Archbishop Murphy football pushes past Olympic into quarterfinals

EVERETT — Archbishop Murphy football is not used to getting punched in the face, but it was searching the canvas for its mouthguard to start out the 2A State Round of 16 against Olympic at Goddard Memorial Stadium on Saturday.

After the offense fumbled the ball away around midfield on just its second snap, Archbishop Murphy’s defense committed an encroachment penalty on the next play before allowing a 30-yard rushing touchdown from senior Chace Webster down the left sideline six snaps later. Olympic botched the extra point, but Archbishop Murphy still found itself trailing 6-0 just 4:37 into the game. It was unfamiliar territory for a team that had never trailed at any point this season.

“We just had to keep playing our game,” junior running back/defensive back Isaiah Smith said. “We couldn’t get too low, hang our heads or anything. We had to go out there and do our job on offense, which went out there and did.”

As Smith alluded to, it didn’t take long for the top-seeded Wildcats (10-0) to respond. On the first play from scrimmage after Webster’s touchdown, Smith broke up the middle for a 63-yard score, the first of 35 unanswered first-half points en route to a 45-13 win against the No. 16 seed Trojans (9-2).

After adjusting the rush defensive scheme to fit the looks Olympic threw at them — some of which differed from what they prepared for in practice — Archbishop Murphy managed to course-correct, allowing just 83 net yards in the first half. Conversely, Smith had 119 yards and four touchdowns in the first half alone on just seven carries. Along with snagging an interception on defense, he totaled 129 on the day, leading the charge after a slow start.

“I think it just shows that we’re aggressive,” said junior lineman Gus Morrow, who helped create the gaps for Smith to run through all afternoon. “We’re able to respond. Like I said earlier, we’ve never been in that spot before. We’ve never been losing in a game before, and I just think it just shows that as long as we play Murphy football, as long as we play the football that we know how to play, that we’re able to beat anyone in the state.”

The Wildcats defense kept the momentum rolling after Smith’s long touchdown, with senior receiver/defensive back Henry Gabalis laying out a hit to force a fumble recovered by Morrow, and Smith ran in his second score of the day from 28 yards out just two plays later to extend the lead to 14-6.

Despite the quick response to Olympic’s early score, it was a sloppy first quarter for the Wildcats, who committed several crucial penalties while also benefiting from a couple of dropped balls by the Trojans on each side. One of Olympic’s defensive backs nearly had a pick-six on an attempted screen pass with no one in front of him, but dropped the ball to keep the offense on the field with less than a minute left in the first quarter.

After surviving a potential game-changing play, Archbishop Murphy ramped things up to close the half. Senior lineman Tayden Olson had a third-down sack that pinned Olympic inside its own five, and junior receiver/defensive back Javen Latta took the ensuing punt return all the way back to the two-yard line before Smith punched it in for his third rushing touchdown of the day.

Smith then made his mark on the other side of the ball with a diving interception at the Trojans’ 34, and after the Wildcats recovered their own fumble on two consecutive plays, Smith eventually found a hole and breezed in for a 15-yard touchdown to push it to 28-6 with 49 seconds left in the half.

Looking to put the game out of hand before the break, senior tight end/defensive lineman Jack Sievers delivered a strip sack on Olympic’s next play from scrimmage, with senior lineman Hakeim Smalls recovering the ball inside the Trojans’ 10, and Sievers caught a seven-yard touchdown on the very next play. With 14 points off turnovers to end the half, the Wildcats more than made up for their slow start.

“It kind of solidified the win, honestly,” Sievers said of the sequence. “You should never go into halftime thinking you won the game, and we didn’t, but just coming out and extending that lead, it gave us some security as a team that we had room, and kind of honestly made us a little less antsy. I feel like at the beginning of the game, we were a little rattled. Guys were trying to make plays, which you need to do. Everyone needs to do their job, and once we were able to get up, we all kind of settled in.”

Sophomore running back/defensive back Cole Sievers ran in a 12-yard touchdown to finish off the first drive of the second half, and senior kicker/punter Kyler Phillips (6-for-6 extra points) nailed a 42-yard field goal with 11:19 left in the game to push it to 45-6, which offered a silver-lining for the Wildcats’ stalled offensive drives in that their place-kicker received some in-game experience from longer distances.

The defense forced two turnovers on downs before Webster finished off the game with a 65-yard rushing touchdown to end his day with 162 yards and two scores on 29 carries. Archbishop Murphy coach Joe Cronin and several players labeled Webster as the best running back they have faced all season, giving the defense a real test to work through.

While it ultimately didn’t matter based on the wide scoring margin, penalties continued to plague Archbishop Murphy down the stretch. Jack Sievers had three different touchdowns negated by holding penalties behind him, and the defense committed several encroachment penalties and personal fouls after the whistle to keep the Olympic offense on the field.

“I love my teammates,” Sievers said. “They’re out there blocking for me, working their (butt) off. At the end of the day, I know that’s what they were trying to do. They weren’t trying to get my touchdowns (called) back. So I love them, and I just kept running hard, and hopefully we got to clean that up and practice with our technique.”

The Wildcats quickly pushed past their first moment of adversity, but Cronin emphasized the need to clean things up as his team marches on to the quarterfinals.

“They made the most of their opportunities,” Cronin said. “So I think some adversity early— adversity is great when you win the game, so we’ll take it. … The thing with the penalties is they were just like critical — fourth-and-eight (becomes) first down, touchdown called back — and some of those happen. You don’t control everything (with) holding calls and stuff.

“But when it comes down to it, yeah, time to put your big boy pants on. It’s going to be a four-quarter game, and we need to be ready for that moving forward.”