The Mt. Douglas stole a page from the Centennial Centaurs playbook and ran up the score against the St. Thomas More Knights in a painful one-sided B.C. high school AAA football semifinal at UBC's Thunderbird Stadium Saturday.
The Vancouver Island-based Rams rushed for nearly 300 yards and six touchdowns to upset the No. 1-ranked Knights 54-7 in arguably the most shocking one-sided scoreline of the high school playoffs to date.
Unlike last week, when STM found answers for Centennial's successful running game to pull off a miracle comeback, the Knights defence got no such breaks in the steady rain at T-Bird stadium, falling behind 14-0 after the first quarter and never really finding its stride thereafter.
STM did manage to score in the second quarter on its best field position of the afternoon, driving 53 yards on nine plays before Knights quarterback Mikey Carney scored in the corner off a six-yard run to close the gap to a single TD.
But STM's inability to move the football downfield continually left the talented Rams back-field with little more than half the field to work with all game long, and Mt. Douglas capitalized on the opportunities.
Mt. Doug scored on its second possession, marching 58 yards on six plays before Jordan Deverill found his favourite receiver Taylor Young in the corner of the end zone with a 23-year touchdown strike.
Junior running back Marcus Davis then scored his first of two scores on a 33-yard run off left tackle to close the opening quarter.
Although Carney got that TD back, Mt. Doug scored on both its next two possessions to put STM in serious difficulty.
In fact, the Rams needed just 10 plays to put up both scores - a three-yard run by all-star senior running back Terell Davis and a 12-yard score by the equally talented Mason Swift.
In all the elder Davis rushed for 142 yards and three TDs, while Swift had two touchdowns and 86 yards on the ground. Swift also scored a special teams TD on a fumble near the STM goal line off a high snap on an attempted punt by Carney in the third quarter.
The younger Davis also scored from 38 yards out in the second half and intercepted a Carney pass at the goal line to end the first half.
Mt. Douglas racked up 294 yards on the ground and 368 yards in total against STM.
In reply, the Knights managed just 179 total yards, including just 73 on the ground.
STM's first first down of the game came early in the second quarter on a 12-yard pass reception by Alex Golding.
But even through the air STM struggled. Carney managed just seven completions for 106 yards. Marwin Empainado was his favourite receiver with three catches for 42 yards.
"It's not the way we wanted to finish," said STM head coach Bernie Kully. "The Grade 12s are a special group and are responsible for restoring a football tradition at STM, so it's an unfortunate end to the season."
But the bottom line was being able to move the ball on offence and stop the ball on defence, said Kully. "And we couldn't do either."
"I thought the backs for Centennial were just as talented as Mt. Doug's. They pushed us up front. They punched us, and we didn't respond, and then it just snowballed," Kully added.
However, STM will still have something to cheer about on championship weekend at B.C. Place. Both the junior varsity and Grade 8 teams made the provincial finals on Saturday.
