Arlington. They were making their first trip to the Lone Star State from beautiful Southern California where the talent is as good as the weather. Notre Dame a power from Sherman Oaks, California had heard much about Texas High School Football but was here to prove that California prep football is no slouch and that they did. For years there has been speculation of who’s the best high school football state between California, Florida or Texas.
Competing in Southern California is no short order facing the likes of national and state powers such as Longbeach Poly, Mater Dei, Servite, Tesco, Carson, Edison, Oaks Christian, Orange Lutheran, Los Alamitos, Mission Viejo and many others.
In the forth and final game of the Kirk Herbstreit Varsity Series, Notre Dame Knights took advantage of Klein Oak’s miscues and sloppy play to roll pass them 34-7 Monday night at the Cowboy Stadium.
The play of the game came on a lateral pass that started out with Ryan Kasdorf passing to Tyler Thomas and Thomas passing back to Kasdorf who had slipped down the left sideline unnoticed by Oak’s defense for the 71 yard touchdown reception. That gave the Knights a 14-7 halftime lead that they would never relinquish. Kasdorf caught the ball on the left hash with blockers surrounding him as he raced to the end zone.
He’s a tough son of gun, (Kasdorf) and he’s a good runner. We need to use all of his abilities, said Notre Dameb’s Head Coach Rooney.
On a night when nothing went right for the Panthers but everything worked like a charm for the Knights. They could never get on track. The running game was shut down, protection up front wasn’t holding and the penalties were piling up.
Notre Dame used a series of short passes and timely running plays to move down field through Klein Oak’s defense.
Kasdorfs’ offensive line comprised of Ben Gottschalk, Tyler DiVincen, Devin Hardy, Daniel Munyer, and Tyler Sulka gave him all the time he needed in the pocket. Gottschalk, Munyer and Sulka are division 1 prospects.
The Knights rushing game was polished with the running of Kenneth Boggs, Patrick Dayao and dual threat Tyler Thomas.
Boggs opened the scoring for the Knights, knifing up the middle of Oak’s defense from 9 yards out for the early 7-0 lead.
The Panthers answered, putting together an eighty yard drive that consumed almost six minutes on the strength of a 25 yard strike from Andy Wilson to Tory Waites, that would be all the Panthers would get.
b? They actually bliss quite a bit more than I expected them to.b? b? Their secondary is pretty good, I think their corners are pretty good,b? said Coach Rooney Notre Dame’s head coach.
In the second half is when the penalties begin to build against Klein Oak.
With 8:40 to go in the third quarter the Knights added another touchdown, a twelve yard run by Boggs. The drive was aided by two personal fouls against the Panther’s.
The Knights would pad their lead with two more touchdowns to round out the scoring.
