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8/27/05-Football
Start off with a bang
BY KEITH DUNLAP OF THE OAKLAND PRESS
OXFORD - In the category of "things that don't mean squat," Orchard Lake St. Mary's showed in Friday's season opener at Oxford how a scrimmage against Clarkston last week fit such a distinction perfectly.
Last Friday, in their final tuneup before the regular season, St. Mary's head coach George Porritt said Clarkston "beat our butts," in the scrimmage, leaving him with some worries heading into the regular season.
Porritt insists there still are some concerns, but evidence of those were a little harder to come by after the Eaglets dominated Oxford from the start to earn a convincing 44-3 win.
"We were fortunate, and we got on a roll today," Porritt said. "We're a long ways from being a great football team."
Strange, the Eaglets proved plenty powerful enough against what became a helpless Wildcats team.
Taking advantage of five Oxford turnovers in the first half and showing off team speed that is fleet even by standards at St. Mary's, the Eaglets jumped out to a 14-0 lead after the first quarter, led 31-0 at halftime and invoked the 35-point running clock rule by grabbing a 38-0 lead in the third quarter.
In his first game at St. Mary's after transferring from the now closed Detroit DePorres, junior quarterback Justin Siller ran for a touchdown and threw touchdown passes of 42 and 25 yards to Taurian Washington and Nick Koenigsknecht, respectively, in the first half. Siller went 7-of-8 in the first half for 177 yards.
"Being the first game, we had some jitters," Siller said. "We just had to get the jitters out, play as a team and get the win."
Anthony Bowman had a touchdown run in the first half, while Dominique White and Nick Sloney added touchdown runs of 9 and 35 yards, respectively, in the second half to complete the rout.
The damage would've been worse had St. Mary's not had four touchdowns called back in the first half because of penalties.
The Wildcats managed only one scoring drive in the whole game, which ended with a 21-yard field goal by Zach Wasylyna in the fourth quarter. Starting quarterback Bill Keenist rushed for 60 yards by himself on the drive, which unfortunately for Oxford, proved to be the only highlight.
"We just got waxed," Oxford head coach Bud Rowley said. "But our kids didn't quit and kept hitting. We gave up some silly things, but we'll be fine. We just have to go back to work."
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