Powers senior Patrick Mahmoud (4) holds the state championship trophy after the Cruisers' win Saturday.

Powers went back to basics after falling behind early in the OSAA/OnPoint Community Credit Union 1A-6 football final, then rattled off 32 unanswered points to down Harper Charter 32-13 for the championship trophy at Caldera High School in Bend.

The top-seeded Cruisers threw interceptions on their first two possessions in the first quarter, both of which led to Harper touchdowns. But once Powers focused its offense on the punishing running duo of Jayce Shorb and Rene Sears, the momentum shifted and the Cruisers took over.

The championship Is the first for Powers (12-0) since winning three consecutive eight-man 1A titles from 1996 to 1998. The 32 points by the Cruisers in the final were a season low, but they were more than enough to bring the first-place hardware home to Coos County.

Head coach Ricky Ostle, who moved to Powers from England in 2018 with no knowledge of American football, finished off an unbeaten season in his second year at the helm. Referred to as “the reverse Ted Lasso” by his wife, Ostle stumbled into the head coaching job with the Powers junior high team in 2019 and quickly learned the American game.

"This is awesome but it's also tough that these guys are graduating, so there are a lot of tears," said Ostle, who has been coaching his seniors since they were in seventh grade. "This isn't my sport, but all these kids believed in me when I maybe shouldn't have had this job."

Shorb rushed for 178 yards on 22 carries and Sears ran for 146 yards on 23 carries. They combined for 206 rushing yards in the second half, when the Cruisers did not throw a pass and outgained Harper 205-44.

Ostle said the state title was "long overdue" for Powers, which lost in the quarterfinals last year as the No. 2 seed to eventual champion Echo in Ostle's first year as head coach. The Cruisers fell in the semifinals in 2022 as the top seed.

"I don't know how to put all of this into words because I never thought I'd be in this position," said Ostle. "Last year was a brutal end for us, but I've always believed in our kids and they've done the same with me. This is all so new to me, the game and how seriously people take sports here, but these kids work so hard and they're so respectful. I'm really proud when other coaches come up to me and say they want their program to be like ours."

In Saturday’s final, Ostle saw that the Powers passing game wasn’t paying dividends, so the Cruisers called only runs in the second half, when they broke open a 13-13 halftime tie and dominated the second-seeded Hornets.

"Harper was really prepared for us to throw the ball, so I decided to be simple with the plan and take what the defense would let us do," Ostle said. "We just kept running with power and using our physicality to grind them down."

The Cruisers also utilized onside kicks to their advantage, converting three of them over the course of the game to keep their offense on the field for extended periods.

Harper (10-1) hadn’t recorded fewer than 45 points in any previous game this season, outscoring opponents 457-45 in its 10 wins. After scoring 13 points in the first four minutes of Saturday’s final, the Hornets, who were playing in the school’s first football championship game, couldn’t find the end zone again.

Powers finally got its footing early in the second quarter, when Sears found Patrick Mahmoud for a 13-yard touchdown on one of the Cruisers’ few successful pass plays. The Cruisers pulled even with a 2-yard touchdown by Sears with seven seconds left in the first half.

The second half was all Powers. With the Cruisers shelving the passing game altogether, they alternated handoffs to Sears and Shorb and the Hornets couldn’t come up with stops. Sears scored on a 16-yard run to put the Cruisers up 20-13 through three quarters, then Shorb logged touchdown runs of 4 and 10 yards in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach.

The Hornets looked to be in good shape early, as Richard Joyce returned an interception to the Powers 7-yard line early in the game and Cope Christensen ran in for a 3-yard touchdown to put Harper up 7-0. After Joyce picked off Powers quarterback Braden Bushnell for a second time, Madoxx Martinez caught a short pass from Joyce to put Harper up 13-0 less than four minutes into the game.

The Hornets only threatened to score twice more, but both drives were squashed by the Powers defense. One ended on consecutive sacks after Harper reached the Powers 8-yard line. The other crashed to a halt with a fumble on the Cruisers’ 15-yard line.