| GAME PHOTOS |
CASSTOWN – The 46-7 final score doesn’t tell the entire story of Miami East’s loss to a very athletic Northridge team on Saturday.
In short, Miami East put forth a solid effort for much of the game only to have a few mistakes snowball in a huge third quarter by Northridge.
The first half was Miami East style of football – physical, hard-nosed football. Defensively, the Vikings swarmed on defense, holding the Polar Bears scoreless. Offensively, Miami East controlled the clock with time consuming drives.
Unfortunately, Miami East couldn’t capitalize on three golden opportunities to put points on the board.
The first came on a well executed drive where the Vikings were just inside the Polar Bear twenty. Junior wideout Michael Hohenstein made a spectacular catch from quarterback Brock Ritchea in tight coverage at the pylon down the home sideline. Unfortunately, Hohenstein landed out of bounds by inches and the Vikings eventually turned the ball over on downs.
Shortly thereafter, Miami East was on the move again, but turned the ball over via fumble inside the thirty.
Then, in their final possession before the half, the Vikings put together yet another long, time-consuming drive and was knocking on the door in the red zone with first-and-ten at the Polar Bear 15.
Unfortunately a false start penalty, followed by two holding penalties moved the Vikings back to the 40, which ended all hope of taking the lead at the break.
Still, Miami East opened the second half with momentum due to its success of moving the ball and playing solid defense in the first half. Unfortunately, the momentum disappeared in a hurry as Polar Bear quarterback Jayden Kelly broke free on a 31-yard scoring run to break the scoreless tie.
The Vikings then fumbled on the first play of their next possession and Kelly followed with a seven-yard run to push the Northridge advantage to 14-0.
Shortly thereafter, Miami East suffered a huge blow as senior Mike Scherer was injured and had to be taken away in an ambulance. The concern on the Viking player’s faces was apparent and things snowballed on Miami East once action resumed.
Northridge pushed its lead to 30-0 over the remainder of the third quarter on a 41-yard catch and run by Jeremy Henry and a 39-yard run by Jayden Kelly.
The Vikings showed no quit as they opened the fourth quarter with a quick strike from Brock Ritchea to Michael Hohenstein for 65 yards down the Northridge sideline to cut the deficit to 30-7.
Northridge then used the clock to its advantage and ate up nearly six minutes off the clock before punting the ball back to Miami East with just over 4:00 left in the game.
With the final outcome determined, the Vikings pulled their starters and from there Northridge scored twice more in the final minutes for the 46-7 win.
Miami East, which drops to 0-4 overall and 0-1 in the TRC, travels to Lehman next Friday.
