Thursday Night Football: EC holds off Ballard, O'Dea rolls over Garfield & River Ridge makes early goal stand up

4/1/2021

Our Thursday night line-up was all at the Stadiums with a pair of Metro football and an SSC soccer match. Game re-caps, pictures and video clips below.

Football

Eastside Catholic 28, Ballard 13

(Samammish, WA) The Crusaders and the Beavers collided at Eastside Catholic with the Metro League title on the line. Both came in with 3-1 records and each with big wins. Ballard lost to O’Dea but picked up wins over Bishop Blanchet, Garfield and had beaten Seattle Prep who handed EC their lone loss. The Crusaders had beaten O’Dea, Garfield and Rainier Beach coming into this game.

The Crusaders got off to a fast start with a big pass play from QB Kobe Muasau to TaVarus George on about a 25 yard strike for the 7-0 lead. (Video below) EC came back and scored again early in the 2nd quarter when Muasau took it himself from the 1 yard line and jumped out to a 14-0 lead.

Ballard would not simply give it up and fought right back with QB Ryan Blokker hitting his big tight end Nowlin Ewaliko with a 52 yard bomb to the Crusader 25. The same two would connect again a play later for a touchdown and cut the lead to 14-7. (Video below)

Eastside Catholic rolled right back getting own to the Ballard 28 when Mausua found Dallas Daley over the middle and hit him in stride for the touchdown and a 21-7 lead. (Video below) Ballard drove right back and was inside the red zone with time running out in the first half. Blokker dropped back to pass and fired to the endzone when Unterrio Latin-Henly snatched the interception at the goal line and took it back 100 yards for an EC touchdown and the Crusaders went to the break with a 28-7 lead. (Video below)

Ballard would score again to make it interesting again with about 3 minutes left to play in the 3rd and it was a repeat performance with Blokker firing a laser to Ewaliko from the 15 yard line. Both defenses dominated the final 15 minutes and the Crusaders held on for the 28-13 win.

Our home team player of the game went to Jaylahn Tuimoloau and the visiting player of the game was Nowlin Ewaliko. Eastside Catholic is now 4-1 and tied with Seattle Prep atop the Metro league while Ballard fell to 3-2.

Football

O’Dea 49, Garfield 7

(Seattle, WA) The O’Dea Irish aren’t used to a 2-2 record and with only 1 game to play were not going to play around with even a thought of finishing below 500. O’Dea flexed their muscles early in this clash with the Garfield Bulldogs and very quickly built an overwhelming lead. The Irish won the toss and elected to receive the kick-off and began on their own 20. They worked it out to the 35 in 4 plays but were facing a 3rd and long when QB John Kohler hit David Demenezes about 20 yards down the field, Demenezes then broke a tackle and took it 65 yards for the touchdown. (Video below)

Garfield came out knowing they would have to gamble to keep pace with the offensive fire power of O’Dea and went for a 4th and 2 on their own 38 but were stuffed for a loss and O’Dea had great field position at the Bulldog 35. Freshman running back Jason Brown would take it in from the 12 behind a roadblock of an offensive line for a quick 14-0 lead with 7:15 to go in the 1st quarter.

The Bulldogs came in with just one win but were coming off a tight 28-27 loss to Ballard and were hoping to finish with a big win. They were playing this year with a Freshman quarterback, EJ Caminong. Caminong showed great promise in this game and can sling the ball although he learned some tough lessons in this one against the Irish. In the Garfield 2nd possession Caminong fired a pass to his right but Khari Dawson for the Irish read it perfectly and picked it off and returned it to the bulldog 12. One play later Kohler found his big tight end Quinn Carolan for a 21-0 lead with 6:32 to play in the 1st. (Video below)

The next Bulldog possession was the best of the game. They took over on their own 33 yard line and worked the ball across midfield to the 46 yard line. Caminong dropped back looking to hit a flat pass to Angus Vlasaty just trying to pick up 7 yards for a 1st down when Vlasaty broke free and was off down the far sideline for a 46-yard touchdown and garfield had pulled back to withink 2 scores trailing 21-7 and there was still 5:25 to play in the 1st quarter.

O’Dea would not be deterred and would use a powerful running attack behind the offensive line led by Owen Prentice, Charles Waverly, Nark Nabou, Michael Padilla and Oliver Braitsch. Georgio Kotsakis would finish the drive plowing in from the 2 to increase the Irish lead to 28-7.

O’Dea’s defense was next to get in on the scoring as Garfield began on their own 30. Caminong looked to his right and focused in on his receiver but O’Dea’s Hayden McDonald, one of the team captains, read this perfectly and picked the ball off in stride at the 35 and returned it for a pick 6 and a 35-7 lead with still 20-seconds to play in the 1st quarter. (Video below)

After forcing a Garfield punt the run game again took over for the Irish as Tajj Dyles ripped off a 41 yard sprint to make it 42-7. O’Dea would cap the scoring after McDonald picked off his second pass and returned it 19-yards to the Garfield 46. Jason Brown would add his second touchdown with another powerful run from the 15 and it was 49-7.

The 2nd half was a running clock and each team only had 3 possessions. The Bulldogs did not score again but they never gave up and battled hard and also held the Irish scoreless. Garfield got some solid efforts from Quinton Jordan, Finn Sculley, Calvin Barnes Jr, Rowley Canale and Amdane Aboudou.

O’Dea finished the season with a 3-2 mark and Garfield at 1-4. Our visiting player of the game we took the easy way out, with so many offensive players we could have chosen we went with Hayden McDonald for his 2 interceptions and pick 6. Our home team player of the game went to Amdane Aboudou.

Soccer

River Ridge 1, North Thurston 0

The River Ridge Hawks struck quickly in this match-up with one of their in-district rivals the North Thurston Rams and they made it hold up for another 78 minutes. Eric Stephens knocked in the only goal of the game on an assist from Trevor Thompson. The Hawks and Rams defense took over the match from there on with each keeper coming up with some fabulous saves. Saul Serrano ended up with the shut out and the win for River Ridge.

The Rams dropped to 1-2 and will host Capital next Tuesday. River Ridge is now 4-0 and will look to continue their winning streak next Wednesday at Aberdeen.