TACOMA — Zillah’s well-rounded, high-octane offense never stood a chance against the Archbishop Thomas Murphy defense. Not after the Wildcats let the dogs out.
Not those dogs. The devil dogs.
Moments before the top-ranked Wildcats took the field to defend their Class 1A state football title, Archbishop Murphy defensive coordinator Jeff Schmidt released the hounds in the locker room.
As if the Wildcats weren’t fired up enough, Schmidt, an ex-Marine, shared an inspirational tale with his troops about the Battle of Belleau Wood, a turning-point World War I conflict.
When the Marine Corps took Belleau Wood from the Germans in the summer of 1918, they were dubbed “Teufelhunden,” or “devil dogs,” by their opposition. The Leathernecks embraced the label.
So did the Wildcats, many of whom scribbled “CD,” or “crazed dogs” on their arms before last Saturday’s title game to remind them of the mission at hand.
“These guys came out and played like crazed dogs,” Schmidt said proudly. “They were my little devil dogs today.”
Containing a resourceful Zillah squad that was putting up roughly 48 points per game seemed like a long shot, especially considering the heavy-duty weaponry the upset-minded Leopards brought on their 175-mile jaunt to the Tacoma Dome.
Zillah boasted a quarterback who had thrown for more than 2,200 yards and 35 touchdowns, an all-league running back who had rushed for 1,400 yards and 31 touchdowns and a go-to receiver who had piled up 44 catches, 902 yards and 16 scores.
But Zillah’s potent personnel and striking statistics didn’t intimidate the Wildcats, who blanked the Leopards 20-0 in the highly-anticipated matchup of unbeatens behind a spirited defensive effort.
“It was just a really good game,” Archbishop Murphy linebacker Wes Taylor understated. “We had teamwork, we had pressure from the line, pressure from the outside linebackers. The DBs did excellent. (Zillah) was a passing team (and) a running team and we just shut them down.
“The coaches told us to expect a hard-hitting team, a team that was bigger than us physically. The way to bring them down was just to hit hard.”
Senior linebacker Jeff Arkell delivered the game’s first hard hit, a brutal shot that nearly knocked the spots off Leopards quarterback Louis Santana and led to Archbishop Murphy’s initial touchdown.
On third-and-8 near the ATM 38-yard line, Arkell charged around the left side of the line untouched and blasted Santana at full speed. As Santana collapsed to the turf, the ball popped free and senior tackle David Burdick tracked it down for the Wildcats.
“That was huge,” Schmidt said of Arkell’s sack. “It was his turn to come off the edge and he came in off a great blindside and just ran right through (Santana). That’s exactly how you do it.”
The play appeared to ignite the Wildcats, who had gone three-and-out on their first two possessions. After recovering the fumble, Archbishop Murphy mounted a seven-play, 54-yard drive and took a 7-0 lead when quarterback Kyle Wilkins scored his first of two touchdowns on a 9-yard sneak with 29 seconds left in the first quarter.
The Wildcats (14-0) went on to force three more turnovers, including a pair of second-quarter interceptions by sophomore Stan Smith and Taylor that halted promising Zillah drives deep inside ATM territory.
Besides consistently pressuring Santana, the Wildcats designed their defensive game plan around confining Leopards running back Shane Stonemetz, who managed just 12 yards in the second half and finished with 40 yards on 14 carries.
“The key today was stopping Stonemetz,” Schmidt said. “You’ve got to stop Stonemetz and the quarterback and we came up with some good schemes. The kids worked hard … to stop them and when we had a chance to hit the quarterback, the kids came off and hit him.”
Zillah (12-1) didn’t advance past its 35-yard line in the second half until the Wildcats sent in their reserves, who eventually stopped the Leopards on fourth down at the ATM 27 with 18 seconds remaining to preserve Archbishop Murphy’s second shutout of the season and 26th consecutive victory.
Santana threw for 64 of his 148 passing yards against Archbishop Murphy’s backups and the Wildcats limited Zillah to 29 yards on the ground.
“We were expecting a high-scoring game. Our defense came out and shut them out. It feels good,” Arkell said. “This game proves a point to everyone who doubted our defense. We shut out the second-best team in the state.”
And showed why the Wildcats are still No. 1.
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