Oak Harbor’s first football game of the 2006 season on Friday against Marysville Pilchuck was a tale of two halves.

The Wildcats dominated the first half holding Marysville Plchiuck to just 26 yards in total offense and two first downs while building a 21-0 lead, and then had to overcome several third-quarter mistakes to defeat the Tomahawks 28-10.

With the victory, Oak Harbor was elevated three positions to the No. 6 spot in this week’s Washington Preps Football poll. Puyallup is currently the top-ranked team with Pasco in second place.

First games of the season are always difficult, even more so when facing a league opponent, and Oak Harbor coach Dave Ward said the team was just happy to come away with a victory.

“You could say tonight’s game was very typical of what the first game of a season is usually like,” he said. “I’m glad we had that big lead in the first half.”

Oak Harbor took the opening kickoff and put together a punishing nine-play drive covering 76 yards capped by a 3-yard Chris Valencia touchdown run. Mike Johnson tacked on the extra point and with 8:57 left in the opening quarter, the Wildcats were up 7-0.

The Tomahawks had possession for six plays before punting the ball away and the Wildcats started their second series from their own 33-yard line.

A pair of holding penalties stalled the drive as the clock wound down, and the first period

ended with Oak Harbor ahead 7-0.

After Marysville Pilchuck de-

fensive back Duane Lepyri picked off a Marshall Lobbestael pass in the Wildcats’ first possession of the second quarter, the Tomahawks took over at their own 18-yard line. But on the first play from scrimmage, quarterback Denay Stell coughed the ball up and Steve Schultz made the recovery putting Oak Harbor right back in business.

Three plays later, Valencia scored his second touchdown of the game on another 3-yard run.

“I did all right I guess, but we all think we can do better,” Valencia said. “We’ll be ready to get after it next week and we’ll do a lot better.”

Valencia carried the ball seven times for 47 yards.

Schultz echoed Valencia. “We made some little mental mistakes that we need to tighten up on. We’ll be ready for Arlington next week.”

A 4-yard touchdown run by Lobbestael on fourth down with 2:42 left before half time upped the lead to 21-0 and Oak Harbor appeared to be in total command heading into the break.

However, the third quarter was a disaster. The Wildcats ran only four plays from scrimmage, but the defense held together allowing only a 25-yard field goal by

Kaleb Kuehn with 3:19 left making the score 21-3 heading into the final 12 minutes of action.

“We wanted to come out with a little more precision than we did,” Ward said. “We did some good things and were moving the ball petty well all night. We had some nice drives, but we had a couple of penalties and turnovers that killed us.”

With 4:11 left in the game, Lobbestael hit Rodrick Rumble with a 5-yard scoring pass for a 28-3 lead. Rumble led the Wildcats in rushing with 57 yards on five carries and caught two passes for 11 yards.

Marysville Pilchuck finally crossed the goal line against the Oak Harbor reserves with 42 seconds remaining in the game when backup quarterback Stephen Atterson connected with Lepeyri from 19 yards out.

The Wildcats rushed for a team-total of 265 yards and Lobbestael was 8-for-13 in the passing department good for 80 yards and a touchdown with one interception.

“We think Arlington will try to ‘air it out’ against us with a short passing game. At least that’s the rumor we’ve heard,” Ward said. “We’re scouting them tonight, so hopefully we’ll get some good film on them. We’ll be ready.”

Oak Harbor travels to Arlington on Friday to face the Eagles. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.