Catholic Central sophomore Daniel Kamara ran for two touchdowns and senior Ashton Young caught two TD passes in the victory. Sophomore Darrien Stapleton and junior Mark Thrasher each ran for TDs, while senior Tre King also caught a TD pass.
“We started off a little slow,” said Irish second-year coach Ty Myers. “We were a little disappointed with how we started. I think about midway through the second quarter we found our groove. I’m not too disappointed, but I think we’ve got some things to work on.”
Early last week, the Catholic Central High School football team was without a Week 2 opponent.
The Irish originally scheduled Dayton Jefferson, but the Broncos dropped football due to low participation numbers. They spent the last few weeks looking for an opponent and eventually found Grove City Christian, which had canceled its first game due to COVID-19 protocols earlier this month. The Eagles were playing in their seasonopener on Saturday night.
“It was important for us to get another ball game,” Myers said. “We’re still young. We need as many reps as we can get before conference play. We didn’t think we were going to have a game. We were scrambling everywhere and had a few different options because of quarantine. We were just happy to get a game in.”
With five minutes remaining in the first quarter, Irish sophomore Da’Shawn Martin intercepted the ball deep in Eagles territory. A few plays later, Kamara scored on a 1-yard run to give the Irish a 7-0 lead.
The Irish forced three turnovers in the game, including two fumble recoveries.
“It’s something we preach every day in practice — turnovers, turnovers, turnovers,” Myers said. “We’re really aggressive. When you’re aggressive and you play sound, turnovers happen.”
On its next possession, Myers, Jr. hit King on a 78-yard TD pass to give the Irish a 13-0 advantage.
On the ensuing kickoff, Grove City Christian senior Jaylin Walker sprinted up the left sideline for an 85-yard touchdown run to cut Catholic Central’s lead to 13-7.
The Irish broke the game open in the second quarter with touchdown runs by Stapleton, Myers, Jr. and Mark Thrasher to make it 33-7.
Myers, Jr. and Young combined for back-to-back TD passes of 20 and 69 yards to make it 48-7 at the half. In the third quarter, Kamara broke loose for a 64-yard TD run to make it 55-7.
The Irish have outscored their two non-conference opponents by a score of 113-7. They’ll enter Ohio Heritage Conference crossover division play this week against West Liberty-Salem (0-2) on Friday night at Hallinean Field.
“I told the boys West Liberty is a different animal than what we’ve faced,” Myers said. “If we start the way we started today, I told them we’d be in for a long night if we played them tonight. We’re going to do our scouting, we’re going to get ready and prepare. Hopefully we can come out on fire instead of waiting for a quarter to get going.”
Saturday’s games
Riverside 28, Northeastern 18: Jets junior quarterback Cade Houseman passed for two TDs and ran for another in a game that resumed Saturday morning after being postponed due to lightning delays on Friday night.
The Pirates led 28-12 at the half. Houseman went 14-for-27 with 165 yards, including TD passes to Johnny Guevara and Gunnar Leonard.
The Jets (1-1) host Greeneview (1-1) on Friday night.
Greenon 20, Northwestern 0: Knights senior Trevor Stewart rushed for 129 yards and two TDs in a game that was postponed until Saturday night due to inclement weather.
Greenon’s Kaden Wooten also threw a 1-yard TD pass to Clay Hough as the Knights improved to 1-1.
Warriors senior Kolten Berner had 82 yards rushing as Northwestern fell to 0-2.
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