Hazen’s Cody Taylor keyed two big plays that got the Highlanders’ season off to an almost perfect start against Blaine Saturday morning.

The senior scored on a 65-yard touchdown run on the game’s third play, then intercepted a pass on Blaine’s next offensive play. Hazen held on to beat the Borderites 35-32 in the Emerald City Kickoff Classic at CenturyLink Field in Seattle.

“It was awesome,” Taylor said. “My line did great and I just ran behind them like I’m supposed to do.”

The Highlanders (1-0) played sharp defense in the first half and forced two turnovers in the first quarter. Blaine couldn’t find any sort of rhythm and ran just five plays in the first quarter.

Pretty much everything was going Hazen’s way until Eddie Timm was injured on a punt attempt. Medics attended to Timm for about 20 minutes before he left in an ambulance. He was discharged from the hospital before the end of the game.

“You can never prepare for something like that,” said Hazen coach Drew Oliver. “It’s a pretty chilling thing… Just trying to get back up from that and kind of restart, it was a tough go.”

After the injury, the Borderites moved the ball effectively and got on the board Mario Gobbato scored on a 34-yard rush in the second quarter.

Hazen then stumbled with timing on two drives before halftime (though special teams did force another turnover from Blaine) and committed a number of penalties.

“We sputtered quite a bit out there,” Oliver said. “There was a lot of mental errors that we have to clean up.”

Hazen led 7-6 at the half.

Blaine led 12-7 in the third after Gobbato scored again, and the Borderites backed Hazen up to the Highlanders’ own six-yard line after a sack. Then quarterback Tony Nipert found Taylor on a short pass. Taylor broke a few tackles and scampered all the up the sideline for a 94-yard score.

Tray Brown had two rushing scores in the second half and Taylor added one more. Nipert made another big play, hitting Cody Moorhead over the middle for 59 yards in the fourth quarter.

Hazen pushed out the lead to 35-18 with just under nine minutes left in the game before Blaine responded and got as close as 35-32 with 3:34 remaining. The Highlanders were able to recover the ensuing onside kick after the Borderites final score and run the clock out.

For Oliver and the Highlanders it’s a win, but there are definitely things to improve on.

“The first game of the year is always a little rickety,” Oliver said. “But we dealt with it and came away with the win.”

Hazen takes on Cedarcrest Sept. 9 at home.