Trinity defeated the varsity football team 14-3 on a rainy Friday, Oct. 10. The Crimson offense continued its season-long struggles throughout the game.
“Our offense was not clicking on all cylinders tonight,” receiver William Blackford (12, #6) said. “Thats exactly why we lost the game tonight. Every single one of us could have performed better than what we did tonight.”
With 2:41 left in the first half, the Crimson defense recovered a Shamrock fumble on the Trinity 21. On the very next play, Manual quarterback Tim Comstock (11, #3) threw an interception to give the ball right back to Trinity. What looked like a prime opportunity for Manual to either cut the Trinity lead to one at 7-6 or even possibly take a 10-7 lead, turned into another fresh set of downs for the Shamrocks. The interception was the first of three that Comstock threw during the game. Manual had four total turnovers during the game. Wide receiver Jaelin Carter (10, #11) lost a fumble on the first play of the second half.
“Tim lead the team poorly tonight, he didn’t do too well, but he’s a young quarterback and we could’ve done more to help him out, we can’t ride him without giving him help in return,” Blackford said. “The whole offense could have been better.”
After Comstock had a 60 yard scramble to the Trinity eight yard line, the Crimsons had another chance to cut the Trinity lead or take the lead with 44.5 seconds before halftime. Two runs by running back Reece West (11, #1) left Manual with third and goal on the six yard line with just five seconds left in the first half. Instead of taking an easy 23 yard field goal attempt, Coach Oliver Lucas decided to go for a touchdown. The end result was Comstock missing an open Eric Niemann (11, #84) in the endzone.
“Its just Coach Lucas being Coach Lucas,” kicker Chris Roussell (11, #46) said. “It was the end of the first half and we were down 7-3 and we went for it (a touchdown) to try to end the first half on a good note. I don’t think that he (Coach Lucas) thought that a field goal would help us that much.”
“We were trying to one up them (Trinity),” Daylen Eichenberger (12, #54) said. “We wanted to be leading at halftime so we went for the touchdown.”
The Crimsons also struggled to have any effective run game, aside of a few Comstock scrambles that went for big gains.
“The o-line needs to block better, and we need to execute,” West said. “We have to start hitting the holes hard and hitting them fast.”
“Our offense struggled a lot because they got to put in more work at practice, they aren’t putting in enough work in practice,” Eichenberger said.
Blackford is confident that the offense will bounce back and improve from the game against Trinity.
“We will learn from this game, watch film, sharpen our offense come back and be better,” Blackford said.
Trinity blocked Jake Rist’s (12, #7) punt and returned it for 36 yards to score the opening touchdown of the game. Manual responded with a 37 yard field goal by Roussell. Trinity sealed the game when quarterback Ryan Young threw a six yard touchdown with 4:05 left in the third quarter. The touchdown was the only points that the Manual defense surrendered.
“We should have had a shutout, and were one play away from a shutout,” Eichenberger said.
The Manual defense continued its dominance that has taken place over the course of the entire season. The Manual defense has allowed just 28 points all season and an average of four points per game, which are both the best in the state, according to the KHSAA.
“The defense played absolutely great; nine out of ten plays we were stopping them,” Eichenberger said. “There is some stuff that we need to fix, but for the most part we did very well.”
“The defense played outstanding. We played terribly offensively tonight,” Coach Lucas said.
The loss drops Manual’s record to 6-1 for the season. The Crimsons will play part two of the three week trilogy of Trinity, St. X and Male on Friday, Oct. 17 at St. X.
Eric Niemann (11, #84) misses a throw from Tim Comstock (11, #3).
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