Things learned, observed in Pacific high school football Week 8.0

Musings, mutterings and the occasional schmahts as Ornauer stares at more history coming Saturday, the first-ever DODDS-Pacific Division I football play-in game on Okinawa:

-- One group of Panthers clinched a regular-season title on Oct. 2; two more sets of big black cats followed suit Friday and made for two very happy homecomings. Congratulations to the five-time Okinawa Activities Council football champion

Kadena Panthers, 44-0 winners over Kubasaki at Ryukyu Middle School in the rain, and to Yokota, which captured its 11^th DODDS Japan and Kanto Plain Association of Secondary Schools titles in 12 years by blanking Nile C. Kinnick 37-0 at Yokota High School’s Bonk Field.

-- Though the numbers didn’t show it on offense, this may have been a more dominating performance by Kadena than the 56-16 rout on Oct. 1, because defensively, the Panthers behaved as stingily as any ol’ Scrooge or Potter. Try 44 yards on 22 plays with just two first downs. In the last seven quarters, Kadena has allowed just 133 yards and six first downs, and one solitary trip by the Dragons into the Panthers’ red zone, which ended in a fumble recovery by James Nollie.

-- There go those two guys again. Shariff Coleman. 195 yards, 2 touchdowns, 11 carries. Thomas McDonald. 107 yards, 2 touchdowns, 13 carries. Combined season totals 1,446 yards, 19 touchdowns, 141 carries. To paraphrase Will Rogers: "They never saw a touchdown run they didn’t take."

-- Lotty Smith and Aaron Ahner. 3 pass attempts by Smith, 3 completions, all to Ahner for 93 yards … and three touchdowns. It’s almost unfair.

-- It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out how Kadena’s offense works. It just takes 11 mules to stop them. I mean, 806 yards and 11 touchdowns on 97 carries in two games, and 899 yards total offense and 14 touchdowns on 100 plays? Nine yards per snap?

-- Musings interruption for this factoid of little interest to anybody except me: Seven games this weekend across the Pacific. Five of them shutouts. Average margin of victory 32.3 points (252-26). Do the haves vs. have nots get more pronounced than that? It was worst on Guam, where Father Duenas Memorial, Simon Sanchez and George Washington beat their respective foes, John F. Kennedy, Southern and Okkodo, by a combined 90-0. Ouch.

-- Yokota might have had more yards than the 193 totalled between Devin Day (3 touchdowns), Morgan Breazell (1) and Josh Chamberlain (2) were it not for getting many a short field to work with thanks to turnovers. Dominique Evans picked off a Kinnick pass and recovered two fumbles, and Kazden Batey returned one kickoff 48 yards to set up good field position.

-- Again, defense ruled the day for Yokota, which held the Red Devils to minus-15 yards on 17 carries, and a 2-for-5 day for 19 yards for John Allen, both completions to Josh Adair.

-- Still, Kinnick and Kubasaki might take some heart in knowing they each still have a shot at qualifying for the Division I playoffs, thanks to the play-in game added to the schedule last spring. Kinnick, as Japan’s Division I No. 2, travels to Kubasaki, Okinawa’s No. 2, for an all-the-marbles contest at 7 p.m. on Saturday at Kubasaki’s Mike Petty Stadium.

-- Kinnick’s lone win last season came at Kubasaki’s expense, 19-16 last Oct. 3 at Yokosuka Naval Base’s Berkey Field. But that’s hardly a gauge. New season, two different teams.

-- Up north at Misawa Air Base, Hayden Jardine of American School In Japan put on a total=-offense clinic, going 9-for-17 for 235 yards and three touchdowns and running five times for 42 yards and a score as the Mustangs corralled Robert D. Edgren 40-20 – the highest point total by a losing team the entire weekend. Jardine was coming off a two-week hiatus in the States to attend his grandmother’s funeral; deepest PSB condolences to the Jardine family.

-- In fact, ASIJ was rather potent offensively as a whole, gaining 241 yards on the ground as well. Nathan Kwon, Ken Yajima and Fred Gustafsson combined for 190 of them with two touchdowns. Andrew Stern proved to be Jardine’s favourite target, four catches for 90 yards and two touchdowns, while Cody Hadden pulled in the other TD. Defensively, Henry Wallrapp starred with two sacks and a fumble recovery.

-- Edgren’s Matt Linder, known more for his soccer scoring touch than football prowess, showed he knew just a little about returning kicks, taking three of them for 213 yards and a touchdown. James Ervin, the third quarterback the Eagles have tried this season, showed promise, going 3-for-6 for 49 yards and running for 104 yards on 17 carries. And Xavier Major picked off two Jardine passes and finished with nine tackles.

-- Then, there was the Pacific’s equivalent of a "get-well" game. Seoul American traded kick-return touchdowns with Osan American on the first two plays before settling down and scoring 35 unanswered points to beat the Cougars 41-6 at Sims Field. It was the Falcons’ first regular-season win since their 2008 Division I title season.

-- Harold Martin’s arm was key again for the Falcons, finding Tommy Akinbayo and Adrian Thomas for touchdown hookups. And remember the name Sidney Malauulu; he rushed for a pair of scores, while Antoine Daniels returned an interception 30 yards for a TD.

-- Daegu American’s coaching staff scouted the contest, mainly for a peek at Osan American; if the Warriors beat the Cougars, they’ll return to the Division II football title game slated for Nov. 6 at Zama American. "They’re much improved," Daegu head coach Ken Walter said of Seoul American.

-- Good news for Kubasaki fans of travel: The Dragons will either conclude their season or tune up for the Division I playoffs by heading to Singapore for a goodwill/friendship game against the Singapore American Community Action Council’s Falcons All-Star team (SACAC is the locale’s answer to MCCS or MWR or Force Support; Singapore American School doesn’t sponsor football). The game will likely kick off at 3 p.m. Singapore time (4 p.m. Japan time) on Oct. 30, a week before the Division I semifinals.

-- A good many people have asked me, so here’s the scoop on who plays whom in the Division I semifinals on Nov. 6, depending on the outcome of Saturday’s play-in game: If Kinnick beats Kubasaki, then Yokota plays Seoul American in one semifinal and Kadena faces Kinnick in the other. If Kubasaki beats Kinnick, then Yokota plays Kubasaki and Kadena plays Seoul American. Game times to be determined. The championship game and third-place game will be played on Nov. 12. All Division I playoff games are at Mike Petty Stadium.

141 days.

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