Wildcats whip Wolves 41-12

  • David Pan<br>Enterprise sports editor
  • Monday, March 3, 2008 11:38am

EVERETT — Archbishop Murphy head coach Terry Ennis was looking for significant improvement from his team in its second game of the season.

Though they had their share of rough patches, the Wildcats accomplished Ennis’ goal in a 41-12 victory over non-conference opponent Black Hills Sept. 9 at Archbishop Murphy High School.

Ennis was most pleased by the progress of his defense, which after giving up a touchdown on the last play of the first half shut out the Wolves in the second half.

“We went after them. We were just a little hesitant, passive, I thought in the first half,” Ennis said. “We weren’t being really aggressive tackling. I thought in the second half, there was an extra effort to be an aggressive tackler.”

Archbishop Murphy led 20-12 at halftime and scored three unanswered touchdowns in the second half.

The Wolves were a tougher test for the Wildcats than Orting was in the season opener.

“They’re just a hard-nosed football team,” said junior running back/defensive back Henry Woods. “They had a lot more team speed than Orting and they’re more physical.”

Woods rushed for 44 yards on nine carries but made his mark on defense with a fumble recovery in the first quarter that led to Archbishop Murphy’s first touchdown and a third-quarter interception.

“Those kind of things mean somebody is hungry to play and improve,” Ennis said. “Those are excellent plays.”

Senior running back Dejan Sughrim rushed for a game-high 135 yards on four carries and scored one touchdown.

Unlike his performance against Orting, Sughrim ran inside for most of his yards. Sughrim didn’t have a lot of experience running inside coming into the season, Ennis said.

Senior running back Tony Houts rushed for 118 yards on 10 carries and scored two touchdowns. The Wildcats amassed 420 yards on 41 carries for the game.

“I’m very pleased with how hard our running backs ran,” Ennis said. “Our ball handling wasn’t as crisp as it could be.”

Archbishop Murphy fumbled the ball four times but recovered three of those fumbles. The Wildcats were flagged for 10 penalties.

A nightmarish sequence in the fourth quarter featured back-to-back false starts, a delay of game penalty and then a fumble that was recovered by Black Hills.

“Very disappointing,” Ennis said of the penalties. “It’s not who we need to be and who we usually are. We’ve got a lot of younger guys over there, so you kind of anticipate you might get some of that. But we got too much of that.”

Archbishop Murphy didn’t know much about Black Hills coming into the game other than that the Wolves were a 3A team that is dropping down to 2A this season.

“This was a good football team that I thought we had to play very hard and at times we played very well,” Ennis said. “That’s what we needed to do.”

Senior quarterback John-Paul Blair threw his second touchdown of the season, a 17-yarder to J.D. Melton to give the Wildcats a 6-0 lead in the first quarter. The two connected for a touchdown in the season opener.

Archbishop Murphy sophomore running back Russel Stiegler added a 43-yard touchdown run in the second quarter before Black Hills responded with a 61-yard touchdown run by Nick Schuetz.

Houts scored on a 2-yard run with 1:15 remaining in the second quarter to give the Wildcats a 20-6 advantage.

The Wolves took over on their own 38 with 1:10 remaining and immediately moved into Archbishop Murphy territory when Ross Leeburg broke free for a 27-yard gain. Eight plays later, Schuetz threw a 2-yard touchdown pass to Leeberg as the deficit was cut to 20-12.

The second half was all Wildcats, as on the first play from scrimmage Sughrim busted free for a 72-yard touchdown run. Later in the quarter, Houts ran 66 yard for his second score. Senior Geoff Hunter closed out the scoring with a 1-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter.

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