Medical Lake head football coach Wes Hobbs knew going into their game with Lakeside last Friday night in Suncrest that they had to make it a game of keep away.
The Cardinals did a pretty good job of that but still it took just nine minutes for the undefeated Eagles, 3-0 in Northeast A League play, 5-0 overall, en route to a 48-12 victory.
Medical Lake lost for a fourth straight week and is now 0-3 in the NEA and 1-4 overall as they prepare to host Newport (0-3, 1-4) in their annual Homecoming/Hall-of-Fame game Friday at 7 p.m. at Holliday Field.
“Basically that was our strategy, do the best we could maintaining the ball,” Hobbs said. “The first two possessions we were in pretty good shape, where we needed to be against a team that’s averaging 56 points a game.”
After the Cardinals started the game with a 7-plus minute drive that ended in a turnover on downs, it took the Eagles just 1 minute, 17 seconds to get a lead they would never relinquish when Say Hutyler scored from a yard out with 3:16 to go in the first quarter.
The Cardinals again took over on another time-consuming drive that chewed up six minutes, but again resulted in no points, despite getting to the Eagles’ 14. It took Lakeside just 1:24 to go 87 yards, capped by Nick Christiansen’s run to make it a 14-0 game.
New quarterback Matteo Duran, taking over for Cory Wagner who was sidelined with a concussion suffered in the Deer Park game Sept. 26, finished a 60-yard Medical Lake drive with a 1-yard touchdown run with 3:35 remaining in the opening half, trimming the lead to 14-6.
“We scored with 3 minutes, 35 seconds to go in the half and don’t look now, we’re only down 14-6,” Hobbs said.
But Lakeside took advantage of a roughing the passer call on fourth and 16 to get new life in a drive leading to a 21-6 lead with 1:26 to play in the first half on a Cameron Gay to Bryce Schimke pass.
A three-and-out by Medical Lake, which was unable to move past their own 10 yard-line, set up the Eagles for another touchdown with 44 seconds remaining on a Gay to Kelly Kyllo pass. It was the first of two Kyllo scores.
“(It went) from 14-6 to 28-6 in nothing flat,” Hobbs said.
Lakeside continued their assault in the third quarter, getting a big kickoff return and a 24-yard Gay to Schimke touchdown that made it 35-6 just 17 seconds into the third quarter. Kyllo and Schimke each caught another scoring pass from Gay as Lakeside outscored the Cards 20-0 in the third.
Tellas Johnson, who led the Cards with 109 yards on 13 carries scored Medical Lake’s final touchdown with 7:39 to play.
“I think we had the ball 10 minutes longer than they did,” Hobbs said.
Duran did a very commendable job at quarterback. “We converted a freshman tight end to a starting quarterback in two days,” Hobbs said with a laugh when talking about Duran. “And he did a great job,” Hobbs added of the lanky 6 foot, 2 inch 170-pounder.
Duran had last played the position in junior high, drilled a little earlier and finished the night completing 3 of 5 passes for 59 yards and scoring a touchdown.
“These guys are like the current trend, they present (us with) a lot of problems and spread the field out and throw the ball about 80 - 90 percent of the time,” Hobbs said of Newport. “Once again we’re going to get tested. We need to find a way to get to the quarterback and defend the pass.”
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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