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Carroll Trounced By Wissahickon
By: Mike Livingston | August 30, 2024
AMBLER, PA - It was just one of those nights, one of those nights where absolutely nothing went Carroll's way.
Looking to stake a claim to their first 2-0 start since 2018, the Pats went into Friday night’s contest riding a high – but left in shambles after suffering a 56-21 dismantling at the hands of Wissahickon High School.
"Losing by that much is rough," said sophomore quarterback Jay Boyd. "But, (we) turned the ball over three times in the first half and we know that if we keep turning the ball over they’re going to come back and score, that’s all we got fix. We missed some reads, and missed some blocks here and there but there is stuff to fix."
While the turnovers on offense were a huge issue for the Pats in the first half, the play of Trojans running back Quasir Sampson was a whole other beast, literally. Sampson rushed for four first-half touchdowns, absolutely torching the Patriots' front lines and coverage once he broke into the second level.
Sampson first rushed it in on Wissahickon's opening drive of the game, to make it 6-0 Trojans following the missed PAT. He would do it again soon after to open up the second quarter, bringing the score to 12-0 Trojans after a then failed two-point conversion.
After that second touchdown the Pats would see a few signs of life for the first and only time all night as senior running back Aaron Barnes took the kickoff out into Wissahickon territory to open the drive. Barnes would then take the second play of the drive 30 yards to the house and make it 12-7 Wissahickon, closing the gap and bringing some hope that this would turn into a game.
Spoiler alert, it didn’t. Sampson and the Wissahickon offense came back out and marched downfield for their third score of the game to make the score 20-7 Wissahickon.
On the ensuing kickoff, a confused freshman Tre Montgomery would take a fair catch at the two-yard line and then see a Carroll fumble on the opening play of the drive which gave Wissahickon perfect field position at the Carroll two-yard line to begin their drive. The Trojans quickly capitalized and ran it in for another touchdown to make it 28-7.
Finally, just before halftime, Sampson got his fourth of the day on a methodical drive from Wissahickon to make the halfway mark 35-7 Trojans.
"We just couldn’t stop the run," said senior defensive captain Nick D'Alicandro. "They ran the same plays over and over again, we knew it was going to be a tougher game than last week coming into it cause they obviously have a better offense and a better team but they just ran the ball down our throat the entire game and defensively we couldn’t make any adjustments - nothing we did worked."
That hopeless feeling for the defense preceded into the second half of the game.
Even after a long offensive drive and a Boyd rushing touchdown to bring the score to 35-14, things didn’t look up.
As on the following play, which some like to call the kickoff - Wiss got right back to it with a 90-yard kick return for a touchdown to quickly bring the score to 42-14 Trojans.
With the help of some drawn-out offensive drives the Pats were able to hold off Wissahickon for the remainder of the third period but as the fourth began they got more. Wissahickon ran one in from five out just a few seconds into the fourth quarter to make the score 49-14 Wissahickon.
Caroll followed it up a score of their own as Boyd once again did it himself on the ground running it in for the score to make it 49-21 Trojans.
Quickly after, Wissahickon got their final shot of the evening as they ran yet another one into the end zone to make the score 56-21.
The Pats soon after, ran the clock down as best they could bringing the game to a final.
With the loss, Carroll falls to 1-1 on the still-young season as they look ahead to their week three contest with Simon-Gratz back on the campus of Wissahickon High School for a 6:00 PM kickoff.
"We can hang out heads and lick our wounds all week because of how this went down," said head coach Kyle Detweiler. "But we need to turn it around, we got Gratz next week and we need to do our best to do what we can with them, its a quick turnaround we just need to execute right."
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