TUALATIN -- Juniors Casey Filkins and Thomas Dukart provided the flash for No. 2 Lake Oswego on Friday night at No. 7 Tualatin.

But as it turned out, what the Lakers needed more than anything was a heavy dose of grit from their offensive line to subdue the fired-up Timberwolves.

Lake Oswego buckled down and controlled the line of scrimmage in the second half to come from behind for a 28-21 win that keeps the Lakers (7-1, 4-0) alone in first place in the Three Rivers League. They can win the league title outright next week with a home win over rival Lakeridge (6-2, 3-1).

Down 21-13 at half, Lake Oswego marched for touchdowns on its first two possessions of the second half to take the lead. If the line wasn’t creating space for Filkins, it was giving senior quarterback Jackson Laurent a safe throwing pocket.

“We realized at halftime that we weren’t firing off like we wanted to,” Lakers senior lineman Mo Linver said. “We kind of felt like we weren’t putting as much into it as we normally do.

“Coach (Steve) Coury straightened us up and said, ‘Why aren’t we doing this?’ We came out with a fire in our belly, saying, ‘We’ve got to fire off.’”

Filkins scored on touchdown runs of three and eight yards to put Lake Oswego ahead 28-21. The 5-foot-11, 185-pound Filkins finished with 134 yards and three touchdowns on 20 carries, giving him 22 total touchdowns for the season.

“No defense can stop him. He’s the man on offense,” Dukart said.

True, but Dukart created the most excitement Friday with a 99-yard touchdown catch from Laurent. Trailing 14-7 in the second quarter, Laurent threw deep to the 6-1 Dukart, who went high to catch a jump ball near the 35, stepped over junior defensive back Cade McCarty and beat fast-closing junior Luke Marion to the end zone.

“And my helmet got turned sideways, so I had to readjust my helmet,” said Dukart, who had four catches for 132 yards.

Filkins said it was “one of the plays of the season.”

“That will be first on his highlight tape at the end of the season,” Filkins said of Dukart, who has a team-high eight touchdown catches. “He made an incredible catch. … He’s such a great receiver. He does everything right. He’s huge for us.”

Tualatin (6-2, 1-2) had won its first six games before committing six turnovers and allowing 588 yards in a 45-20 loss at No. 5 West Linn (5-3, 2-2) last week. Eager to put that performance behind them, the Timberwolves jumped all over Lake Oswego at the start.

Tualatin drove 70 yards on the game’s first possession to take a 7-0 lead on a one-yard touchdown run by junior John Miller, and after Marion blocked a punt at the three-yard line, senior Dominique Loggins scored on a one-yard run to make it 14-0.

For Marion, the son of former NFL all-pro safety Brock Marion, it was the second consecutive game with a blocked punt.

“Definitely in the first half, we had a lot of momentum because we were really motivated and we really wanted to take it to them,” Marion said. “But as the game went on, we kind of lost our momentum.”

It seemed to take the Lakers a while to get into the game.

“I don’t know what it was,” Filkins said. “Honestly, Coach talked about it, there was a little bit of a weird feeling in the locker room, one that we were just kind of flat. There’s no other way to explain it. Thankfully we picked it up in the second half.”

Dukart concurred.

“I think seeing them lose to West Linn, and we beat West Linn, we took them lightly, I guess,” Dukart said. “We brought the energy but I just didn’t think we brought focus. We just didn’t come out to play.”

The Lakers finally started to fight back. Filkins scored on a 32-yard run, then Dukart hauled in the long scoring pass, and after Lake Oswego missed an extra-point attempt, it was 14-13 early in the second quarter.

Tualatin appeared to take back the momentum with an 85-yard touchdown drive – capped by Miller’s four-yard run – to lead 21-13 at half. But the Timberwolves would score no more.

Down 28-21 early in the fourth quarter, Tualatin put together a 70-yard drive but junior quarterback Blake Jackson fumbled at the three-yard line. It was recovered by Lakers senior linebacker Bryson Breeze.

The Timberwolves nearly got the ball back two plays later on a fumble by Lakers senior tight end George O’Brien, but Linver emerged with the ball after a wild scrum at the 14-yard line.

“It looked like one of their guys went down to pick it up,” Linver said. “It was actually in his hands. I dove onto it and stripped it right out of his hands.”

How big was the play?

“That saved us the game,” Dukart said. “They would’ve been in the red zone, probably scored. Maybe a two-point conversion, they would’ve won.”

Tualatin got the ball back two more times. The first series ended when junior Joe Hutson intercepted an end-around pass by Marion at the Lake Oswego 40. The second series ended on downs at the Tualatin 47 with 1:41 left.

Lake Oswego finished with a 398-330 edge in total yards. Laurent completed 15 of 22 passes for 244 yards and one touchdown, giving him 21 touchdown passes with two interceptions for the season. Tualatin’s Jackson was 10 of 21 for 159 yards and rushed for a team-high 67 yards on 18 carries.

Tualatin didn’t get the result it wanted, but showed improvement as it heads into the regular-season finale against its district rival, No. 6 Tigard (7-1, 3-1), which beat West Linn 23-21 on Friday.

“I definitely feel like we played a better game because we made less mistakes than last week,” Marion said. “That doesn’t mean we didn’t make any mistakes, but we made less. So that’s a positive thing.”