When you put two playoff-tested teams onto the field, with playoff aspirations once again in a new season, the team that gets that first big spark has the upper hand toward success.
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When you put two playoff-tested teams onto the field, with playoff aspirations once again in a new season, the team that gets that first big spark has the upper hand toward success.
Aug. 29 at Cliff Walton Stadium, the Berkshire Badgers visited the Hawken Hawks — both teams looking toward further postseason action, yet knowing the road will not be easy.
The team with the first big break would have a good chance to win, both teams knew it, and that is how it played out in a total demolition of the Badgers by the Hawks, a 44-0 shutout.
In their opener last week, the Badgers played a quality team in Harvey and had issues with their USC-bound tailback Shahn Alston, who tallied eight touchdowns. The Red Raiders exploded late for a 57-41 win. Hawken took an easy win in their opener over a much less formidable team, Cleveland Central Catholic.
A sign of things to come in this contest came on the opening kickoff, when a funny bounce took Berkshire’s return man back to close to his own goal line before he could gain control. The deep official ruled the returner was, indeed, in the end zone, resulting in an automatic touchback. Senior linebacker Kene Obi stuffed the first play for a 3-yard loss, and that was the spark Hawken needed to take control.
After a punt, the return was bobbled at the Hawk 46 yard line but recovered to set up first down.
Three Donovan Moorhead completions and three Obi runs, the last from two yards out, capped a nine-play scoring drive for a quick Hawken lead.
Another four-and-out set up the Hawks on their own 42 and, keyed by a 27-yard screen pass to the left side from Moorhead to Obi that set up first-and-goal at the two, Mitch Greenberg took it in and Moorhead completed a first-period domination with a 60-yard pass to Charlie Mallett with 23 ticks left in the period for a 20-0 lead.
The Badgers looked stunned. Obi capped a 65-yard drive midway through the second period for a 27-0 lead, and the Badgers finally snapped out of it with a solid drive of their own, the first signs of life on offense.
Five first downs set up Berkshire (0-2) inside the Hawken 10 yard line, but a holding penalty set up a fourth down play, and Mallett showed his hands function well on either side of the ball, making a spectacular fingertip interception a the 1 yard line off a Sam Barcikoski pass to stop the drive.
Moorhead capped the long drive with a perfect pass crossing the middle of the field to Mallett from 26 yards out to give Hawken a 34-0 halftime lead, and the running clock the rest of the way completed the shutout.
“We just didn’t get any kind of momentum at all tonight,” Berkshire Head Coach Josh DeWeese said. “We played a solid game against a good Harvey team last week. You know that Alston will get his yards, but we hung in there with them until a late interception hurt us, and they responded well.
“Tonight, once we fell behind, we were trying to make plays too much instead of just each player doing his job on each play. Hawken has some serious talent, and we didn’t respond to it well at all.”
Hawken Head Coach Mark Iammarino had his team ready for this game.
“We saw that they put up 41 on Harvey last week, so you know they are dangerous and explosive,” he said. “We also had a special inspiration for this game. We lost Assistant Coach Tom (Red) Kenny recently. He was with our program a long time, and we wanted to honor him if we could, so tonight we had his family here. We had a great week of practice, too, focusing on him, and the kids really focused well for this game.”
Mallett had a huge game for Hawken. On offense , he caught eight of Moorhead’s passes for 159 yards and three touchdowns. Add in a pair of interceptions of Barcikoski tosses, and a 10-catch night usually means a good pair of hands was at work.
Throwing mostly screens and sideline passes of medium range, Moorhead hit on 19 of 22 passes for 288 yards, and Obi paced a tough ground game with 106 yards on 15 carries and two scores.
Hawken used some trick plays as well. In the first scoring drive of the second period, Obi, on a reverse option play, hit Mallett for 22 yards to set up a first down situation.
Paced by the inside line play of sophomores Rocco Vitantonio and Leroy Scales, who dominated on both sides of the ball, Barcikoski had little time to find receivers all night long. He missed a couple open passes while hitting on 10 of 23 tries for 81 yards, but the pressure stopped the Berkshire ground game all night, keeping the sparks from flying much.
Mallett summed it all up well.
“We saw they had played a great game with Harvey last week,” he said. “We expected a tough four-quarter game from them, and we knew we had to take control early.”
And that, they did.
