Wildcats notch first win impressively
September 26, 2008
By Ryan Piersol
Michael Nelson says he can’t dunk a basketball, but he could’ve fooled everyone on the football field last Friday night.
The Mount Si defensive lineman jumped high in the air to intercept a screen pass, then returned it 22 yards for a touchdown, sparking the Wildcats to a first-half route and eventual 37-8 beating of Interlake.
The victory was the first of the season for Mount Si, now 1-2 overall, and came in the league opener.
“That was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing,” Nelson said of his pick. “We’d been practicing reading screens all week and I just read it.”
Nelson’s play was part of a huge second quarter for Mount Si, one which turned a 3-0 lead into a comfortable 24-0 advantage at the break.
The play was also part of an impressive defensive effort by the Wildcats that lasted all night. Interlake came into the game averaging 47 points an outing, but was held to just 144 total yards, including negative yardage in the first quarter and 58 in the first half.
A week after tossing a school-record seven touchdowns, Interlake quarterback Matt Malos was only 15-of-30 for 137 yards with two interceptions.
“A lot of it was the pass rush. It’s what we talked about and practiced all week,” Nelson said of the defensive effort. “We didn’t seem to be dominating right away, but after we scored a couple of touchdowns, it felt like it.”
And, if all of that wasn’t impressive enough, there was also this — Mount Si senior running back Sean Snead rushed for a career-high 218 yards on 22 carries.
Snead had 49 yards on the Wildcats’ first possession, a lengthy 14-play drive that ended in a 16-yard field goal by Tucker Edwards-King. On Mount Si’s next possession, Snead rumbled for 34 more yards and Brandon Smith finished it off with a one-yard touchdown dive for a 10-0 Wildcat lead.
Nelson’s interception return came three plays later, making it 17-0. With 6:36 to go before halftime, Mount Si got the ball back again and went 64 yards in only five plays for another touchdown. The last two plays of the drive were each 27-yard scampers by Snead, who had more than 150 yards at halftime.
“There were just huge lanes on every play. We could’ve run any of our plays tonight and we would’ve been successful,” Snead said. “The line was just dominant up front.
“That’s our game. We try to control the line and try to get the run going. Mount Si is mostly a power football team and that’s what we did tonight.”
Fellow running back Zach Kirschmeyer agreed that the offensive line dominated.
“There were lanes that you could’ve driven a semi-truck through,” he said. “I just ran right into the end zone.”
Kirschmeyer found the end zone twice in the second half, the first one on a 22-yard sprint on the Wildcats’ first possession of the third period. That score made it 31-0.
Kirschmeyer scored again early in the fourth from four yards out, capping a 75-yard drive that was accomplished mostly with second-teamers.
Interlake’s lone score came on an 18-yard pass from Malos to wide receiver Dylan Ammell with 2:36 left in the contest. Mount Si had fumbled the ball away on its own 24 two plays earlier.
“It was a great week of practice,” Kirschmeyer added. “We watched film and learned from our practices. It was high intensity tonight and that made a big difference.”
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