Published: August 25, 2007 09:51 pm            

Carmel flexes muscle against Kokomo

Top-ranked Greyhounds post 42-3 victory

CARMEL — There’s a reason Carmel’s football team is rated as the No. 1 team in Class 5A this season. For nearly a half, however, the upstart bunch from Kokomo made the Greyhounds pay for every mistake and despite a sizable disadvantage statistically, trailed only 7-3 with less than two minutes left in the first half.

As previously stated though, there is a reason Carmel is rated as the best team in the state. From the 1:07 mark of the second quarter until the 10:38 mark of the 4th quarter, just under 14 and a half minutes, Carmel unleashed a 35-point scoring flurry that finished off the Kats 42-3 Saturday afternoon in a game which began Friday but was suspended due to thunderstorms.

“I was really proud about the way we came out both [Friday] night and [Saturday] in the first half,” said Kokomo coach Brett Colby. “We had a really big stand on the goal line [Saturday] and forced a fumble that kept us in the game. I wasn’t really happy with the way we finished though since we let things get out of hand a bit and we were hanging our heads.”

Things got underway Friday night with Kokomo taking advantage of a Carmel mistake for an early lead. Carmel running back Aaron King fumbled at his own 45 yard line and Alston Andrews pounced on it before it rolled out of bounds at the 48 to give Kokomo great field position. T.J. Weir then completed an 18-yard pass to Dustin Schact for a first down inside the 30 yard line. That play set up a 43-yard field goal from Caleb Shockley that gave Kokomo a 3-0 lead with 3:31 left in the first.

Lightning then caused a half-hour delay with 38 seconds left in the first half before play resumed again on Friday night. Carmel wasted little time, taking the lead on the first play of the second quarter as Morgan Newton found 6-feet-6 Purdue recruit Jordan Brewer streaking down the middle of the field in the Kokomo secondary for a 39-yard touchdown strike. The game was halted again three plays later with Carmel leading 7-3.

Kokomo (1-1) began play Saturday facing a third and 18 it was unable to convert and had to punt the ball back to the Greyhounds (2-0). A bad snap gave the ball back to Carmel at the Kokomo 36 yard line, and Carmel advanced to the one in six plays before King fumbled again and Curt Hutchens recovered for Kokomo in the end zone.

From that point on little went right for the Kats. Kokomo managed only 20 yards of total offense during Saturday’s portion of play and finished with just a meager 58 yards total compared to 391 for Carmel. The Kats did complete their first five passes of the season though and managed 46 yards through the air after throwing two interceptions in two pass attempts against Mt. Vernon in the opener.

“With our kind of offense you have to be quick, strong, and get off the ball quicker to move,” said Colby. “When our offense is working it is tough to defend because we run to set up the pass, but we couldn’t do that [Saturday]. Carmel is just loaded and once they decided to go over the top of us when they had the ball we were in trouble.”

Though King had two fumbles the rest of his performance was solid. Already the leading rusher in Carmel history, the senior finished with 137 yards on 23 carries and had touchdown runs of seven, four, and three yards during the 35-point outburst. On each possession Carmel started on the happy side of their own 40, and four of those times the Greyhounds were already in Kokomo territory.

Newton, a highly touted junior quarterback who is receiving a ton of collegiate attention, hooked up with Brewer for another 31-yard scoring play and finished with 151 yards and two scores on just 7 of 9 passing. Brewer caught four balls for 86 yards and two scores.

Andrews led the Kokomo defense with 16 tackles and his fumble recovery.

“Each week we simply need to look on film and see what little things we need to adjust,” said Colby. “We’ve seen now in two weeks we’ve got some good things going on special teams, which we worked on a lot this year, and that was able to give us a boost with that long field goal. We’ve finished our preseason now and we know our real season begins next week in conference play at Anderson.”

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.