Leonardo
By JAMIE BAKER
- THE COURIER
NORTH BALTIMORE — There were two different games at North Baltimore’s War Memorial Field Friday night. There was the first quarter and there was everything else.
North Baltimore dominated the first quarter, but it Carey rolled the rest of the way on its way to a 66-36 Midland Athletic League win over the Tigers Friday night.
There were plenty of thrills for the large North Baltimore homecoming night crowd early in the contest.
Quarterback Clinton Ebiright, who was 11 of 19 passing for 206 yards for four touchdowns and interception, hit Parker Emahiser for a 24-yard score, Jonathan Long for a 51-yard touchdown and homecoming king Mitchell Archer for a 5-yard touchdown to give the Tigers a 22-8 first-quarter lead.
It took the shock of falling behind by a couple of touchdowns before the Blue Devils (4-3 overall, 3-1 MAL) were ready to get down to business.
“We didn’t have the best week of practice and they did a good job of taking advantage of some of the things we were trying to do early,” said Carey coach Todd Worst. “We just relaxed a little bit. They were a little too excited at the beginning. There were more question marks in their heads than answers. We were able to wake up a little bit and play some solid football.”
Junior quarterback Dillon Sammons scored on a 5-yard run early in the second quarter to start Carey’s comeback. Austin Tschanen added his second score of the game on a 7-yard run to give Carey a 23-22 lead.
A little more than two minutes later, North Baltimore retook the lead when Ebright hit Emahiser for a 2-yard touchdown pass and 2-point conversion to put the Tigers on top 30-23 with 5:13 left until halftime.
But that’s when the Blue Devils began to put a damper on North Baltimore’s homecoming festivities.
Carey senior Dustin Massie, who rushed for 135 yards on just six carries, ripped off scoring runs of 51 and 54 yards in the final minutes of the first half to give the Blue Devils a 39-30 halftime lead.
“The first half we played pretty well on offense. In the second half, the blocking broke down, they picked up the pace and we didn’t match them,” said North Baltimore coach Chip Hollenback, whose team fell to 2-5 overall and 0-4 in the MAL. The score right before half was a boost for them and a drag for us. We’ve done that a number of times this year You just can’t give up a touchdown with a minute left. It’s a killer.”
Carey, which racked up 561 yards rushing on 60 carries and had three running backs with more than 100 yards rushing, took charge from the opening whistle of the second half.
Carey’s Brandon Orians slipped past the North Baltimore defense for a 66-yard touchdown run on the Blue Devils’ opening play from scrimmage in the third quarter.
Tschanen added a score on a 1-yard run and Massie tacked on a score on a 20-yard run in the third quarter to push Carey’s lead to 60-30.
Cusac, who finished with 165 yards on 15 carries, added a 46-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter.
“I wanted to throw it, but the assistant coaches made me run it,” Worst joked. “We did what we wanted to do on offense. I wanted to control the clock a little better with the run we gave the ball back to them several times and they have some kids that can make plays.”
Emahiser, one of a number of those offensive weapons for North Baltimore, capped the scoring for the Tigers when he scored his third touchdown of the night on a 14-yard pass from Jordan Watson with 5:57 left to play.
Offense wasn’t the problem for North Baltimore. The Tigers finished with 220 yards passing and 44 yards on the ground. But defensively, North Baltimore knew what was coming all night long but couldn’t stop Carey’s running attack.
“I think we wore down a little bit but it’s really frustrating when you can’t stop them. And we knew going in that their strength was our weakness. They run the ball and we can’t stop the run,” Hollenback said.
“We’re missing three lineman, two backs, to be able to score 36 points tonight is amazing. But in the end it comes down to blocking and tackling and we didn’t do either well enough to win tonight.”
I'm going to just guess....that despite a 30 point victory...the Carey fans continually ragged on the officials, and that someone got thrown out. just a hunch.