Goff, Cyrus Herbert, Christian Shirar, Shivam Patel, Robert Clark, Saul Flores and manager Cole Davis–is the winningest in program history. Their four-year record of 42-6 surpasses the 38-7 record the Hornets accrued from 1980-83.
“I love them guys, man.” Green said. “They stick together, they don’t quit, they have lots of fight in them.
“It stinks to not be able to win it for them, but still love them guys.”