Carmel made it clear from the beginning that they were going to run the ball and rely on their running back Covossay Windham in a 42-14 win over Christopher on Sept. 9.
It took the Padres (3-0) nine plays to go 58 yards on their first drive of the night to open up the score. Windham carried the ball five times for 19 yards. Quarterback Daniel Higman rushed 24 yards on the last play to give the Padres a 7-0 after the extra point kick.
Windham rushed for 186 yards while Higman supported with 83. Both did not play the fourth quarter.
Higman was accurate throwing the ball, making it hard for the Cougars’ defense to focus on stopping the rush. He threw for 168 yards on 17 completions from
19 attempts.
“They’re a good football team; Well coached, really good running back. We had a hard time tackling him. I think that was the main problem tonight,” said Christopher coach Tim Pierleoni.
Christopher had opportunities to score and finally did so in the beginning of the fourth quarter thanks to a great play by their tight end Jason Scirigione.
Scirigione received the ball near his own 40-yard line when he turned and broke two tackles near the right sideline. He got support from his blockers and it seemed he had a clear path to the end zone. A Carmel defender was running across the field trying to catch up to Scirigione. He finally did and tackled him on the 10-yard line. Two plays later Scirigione finished what he started on a 7-yard pass from quarterback Ryan Adamkiewicz.
“We tried to run the play earlier in the half, but the quarterback got sacked,” said Scirigione on the 58-yard play. “(on the play) I turned around and looked up, it was open field so I just went for it.”
Scirigione had five catches for 82 yards.
On the next Christopher drive Josiah Apolinar took a page from Scirigione and turned a 10-yard play into a 67-yard play for the final score of the game.
Christopher’s offence totaled 415 yards.
The Cougars had opportunities to get on the board early in the game. After going down by seven, the offense put a 62-yard drive together. They were looking at a second-and-12 from Carmel’s 18-yard line when Adamkiewicz threw an interception in the end zone. Carmel took advantage and put up a drive that put the score 14-0.
Adamkiewicz was 26/32, had 2 TDs, 316 passing yards, and 3 interceptions.
Christopher had some good plays on offense and special teams, but penalties and untimely mistakes consistently put the team behind the eight ball.
“We would get some momentum, get some things going and then we get a big penalty. That really hurt us a bunch of times during the game,” said coach Pierleoni.
Olivares did not have much success rushing the ball; 36 yards, but took advantage of screen plays to rack up 71 yards on nine receptions.
Christopher falls to 1-2 and visit Woodland next Friday Sept. 16 at 7 p.m.
