Clay had come a long way this football season, entering Friday’s Three Rivers Athletic Conference matchup with visiting powerhouse Central Catholic at 4-1 overall.
But the Eagles, who rebounded from a 1-9 mark last year, took one on the chin against the fourth-ranked defending TRAC champion Irish.
Clay (4-2, 1-2) fell behind quickly and absorbed a 60-7 loss to Central (6-0, 3-0).
The Irish could do no wrong in the opening half, outgaining the Eagles 355 to minus-2 offensively and racking up seven touchdowns against overwhelmed Clay. Central led 33-0 at the end of the first quarter.
Central quarterback Bishop Vargas completed all six of his passes for 214 yards and four TDs before exiting 40 seconds into the second quarter with the Irish up 40-0 on his 54-yard scoring strike to J’Shun Rushing.
“We always know that the wind can have a big effect here,” Central coach Greg Dempsey said. “When we knew we were going to have the wind in the first quarter, we had some things we thought we liked in the passing game.
“We went to them earlier than we thought to see if we could get some of our speed guys the ball in space. The line, the quarterback, everybody did a great job of executing.”
Vargas had earlier connected on first-quarter touchdown passes of 56 yards to Tae’Shaun Johnson, 32 yards to Randy Williams, and 38 yards to Fred Overton.
“The pass was there,” Vargas said. “I think I’ve got the best receivers around. I’ll take my guys over anybody. They make it easy on me.
“We wanted to use this week to really get our pass game going, and get everything tuned up.”
Irish running back Jonzell Norrils (five carries, 40 yards) mixed in touchdown carries of 3 and 21 yards in the opening quarter before he was relegated to his defensive duties.
“The game plan was perfect,” Vargas said. “Everything was there. It was wide open. This was good. It gives us a lot of confidence coming in [to next week’s Whitmer game], and a lot of momentum.”
Before the break, Central added its seventh TD on a 28-yard pass from backup quarterback Jake Wright to freshman backup running back Armon Johnson.
“I’m disappointed in that I thought I we could compete better tonight,” Clay coach John Galyas said. “I told them at halftime, ‘If I thought we were a bad team, not that I would accept it, but I’d forget it.’ But I don’t think we’re a bad team, and that’s the most disappointing thing — how we competed.
“They’re a great team and obviously we knew that coming in. We’ve got to pick the pieces up. We’ve got a lot to play for this season. It’s homecoming next week, and we’ve got a good Findlay team coming in, so we’ve got to get refocused right away. We’re going to put this one to bed real quick and start getting ready for Findlay.”
The Irish defense got involved the scoring in the third quarter, when Clay quarterback Logan Heintschel lost a fumble and Central lineman Calen Clark returned it 73 yards for a TD with 6:17 left in the quarter.
Clay (4-2, 1-2) finally got on the board when speedy sophomore back Jordan Pettaway (4 carries, 50 yards) took a pitch around left end and raced 49 yards to the end zone with 3:49 left in the third quarter.
The Irish added a final score with 3:48 remaining when sophomore back Josh Watson ran six yards for a TD.
“Sometimes it can snowball,” Dempsey said of his team’s early onslaught. “I call them snowball games. It’s not indicative of the [losing] team. It’s just on that night, that’s what happened.
“Clay’s done a great job all year. They beat a very good Lima team a couple weeks ago, and that really had our kids’ attention because last week Lima gave us a fit for three quarters.”
Central topped Clay 449-141 in total offense for the game. Heintschel was 9-of-19 passing for 54 yards, but was sacked seven times and in all had 10 carries for minus-22 yards.
The top rusher for Central was junior backup Greg Bond, who had five carries for 71 yards after halftime.
First Published October 5, 2019, 2:08 a.m.
