Usually a face off of top 10 teams turns out to be a tightly contested affair.
Or not. Woodward Academy (3-1), No. 5 in Class AAAA, took command early Friday night, and dominated No. 10 Marist (2-2), 32-0, at Colquitt Stadium in College Park.
The score still did not reflect how lopsided the game ended up being. Marist’s vaunted triple option offense never gained any traction and earned just seven first downs. Woodward Academy was not forced to punt until the 2:53 mark of the third quarter. The fourth quarter was played under a running clock.
“You never know with Marist, because they are so good at running that triple option,” said Woodward head coach John Hunt. “But we thought we matched up well against them. They weren’t that much bigger than us, we weren’t bigger than them. But I thought we had better speed and I think that was the difference.”
Indeed, Woodward defenders stuck to their assignments and then rallied quickly to the football, led by linebacker/safety KJ Phillips and senior safety JR Pace. On offense, Woodward dominated up front as Knox Hagen, Trey Turner, Shiva Puttagunta, Josh McCullough and Julian Chapman gave quarterback Ryan Glover plenty of time to pass while also providing holes for Jalen Polk and Tahj Gary to run through.
The stellar play of the offensive line allowed Woodward to remain balanced on offense. Once Marist defenders crept up to stop the running game, Glover took his shots down field. Woodward built an 18-0 lead in the first quarter on a 22-yard touchdown pass to Hunter Falconer from Glover, a 20-yard pass to Ben Wilkerson from Glover and a 1-yard run by Polk.
In the second quarter Glover hit Jeffrey Hubbard on a deep post route, good for a 30-yard touchdown. But everything didn’t go perfectly for Woodward, which had a point after kick blocked and missed two others, but still led 25-0 at the half.
On Woodward’s first possession of the second half, the offense rolled 80 yards in just six plays. The first five were runs. The fifth was a 47-yard strike, on another post pattern, from Glover to Josh Johnson for the final points of the night.
It was the first time Marist had been shut out since a 20-0 loss to Dunwoody on Oct. 15, 2010. The margin of the loss was the largest since Marist fell to Buford, 30-6, in the 2014 Class AAAA quarterfinal.
Marist 0 0 0 0 0
Woodward Academy 18 7 7 0 32
WA – Hunter Falconer 22 pass from Ryan Glover (PAT blocked)
WA – Ben Wilkerson 20 pass from Glover (kick failed)
WA – Jalen Polk 1 run (kick failed)
WA – Jeffrey Hubbard 30 pass from Glover (Martin Rodriquez kick)
WA – Josh Johnson 47 pass from Glover (Rodriquez kick)
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