State champions hand King’s first league loss

SHORELINE — The last time the Archbishop Thomas Murphy football team was forced to expend this much effort, there was a trophy on the line.

King’s gave the unbeaten Wildcats by far their stiffest challenge since last year’s Class 1A title game, but it wasn’t nearly enough to derail the two-time state champions.

Archbishop Murphy blanked the Knights 28-0 in a pivotal Cascade Conference matchup Oct. 8 at Woolsey Stadium to extend its three-year win streak to 32 games and assume sole possession of first place in the new seven-team league.

“They’re a tough team, but I thought we handled them pretty well on defense,” King’s sophomore tailback/safety Spencer Clark said. “You’ve just got to stay low and hit hard. We held them pretty well, but unfortunately we didn’t get in the end zone ourselves.”

It was the second shutout in three weeks for an ATM defense that has allowed just 35 points in six games this season. The Wildcats limited King’s to 91 total yards and three first downs, two of which came on the game’s final drive.

“They do a lot of slanting and shifting at the snap. It’s hard to get good read on their D,” Knights coach Jim Shapiro said. “It’s kind of a guessing game. You guess right one time and guess wrong the rest.”

King’s (2-1 league, 3-2 overall) went three-and-out on five of its first six series and finished the game 0-for-9 on third down. The Wildcats gave up just three plays for more than seven yards and held the Knights to negative yardage in the second half until the last 1:28.

“Since our offense is so productive it (overshadows) our defense,” Wildcats quarterback Kyle Wilkins said. “But if you look at our defense, we’ve been keeping teams to low scores.”

The Knights atoned for their offensive struggles by containing the high-powered ATM running game for extended periods. King’s forced a season-high six punts by the Wildcats and became the first team to hold Archbishop Murphy under 40 points this season.

“They came out here and just flew to the football. Every time, every play,” Wilkins said. “They had a lot more team speed and hitting than we’ve seen. They’re a great team and they came out and gave us something we haven’t seen before.”

Wilkins engineered three scoring drives for the Wildcats (3-0, 6-0) and rushed for 72 yards on five carries before leaving in the third quarter due to what he diagnosed as a slight knee sprain.

Facing third-and-10 on Archbishop Murphy’s second possession, Wilkins faked a handoff and sprinted to the sideline for a 41-yard touchdown run at the 2:54 mark of the first quarter.

Midway through the second quarter senior tailback Craig Duncan charged up the middle untouched for a 24-yard TD run to cap a five-play drive that took 1:11.

The Wildcats needed just 40 seconds to march 69 yards and stretch their lead to 21-0 at the end of the second quarter. After three runs by three different ball carriers, Wilkins lofted his only pass of the game to junior split end Alex Ungs for a 41-yard TD reception.

“When your offense isn’t producing, they’re going to have the ball more,” Shapiro said. “They’re a big-play football team and they got a couple on us.”

ATM coach Terry Ennis emphasized the significance of his team’s final defensive stop and subsequent score with just under a minute to go before halftime.

“It’s tough going in 14-0 because if they get a touchdown they’re back in it,” he said. “Twenty-one really gives you a cushion. The kids got the ball back and executed. That piece of the game really reflected what we’ve been practicing. There were other times when I don’t think it did.”

Like the start of the second half, when three of Archbishop Murphy’s first four possessions resulted in punts.

“We didn’t stop ourselves They stopped us from doing things. A lot of credit goes to them,” Ennis said.

“We got some big plays, but we didn’t move the ball with the consistency that we’d like. We want to be a first down team instead of trying to get a big chunk once in a while.”

Junior running back Shiloh Keo’s 22-yard burst with eight seconds remaining in the third quarter was ATM’s only touchdown of the second half. Another drive fizzled inside the King’s 10-yard line.

“Our goal was to out-hustle them and out-condition them. We wanted zero (points) in the second half,” Shapiro said. “You could tell they were cramping up and getting tired because they haven’t played four quarters. We have and that was our objective. It’s just our offense didn’t help us.”

Clark ran for a team-high 39 yards on seven carries for the Knights and teammate Alex Newman added 32 yards on six attempts. King’s quarterback Greg Ulrich faced a constant rush from the Wildcats and completed just two of eight passes for 10 yards.

The Knights held Archbishop Murphy to a season-low 286 rushing yards, led by Stan Smith’s 72 yards on 14 carries. Keo and Duncan each contributed 58 yards to go with their touchdowns.

“Our coaches said we played one of our best games,” Clark said. “The score might not say we did good, but as a team we’re going to get better and learn from it.”