Knights spoil Tigers' homecoming with 70-0 win

Any thoughts of the Mountain Home Tigers celebrating Homecoming with an upset win over the Bishop Kelly Knights ended in the first quarter Friday night, as the Knights scored 28 points on their way to a 70-0 SIC 4A football win over the Tigers at Tiger Field in Mountain Home.

The Knights wasted little time getting into the end zone.

Starting on their 48-yard line, the top ranked and defending 4A State Champions went 52 yards in six plays, the big play a 31-yard pass play from Cody Hawkins to Austin Gorringe that gave the Knights a first and goal at the Mountain Home 5-yard line.

After Cory Griffith was stopped at the one, Ryan Kettner took it in from there for the score. Matt Thomas made the first of 10 PATs to make it 7-0, Knights, with 10:03 left in the first quarter.

The Tigers were pinned deep in their own territory to start their first drive, starting on their 5-yard line. Three plays later it was time to punt form the nine.

Kyle Clark got off a beautiful 46-yard punt that Stew Tracy brought back 55 yards for a touchdown. Just 96 seconds after scoring their first touchdown of the night, Bishop Kelly was on the board again.

The Tigers proceeded to fumble the ball away their next two possessions, which both ended in Bishop Kelly scores, and that was followed by a pass interception that gave the Knights the ball at the Mountain Home 14-yard line.

On the first play of the second quarter, Cody Hawkins tossed to Austin Gorringe for a one-yard score, and the lead was 35-0.

The Knights enjoyed a short field all night, with their average start for the first quarter on the Tiger 30, and for the first half, the Tiger 44, and for the entire game, the Mountain Home 48.

The Knights led 49-0 at half-time and their All-State quarterback, Cody Hawkins (son of BSU head football coach Dan Hawkins), was done for the night.

He completed seven of 11 passes for 114 yards and two touchdowns. He did have one pass picked off by Bob Daniels, which was the first interception Hawkins had thrown in 86 attempts.

"It was a great play by Bob (Daniels)," said Tiger head football coach Brian Floyd. "We worked on that all week, because we'd seen that they hit those seam routes, and that first big completion, we were lined up wrong and went to the outside and gave them the inside, and we worked all week that they take the seam on the inside all the time.

"Sometimes it feels like we do everything in practice right and then get out on the field and do it wrong. I don't know if it's nerves or part of being real young, and that's our biggest problem right now. We only have (Brett) Grodi and (Josh) Reynolds, our only two seniors on defense, and Josh kind of reaggravated his injury in the second quarter, so I yanked him.

"At that point it was 49-0, so there's no point in hurting him for the last three games."

Bishop Kelly scored once in the third quarter, and added two more scores in the fourth to make it a 70-0 final.

"Our biggest problem on offense was sustaining blocks, and a lot of that was from our running back positions," said Coach Floyd, "where they were trying to seal an end or seal a (line)backer, they'd just hit them once and not sustain.

"I watched the film and it was there with some of the plays, and they just weren't hitting them and the guys were coming off and making the tackles, and they shouldn't have been there. That's pretty frustrating.

"I think, again, they came out scared. It's just that whole BK thing, we've just got to get that monkey off our backs.

"It was nice to see our freshmen win against them on Thursday, so somewhere down the line I guess!"

Mountain Home was not able to get much if any offense going. The longest play from scrimmage was a fake punt when Nick Barrie ran for 29 yards and a first down.

The Tigers rushed the ball 35 times for just 88 yards. Bob Daniels led the way with 32 yards on 16 rushes, and Nick Barrie ended with 29 yards on two rushing attempts.

The Tigers' passing game also suffered.

Bob Daniels was just 2 for 13 for nine yards and one interception. Dave Anderson was 0 for 3 with an interception.

Jason Ward had one catch for six yards, and Georgio Sutton caught one for three yards for the Tigers' only passing yards.

Bishop Kelly rushed the ball 34 times for 344 yards, and the Knights completed nine of 13 passes for 129 yards.

"One positive note," said Coach Floyd. "We got a lot of JV guys in and I saw some make some pretty good plays, especially Matt Ward. He was making some good plays at linebacker, which is good to see. He got in there pretty early in the third quarter and was doing well.

"Some of them were overmatched and they got touchdowns off of that, but at that point, we were worried about getting out of there alive. We had lost Chris Knudson to the hospital -- he's fine today, they were just checking to make sure he didn't have a ruptured spleen -- and Josh (Reynolds) went out again, and we had a couple turned ankles, so I wanted to make sure we had enough players to play against Post Falls."

The Tigers host the Post Falls Trojans Friday night at Tiger Field. The Trojans are 1-4 to date, and are coming off a 42-6 loss to Coeur d'Alene last Friday night in Coeur d'Alene.

"They run a pretty simple offense -- they have three plays -- a fly sweep, an iso (isolation) and a trap, and what's worrying me now is the trap. We worked every single day last week on stopping BK's trap and that didn't work."

The Tigers fell to 1-4 in conference and 1-5 on the season, with three games left on the schedule.

"We've got three games left and I strongly feel we can win all three," said Floyd. "It's just up to the kids and how they want to respond."

Kickoff for the Post Falls game is 7 p.m. Friday night at Tiger Field in Mountain Home.