Kadena running back Uriah Morris knifes his way between two Guam High defenders. Morris led all players with 198 yards and two touchdowns on 25 carries. (L.J. Hollingsworth/Special to Stripes)
Kadena running back Uriah Morris knifes his way between two Guam High defenders. Morris led all players with 198 yards and two touchdowns on 25 carries. (L.J. Hollingsworth/Special to Stripes)
Kadena quarterback Wyatt Knopp gets wrapped up by Guam High's Jeylyn Dowdell. Knopp began the season as starting quarterback, missed four games with a chest injury, and returned to the lineup three weeks ago. (L.J. Hollingsworth/Special to Stripes)
Kadena's Trent Fawler does his best to avoid being tackled by Guam High's Jalen Thach. (L.J. Hollingsworth/Special to Stripes)
KADENA AIR BASE, Okinawa – Wyatt Knopp finished the regular season Saturday the way he began it - under center for Kadena and helping lead the Panthers to their sixth win in seven regular season games, 14-0.
The junior filled in at quarterback when starter Eric McCarter was removed in the first quarter after a hard hit following an interception. Knopp returned to the lineup three weeks ago after missing four games with a chest injury suffered in Kadena’s lone loss, 34-33 to Nile C. Kinnick on Sept. 8.
“Wyatt stepped up and did a fantastic job,” coach Sergio Mendoza said.
Knopp entered the contest on Kadena’s second possession and immediately directed the Panthers to a score, Uriah Morris’ 14-yard run, capping a 12-play, 84-yard drive early in the second quarter.
Morris scored again on a 6-yard run on Kadena’s first second-half possession, which capped another 12-play drive, this time of 65 yards.
McCarter was among several starters removed as a precautionary measure, to keep them healthy for next week’s title game, Mendoza said. “We have to be careful; we have a big game next week,” he said, adding that McCarter wanted to go back in in the second half.
With the win, the Panthers closed the regular season 6-1 with only next week’s Far East Division I title game remaining at Kinnick on Saturday. Guam closed its season with three straight defeats, finishing 6-5.
Morris led all players with 198 yards on 26 carries in a game played in a first-half downpour. The sides combined for nine turnovers. Guam’s Travon Jacobs was 8-for-19 for 70 yards and was intercepted three times.
Jeylyn Dowdell, the coach’s son, led Guam with 86 yards on eight carries. RaSean Jacobs, the quarterback’s brother, had five catches for 83 yards.
This was the first meeting between Guam and any DODEA-Pacific team in Japan or Korea since 2010.
The two schools requested and got permission to play each other in what Guam coach Jacob Dowdell and Kadena athletics director Tom Bell hope will be the start of a home-and-home annual series. They have dubbed the series the “Typhoon Bowl.”
“That’s what I’m hoping,” Bell said.
Despite being held scoreless, Dowdell said he was proud of his charges. “Everyone saw that if you play Guam High, you’re going to be in a fight,” he said. “We can compete with anybody, the best of the best.”
