Raider football finished the 2015 regular season with the best winning percentage of any Raider football team since 2004, capping it off with a win over Soap Lake Friday.

Last night, the Raiders played their first playoff game since 2001 as part of a tiebreaker for the third- and fourth-place spot in the Central Washington 2B South for the state playoffs this weekend.

This was made possible when the Raiders defeated the Soap Lake Eagles on Oct. 30, 14-7. Lake Roosevelt had lost 34-7 to Soap Lake in September in a non-league game, and the Raiders were looking to avenge that loss.

“We traveled to Soap Lake and played much better in our rematch,” Head Coach Geary Oliver said. “We played with more consistency, making great improvements in team defense.”

Oliver highlighted several players for their performance against Soap Lake.

“Senior Chance Garvin had a great game on both sides of the ball, with four receptions for 115 yards on offense, and four tackles, with two for loss, on defense,” Oliver said.

“Freshman Steven Flowers passed for 125 yards and a touchdown in his second start at quarterback,” Oliver continued, “while senior outside linebacker Jake Palmer racked up 10 tackles and three sacks.” The team stats show great improvements on offense, Oliver said.

“We had 299 yards of offense,” he noted, “and on defense we had six sacks and eight tackles for loss.”

With the win, the Raiders were in a three-way tie with White Swan and Soap Lake for third place. Last night, the Raiders played in a Kansas City-style tiebreaker at Royal City to determine who would move on and who was done for the season.

After losing 14-6 to White Swan, LR beat Soap Lake 14-0 to take fourth place.

“The kids just pushed and pushed,” Oliver said, and they are “ecstatic.”

Now they’ll play Okanogan on the Bulldog’s home field Friday for a chance at the District 5-6 number-two spot in state playoffs.

Information on the games this weekend will become available at cwbathletics.com sometime today (Wednesday).

Raider stats at Soap Lake

Rushing

Steven Flowers 13-60

Josiah Desautel 7-78 td

Jesse Louie 7-36

Beau Michel 2-0

Total 29-174

Passing

Steven Flowers 5-10 125 td int

Receiving

Josiah Desautel 1-10 td

Chance Garvin 4-115

Defense

Tkls For Loss Sacks Int

Scott Abrahamson 6 1

Hunter Chapman 3 1

Kolby Picard 3 1

Nathaniel Hall 4 1

Elijah Harris 2 1 2

Josiah Desautel 4 1-15

Nathan Morrell 1

Beau Michel 3 1

Jake Palmer 10 1 3

Evan Harris 2

Jesse Louie 3

Chance Garvin 4 2

Steven Flowers 5