By Khalid Bennett, The Seattle Medium
Week two of Metro League football action saw The Fighting Irish of O’Dea take on the Ballard Beavers in an early evening game Friday night at Seattle Center’s Memorial Stadium. Ballard, coming off a big win last week over Seattle Prep 15-7, would put their high-powered offense, which racked up over 400 yards, against O’Dea’s stingy defensive unit. O’Dea coming into this game 0-1, was shut out last week by the defending state champions Eastside Catholic 20-0. It was the first time since 2010 that O’Dea failed to score in a varsity football game.
O’Dea’s defense was as good as advertised, keeping Ballard from getting a single first down during the entire first quarter. The defense was able to get pressure on Ballard resulting in two sacks in the quarter to stall out Beaver drives.
On the other hand, O’Dea had no trouble moving the football on the ground as they were able to take a 7-0 lead without throwing the ball. O’Dea proved to have a balance on offense in the second quarter when quarterback John Kohler threw his first touchdown of the night to tight end Quinn Carolan to put the Irish up 14-0. Kohler wasn’t done in the air and the Irish weren’t done lighting up the scoreboard. After an interception by O’Dea’s Hayden McDonald, Kohler threw another touchdown to Carolan on a play action pass to put the Irish up 20-0.
Ballard started to find some success running the ball, but they were unable to sustain a drive against the tough O’Dea defense. The best chance Ballard had to score in the first half came on a muffed punt by O’Dea freshman Jason Brown that put Ballard in the red zone but a missed field goal kept the Beavers off the board. Brown wouldn’t let that mistake discourage him as he found the end zone just before the half on a 72-yard touchdown run making the score 27-0 at halftime.
O’Dea came out in the second half just as dominant as they ended the first. Moving the ball on the ground with multiple ball carriers, and chewing up the clock that Ballard needed desperately in order to get back into the game. O’Dea running back Tajj Dyles used his 240-pound frame to punish the Ballard defense while the speed of Jason Brown was able to generate big plays on the ground as he found the end zone for a second time putting an exclamation on 72-yard drive that put the Irish up 34-0.
O’Dea senior Van Linden scored the Irish’s final touchdown to make the score 41-0. Ballard dialed up a halfback pass in the fourth quarter to deny the shutout, but in the end it was O’Dea in full control as they move to 1-1 with a 41-7 victory over Ballard.
