After a difficult 48-14 loss against Helix last week, the Dons sprang back against the Olympian Eagles at Olympian High School in a dominating fashion. The Dons seemed to eclipse the Eagles on all three phases of the game until the final whistle, scoring a 31-0 shutout victory with the help of three touchdown throws to three different receivers from Garrett Bogart.
The Dons defense got the night off the right way, sacking the Eagles’ junior quarterback Christopher Humphery on the very first play of the game. This was a sign of things to come as, throughout the game, the Eagles QB had very little time to pass against relentless Dons’ pressure.
Junior outside linebacker Taylor Esoldi and senior defensive lineman Casey Palid both had incredible games in the pass rush department.
“Our D-Line does a great job all week of working on moves to get to the QB. With coach Monatali’s schemes each guy on our defensive front has the potential to make a play, and we recognize that. We have the athletes to line up against anybody and be confident,” said senior defensive back Patrick Downing.
The Dons offense came onto the field with visions of pressuring the Eagles’ defense by speeding up the tempo of the game with a hurry up style offense. The Eagles defense started the game very well, however, and found a lot of success in stuffing the Dons running attempts.
The Dons did, howeve,r find themselves inside of the red zone against Olympian. The Olympian red zone defense stood tall and forced the Dons to kick a field making it 3-0 Dons at the end of the first quarter.
On the Eagles’ next offensive possession, Christopher Humphery dropped back to pass and was hit hard by senior Casey Palid for a sack. Humphery was very slow to get off the z and was seen limping on the sideline. The Eagles’ backup QB Daniel Gutierrez took the field on the next play on third down and missed his receiver to force a punt.
The Dons’ punted on their next drive, and Humphery returned to the field for the Eagles. On his first pass back on the field, he under threw his receiver and was intercepted by junior defensive back Parker Price.
The Dons did not score off of the interception, but on the following drive junior Garrett Bogart found senior wide receiver Brian Heinz on a quick slant route. Heinz made one defender miss and ran the rest of the way for a touchdown. It was called a 62 yard pitch and catch from Bogart and a phenomenal run by Heinz to make it 10-0 Dons.
Humphery again returned to the field limping noticibly and again was intercepted after under throwing his receiver in the middle of the field. This ball was intercepted by senior middle linebacker Russell Reeder.
The Dons drove to the one yard line where junior running back Tony Johnson pounded it in for the touchdown, making it 17-0 Dons going into halftime.
Daniel Gutierrez got the start for the Eagles to the start the second half, Humphery never returned to this game. Some defenses might see their opponent’s starting quarterback go down and become over-confident.
“At that point in the game we had a lot of momentum and [Humphery] had taken some huge hits from our defensive front so it wasn’t surprising. It’s up to us though that when we see that we don’t get complacent and continue our relentless pursuit to the ball,” said Downing.
The Eagles started the second half by going three and out and punting it back to the Dons.
The Dons faced fourth down on the Eagles 37 yard line on their first drive of the second half and decided to go for it. Instead of just going for enough yards to get the first, Bogart looked for senior tight end Andrew Pascale in the seam for a touchdown throw to make it 24-0 Dons.
For a game that was in no way considered a rivalry, this one was very rugged. By the end of the game there were 12 personal foul penalties combined between the two teams. The Eagles’ came into the game thinking they could play with the Dons after beating Torrey Pines 22-7 last week, and were obviously frustrated at how the game turned out.
On what was Bogart’s last drive in this game, he found senior wide receiver Trevor Deddeh for the 22 yard touchdown throw to make it 31-0 Dons. Bogart had his best game of the year so far, ending this one 9/17 for 186 yards and three touchdown throws, which went to three different receivers.
“The fact that three different receivers scored excites me because we have a lot of weapons on offense, and if everyone’s being utilized, we’re going to be a scary team,” said Downing.
The Dons showed a lot of heart with this kind of performance after last weeks tough loss.
“It shows that our team has a lot of character. We knew we played a bad game versus Helix, but we don’t dwell in the past. We wanted to get to this game as soon as possible and prove that we weren’t going to feel sorry for ourselves,” said Downing.
Olympian moves to 1-2 on the year as they head to Madison (3-0) next week to play the Eagles. The Dons move to 3-1 and will face the 4-0 Eastlake Wolves next week at Eastlake High School. The Wolves are coming off of a 25-7 win over Steele Canyon.
“There’s no question in our minds that they (Eastlake) are a great team, but we feel like we can play with anybody. It’s a great opportunity because, in a sense, we get to have another shot at a top team and see how we stack up. It should be a great game to watch,” said Downing