CCC FOOTBALL: Catholic rolls on with easy win over Pike County

Catholic’s Kylon Griffin takes down Pike County’s Marsavier Reynolds in the Knights’ win Friday night. (Tim Gayle)

By TIM GAYLE

The machine doesn’t take a week off.

Catholic’s well-oiled scoring machine faced another overmatched opponent on Friday night, but that didn’t keep the Knights from performing at a high standard in a 63-0 region victory over Pike County.

“That’s all about the coaching and the culture,” Catholic coach Kirk Johnson said. “That’s not always the case at some places. You see it on Saturday every week (in college football), an FBS school that gets beat by an FCS school. I’m sure that FBS school looked at the film and went, ‘Hey, those guys don’t look as good as us.’ But those FCS schools have coaches working hard, they have players working hard. Pike County works hard, their coach coaches hard, so for us to take them any bit of a slight would be bad on our part.” 

On defense, the Knights (7-0) pitched their third consecutive shutout and fifth of the season as the starters continued a streak of not allowing any points this season. (One touchdown came on the reserves, another on special teams). The Bulldogs ran just eight offensive plays in the second half as a running clock limited the two teams to 19 offensive plays. Of Pike County’s 30 offensive plays, only 12 were for positive yardage.

In the first quarter, 14 Pike County plays lost 30 yards while the Knights were rolling out to a 28-0 lead. Jeremiah Cobb ran 46 yards for a touchdown on Catholic’s second play from scrimmage, Kylon Griffin returned a punt 46 yards for another score, Cobb capped a four-play drive with a 21-yard touchdown reception from Caleb McCreary, then scored on the Knights’ next play from scrimmage after hauling in a 47-yard reception from McCreary. 

“We wanted to work on our throwing a little bit,” Johnson said. “We’re trying to utilize our guys in space and I feel like we got a little better but the score jumped so quick. You don’t want to be throwing the ball when you’re up on somebody by 28 points so we pulled back and ran the ball a little bit.”

Luke Harkless had touchdown receptions of 19 and 12 yards in the second quarter as McCreary continued to test new receivers.

“I got a lot out of this game,” McCreary said. “Timing, working on different routes we put in over the week. Timing is everything. If we’re in a nailbiter and we need that go route, we need that comeback, I’m able to hit it.”

Last week, he was 3 of 10 as the Knights struggled in the passing game. On Friday, he was 7 of 10 for 167 yards and five touchdowns, adding a 25-yard touchdown pass to Justin Rose on the second play of the second half to finish his night.

“I didn’t really play my game last week,” McCreary said. “This game definitely helped me.”

Pike County’s best offensive play was a quarterback sneak by Jakelmon Glasco, a play that gained 19 yards on seven Glasco carries. On one of his best gains, he picked up the Bulldogs’ initial first down on a four-yard surge before being stripped of the ball. It found its way into the hands of defensive back Jourdan Thomas, who turned the Bulldogs’ only first-half success into a 31-yard fumble return for a touchdown and a 49-0 halftime lead.

The Knights sat many of their defensive starters after the first quarter and all of them after the first Bulldog possession of the second half, but the reserves maintained the intensity -- and the shutout -- throughout the second half. Pike County finally picked up its second first down on a 28-yard scramble by reserve quarterback Jamious Williams, boosting them into positive yardage. (Pike County finished with 15 total yards on 30 offensive plays). 

 “That was the whole thing we preached all week, staying locked in,” McCreary said. “Even if it’s a game where we jump out early (to a big lead), you want to stay locked in and work on everything that we talked about during the week.”

 Catholic improved to 4-0 in region play, along with Trinity, followed by Dadeville at 3-1 and Reeltown and Childersburg at 2-2. The Knights travel to Childersburg next week before returning home to play Trinity on Oct. 15. Pike County (0-5, 0-4 in region play) plays host to Goshen next week.