Five sacks in the first 10 plays pave
way for the Raiders of St. Thomas
For the second straight weekend the Raiders faced off with one of Florida’s best and for the second week they haven’t been able fine any offense.
Graduation has left Skyline’s offense young and green, in two games the offense have scored only 3 points.
Florida power, (Fort Lauderdale) St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders (1-0) bruised the Dallas Skyline Raiders 31-3 Monday afternoon in the second game of four games played in the Kirk Herbstreit Nation Kickoff Classic at Cowboy Stadium.
“Obviously the outcome of the game was in our favor which makes the trip better if you win but we’ve had a good experience so far in our travels down here and I thought we played pretty good. We had a lot of kids last year; I think we had 13 division I guys on that team last year. But this year we have some young guys that played well,” said George Smith, St. Thomas Aquinas Coach.
St. Thomas Aquinas defense served notice early, sacking Skyline’s QB five times within the first 10 plays of the game. Cornerback Marcus Roberson, Defensive Linemen Jelani Hamilton and Tyler Drake easily worked their way through the Raiders young offensive line.
“I was really impressed with our defense basically all day,” said Coach George Smith, St. Thomas Aquinas.
Roberson was busy throughout the day on corner bliss, breaking up passes and using blanket coverage on the Skyline Receivers.
Early in the second quarter Jamal Wilson’s 32 yard catch and Dami Ayoola 28 yard run setup a 1 yard touchdown run by Ayoola to give St. Thomas the 7-0 lead with 10:19 to go. The eight play 68 yard drive took less than two minutes.
St. Thomas Aquinas looked impressive piling up 390 yards of offense while holding Skyline to a 130 total yards.
A 51 yard kickoff return from Freshman Cedric Collins gave Skyline (0-2) possession at the Raiders 41-yard line, From that point, Skyline worked its way into field goal range, cutting the lead 7-3 on Fabian Saldana 30 yard field goal.
Phillip Dorsett took a punt 60 yards down to the Skyline 10 yard line. Two plays later St. Thomas increase their lead 14-3 on Wilson’s 8 yard touchdown reception.
Florida State commit Rashad Greene looked very impressive adding a 44 yard touchdown catch, after getting behind Skyline’s defensive.
In the second half St. Thomas scored 17 points to post their first win of the season.
A progressive Coach Samples shared his thoughts about the development of the young team.
“We just didn’t do well on offense, we didn’t block well, it was apparent. We have to block better,” explained Dallas Skylines Coach Reginald Samples. “They are good teams (Speaking of the two Florida opponents they’ve faced in back to back weeks) but they weren’t over powering, we didn’t play well. We have to go home and fix some things and we are going to do it. We are playing for district. We are not going to get discouraged by this. We’ve played some good teams, we are going to get better,” said Dallas Skylines Coach Reginald Samples.
The offense got into the swing of things with an eight play 68 yard drive that consumed less than 2:00 minutes into the second quarter when Running back Dami Ayoola went in from 1 yard out to grab a 7-0.
“I was really impressed with our defense basically all day,” said Coach George Smith, St. Thomas Aquinas.
Miami commit Phillip Dorset looked great adding a 67 yard touchdown catch, after blowing by Skyline’s defensive back.