Lima Central Catholic’s Carson Parker goes airborne against Shawnee’s Cole Sunderland during Thursday night’s season opener at Shawnee. LCC won 42-14. Scan the QR code for a game story and additional photos. Also head to LimaOhio.com for Friday night high school football coverage, including game reports, a roundup, game summary and photos along with scores from around the state.
Richard Parrish | The Lima News
They came into the game as sophomores and juniors and left looking like they had skipped a grade and now were juniors and seniors.
Lima Central Catholic’s resounding 42-14 win at Shawnee in its football opener on Thursday night quieted any concerns about the youth and inexperience of the Thunderbirds, who had only two seniors in their starting lineup, for at least one night.
Before the game, LCC coach Scott Palte told senior quarterback Carson Parker, senior wide receiver Billy Bourk and junior running back Matthew Quatman they needed to be productive because they owned most of their team’s experience. They responded in a big way and the younger Thunderbirds followed them.
Parker rushed for three touchdowns and gained 138 yards on the ground on 32 carries. He passed for 206 yards and three more touchdowns and intercepted a pass.
Bourk had 4 catches for 187 yards, had touchdown catches of 60 yards and 28 yards, and had another catch that went for 69 yards before he was tackled at the 1-yard line. Quatman rushed for 89 yards on 17 carries, caught two passes, completed a pass and was 6 for 6 on extra-point kicks.
“We told our two seniors, Carson and Billy, and our junior Matthew that you three guys all played last year and there are a bunch of sophomores in the lineup and you’ve got to come out and make plays. I couldn’t ask for anything more than what those guys did. They got after it. Carson Parker is a great football player. He was the best player on the field tonight,” Palte said.
LCC jumped out to a 21-0 lead late in the first half on a 60-yard touchdown pass from Parker to Bourk and two touchdown runs by Parker.
Two of LCC’s first-half scoring drives started when its defense got interceptions — the first by Josh Young and the second by Isaac Leppert, who tipped a pass then grabbed the ball in the air. Shawnee got on the scoreboard in the final minute of the first half on a 3-yard run by Christian Jones to cut the lead to 21-7.
Parker’s 1-yard touchdown run one play after Bourk’s 69-yard catch made it 28-7 early in the third quarter.
Shawnee responded with a 58-yard touchdown run by Derek Lyons on the next play to reduce the lead to 28-14. But that was as close as the Indians could get when LCC gave a clinic the rest of the game on how to control the football and a football game.
Lyons’ run was Shawnee’s only offensive play in the third quarter because LCC controlled the ball for the last eight minutes, 14 seconds of the third quarter and the first eight seconds of the fourth quarter before Parker connected with Carson Heffner for a 14-yard touchdown pass and a 35-14 lead.
Two plays later, LCC got the ball back on an interception by Dakota Gerdemann and kept it for another eight minutes before Parker found Bourk for a 28-yard touchdown pass.
“We’ve got a 215-pound quarterback, we’ve got a couple of 300-pounders up front. So if we can get the lead and slow the game down and take control and limit the possessions in the second half of a game we like our chances,” Palte said.
He also liked what he saw from LCC’s offensive line. “Those guys did a fantastic job. I thought they got better as the game went on. You’re going to have those early young guy nerves. As the game went on I thought our guys really took control of the line of scrimmage. We’ve got three sophomores and two juniors up there and I thought they did a heck of a job.”
Parker said, “It was really just coming out with a lot of intensity and thinking we were the tougher team. We might be young but we were here to play.
“In our scrimmages we weren’t very good. But tonight we proved what we really were.”
When Parker heard he had carried 32 times he said, “It definitely felt like it. When we went in at halftime I was feeling it. But I was like, if we want to win I’ve got to keep it going, so I kept it going the rest of the game, trusted my offensive line and hit the holes. The line played great tonight. I wouldn’t have done it without them.”
Beyond winning and his big receiving night, Bourk said this game meant something extra for him.
“My experience in high school with Shawnee was a loss my sophomore year and then I didn’t get to play in the win last year (because of an injury that sidelined him for five games). So just being able to come back for this game was a testament to how lucky I felt to be part of Week 1. The fact we came out and just grinded and battled for 48 minutes and got the job done, it’s one of the best feelings in the world to start off this way,” he said.
Game summary
Score by quarters:
Shawnee 0 7 7 0–14
LCC 7 14 7 14–42
Scoring:
L – Billy Bourk 60 pass from Carson Parker (Matthew Quatman kick).
L – Parker 2 run (Quatman kick).
L – Parker 16 run (Quatman kick).
S – Christian Jones 3 run (Tyler Kimmet kick).
L – Parker 1 run (Quatman kick).
S – Derek Lyons 58 run (Kimmet kick).
L – Carson Heffner 14 pass from Parker (Quatman kick).
L – Bourk 28 pass from Parker (Quatman kick).
Shawnee LCC
8 First downs 20
246 Total yardage 468
102 Rushing yardage 232
144 Passing yardage 236
10-19-4 Passing (Com-Att-Int) 8-10-1
0-0 Fumbles-Lost 0-0
2-40 Punts-Average 1-40
3-22 Penalties-Yards 5-53
Individual leaders:
Passing: LCC: Carson Parker 7-206; Shawnee: Caleb Bacome 10-144.
Rushing: LCC: Carson Parker 32-138; Shawnee: Derek Lyons 7-91.
Receiving: LCC: Billy Bourk 4-187; Shawnee: Michael Garlock 3-65.
Reach Jim Naveau at 567-242-0414.
