After the naming of some spectacular achievements among nine Hall of Fame honorees, the Huskies went out and gained some levels of achievement of their own.
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After the naming of some spectacular achievements among nine Hall of Fame honorees, the Huskies went out and gained some levels of achievement of their own.
They tallied four straight touchdowns in dominant fashion to open a big first-half lead, which eventually led to a solid 47-6 thumping of the game but outmanned Fairport Skippers.
Sparked by the return from injury of senior running back-linebacker Jimmy Wilcox, who was hurt in the team’s opening game loss, the Huskies unleashed a powerful and quick-running attack by sophomore Trey Shirkey and Wilcox, establishing the game’s outcome before halftime.
Shirkey ran for 105 yards in 10 carries and four touchdowns, and Wilcox backed him with 73 yards and two more scores as the Huskies pushed their lead to 41-6 in the third period to set the clock to running. The youngsters got into the act as well in the fourth period with a 50-yard drive after a Braydon Noble fumble recovery with six minutes left.
Scoring was capped with a three-yard smash by junior backup quarterback Mason Lustig.
The night was special for Shirkey.
The 6-1, 215-pound sophomore was nearly unstoppable.
“My dad’s been getting on my case lately to just work harder,” he said. “Coach also has been telling me that things could go a lot better for me with hard work. So tonight I just tried to read my keys from the line’s blocking and hit the holes faster. All I can do is to work harder, so I’m trying to get it done.”
Cardinal coach Eric Cardinal was pleased with Shirkey’s efforts, but said he also saw nice growth from his entire team.
“One of the things we’ve been trying to get the kids to buy into all year was to just play your best,” he said. “If you give your best efforts in practice, then in games, knowing full well that your best may not be the same all the time, you can look back and know you did your best on every play, and then you succeed.”
Shirkey’s scoring runs came from 11, 60, five and 15 yards out. Most were on power dives, but the long burst in the first period saw him break a couple tackles at the line of scrimmage, veer to the right sideline, then simply outrun all the Fairport defenders to the end zone. Nice for someone his size.
Wilcox made his presence felt with 16- and three-yard scores in the second period, but defensively is where he made his mark the most.
In holding the Skippers to just 74 yards of total offense on the night, Wilcox was in on seven tackles unofficially, including one and a half sacks and three tackles for loss, as the Skippers had only minimal success running the ball outside all night.
With Austin Klatik and Jesse McCormick clogging the middle, going wide was the only avenue to go for the Skippers, and for the most part, that failed as well.
“I was really proud of how our younger kids played in the second half,” coach Cardinal said. “They gave me outstanding effort up and down the roster all night.
“There were basically two factors that won the game for us tonight. First, our defense gave us short fields all night long. Secondly, having number 33 (Wilcox) back gave us a huge emotional boost. He was flying around the field all night, especially in our Mike D sets. His efforts freed up some other chances for other kids to make plays, and everybody contributed a lot.”
While moving to just 2-4 on the season, Cardinal has not been unhappy with some things his team has done.
“We’ve been getting good blocking and have been able to average nearly 300 yards a game running the ball. Mistakes have hurt us, though,” he said. “Tonight we had a good game plan and we got good execution from everybody, and when we added some new stuff, they did well with it as well. I can’t ask for any more from any of the kids.”
One negative for the Huskies was the injury to senior Kyle Simms, but their coach said he is not worried yet: “Kyle is day to day as of now, but we’ll see how it goes the next couple of days.”
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