Lima Central Catholic’s Carson Parker heads for the end zone during Saturday’s game against Bishop Ready at Spartan Stadium.
Richard Parrish | The Lima News
The Lima Central Catholic Thunderbirds had no problem at Spartan Stadium on Saturday afternoon, as they took down the Silver Knights of Bishop Ready 48-14 on the back of seven touchdowns from senior Quarterback Carson Parker.
In the first quarter, LCC came out of the gate fast. From the T-Bird’s 31-yard line, the second play of the game saw Parker go 69 yards for a touchdown run. After the extra point, it wass 7-0 LCC, less than a minute into the game.
Bishop Ready got the ball after the score and makes it to the LCC 37-yard line but is forced to punt after failing to convert on third down.
On the next drive, LCC backed up to their own four-yard line, when Parker threw a pass to senior wide receiver Billy Bourk for a 96-yard crossing route over the middle to make it 14-0 with six and a half minutes left in the first. Bourk ran over 60 yards after the catch in a footrace to the endzone to go up two scores.
On the following Bishop Ready drive, the LCC defense stepped up once more to stop the Silver Knights on a three and out drive. That Silver Knights drive lasted only one minute before they had to punt again.
The Thunderbirds then proceeded to put up a third drive down the field. Parker played with his legs and his arms going 70 yards down the field on the drive to cap it off with a 4-yard run into the endzone on the quarterback option keeper to make the score 21-0 with 55 seconds left in the opening quarter.
After the score, the first play for Bishop Ready was a run up the middle that resulted in LCC forcing a fumble on a tackle in the backfield as it recovered the ball inside the Silver Knights 20-yard line.
Next play, LCC was already in the red zone, scoring 13 seconds later to make it 28-0 when Parker threw a pass along the right side of the endzone to Bourk, who came down with the ball for his second touchdown catch of the day.
With time winding down in the first quarter, the next drive saw Bishop Ready make a huge run to get down to the 3-yard line. Then, with three seconds left in the first quarter, Kentrell Rinehart caught a check down pass from Jacob Cheatham along the left side of the field, as he got into the endzone to make the game 28-7 and end the first quarter.
To start the second quarter, LCC slowly made its way down the field. Parker connected on two passes on the run to his right, one to Bourke, and one to junior wide receiver Matthew Quatman to make it to the Bishop Ready side of the field. Coming out of a timeout, it was third down and short for the T-Birds as Parker ran for the quarterback sneak up the middle and to the right, while keeping his legs moving to break through the line and into the open field to go almost 30 yards for another rushing touchdown for LCC. That score made it 35-7 with a little over seven minutes left in the first half.
On the next offensive play for Bishop Ready, LCC sophomore Josh Young picked up a loose ball midfield after the T-Birds force a Silver Knights fumble. Another turnover for the Silver Knights gave LCC the ball already in Bishop Ready territory. That’s when Parker gets two passes to Quatman along the left and right sidelines for first downs, before running it into the endzone himself from inside the 10-yard line to make it 42-7 with 2:40 left in the half. That would be the score at halftime.
In the third quarter, Bishop Ready drove down the field with several ground and pound runs. However, Parker showed out on defense as well, as he almost came up with an interception inside the road team’s red zone to break up the pass and stop the Silver Knights on fourth down. LCC had to punt on its next drive.
On the next Bishop Ready drive, LCC forced another fumble from the Silver Knights on a run up the middle to give the Thunderbirds the third fumble recovery of the day, which gave the T-Birds the ball at the 50-yard line. Several plays into that LCC drive, Parker scrambled right and backwards to avoid defensive pressure, then threw it deep to the left side of the field to a wide-open Quatman who raced to the endzone for another T-Bird TD. Parker with the 45-yard touchdown pass, his third passing touchdown of the day. It was 48-7 LCC at the end of the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter, LCC held steady on offense and defense. Bishop Ready had another successful drive down the field as it ran in the ball from a few yards out to make it 48-14.
Parker credits Saturday’s play to what the Thunderbirds have practiced all week. They came into the game with the mentality to “be the more physical team. The last two weeks we’ve been ‘out-physicalled’, so we came into practice at the beginning of the week hitting every day. So, we knew that if we could come out and set the tone early, which we did on the second play, we knew we would be pretty good.”
After five offensive plays, the Thunderbirds were up 21-0 and Parker knew LCC could not stop there. “Yeah, keep going, don’t even let them think they have a chance in this game because if we just kept it going … we would be good.”
Parker believes after a rough start to the season; this game can help build momentum going into the rest of the season. “Just keeping the same mindset really. Show up every week with the same attitude to get better, get more physical because we have a ton of young guys, we have two seniors that start and everyone will be returning next year, so to set the tone at practice on Monday, set the physicality, and come gameday…we can just show it and hopefully do what we did today.”
LCC Head Coach Scott Palte agreed with Parker about how his team played, especially Parker’s performance. “He’s also a really good leader … last week we made a lot of mistakes, and we only have three seniors on the roster … but those three guys this week really got our kids going after it and practicing hard and took it personal and we had a great week of practice. I said to the guys today this was the best week of practice we’ve had, and we are going to play well today, and it shows. We went out and played really hard and put it on his shoulders and he’s an excellent player, and we can’t ask for much more than we did today.”
After a couple quick scores, Coach Palte did not want to let this one slip away, and he made sure his players were on the same page. “A lot of guys got a lot of pride. Our seniors have been in two state semis and a regional final, when we don’t perform up to our expectation, they take it to heart. This week it showed, we got after it in practice, and they weren’t happy about how we played, they brought everyone else along with them, and all our guys played a really good football game. I thought our sophomores did a really great job up front opening holes for those guys. It was a really great team effort and I’m really proud of our kids, they did a lot of good things, and hopefully we can build on it. We get right back at it next week. We got to play Columbus Bishop Hartley who is viewed as an exceptional football team. Let’s keep building, let’s just keep playing our style, let’s get better each week, and improve in various areas like we did this past week. We got a lot of season left … let’s get better each week and hopefully if we are lucky we can find a few more wins and get to play week 11.”
Justom Dierkes wrote this story for LimaScores.com. Reach The Lima News sports department at 567-242-0451.
