RETSOF — A flurry of dazzling runs and long catches by Perry’s junior running back Christian Hollister led to a 53-8 defeat of the York Golden Knights, on their home field Friday night.
Hollister’s first score came on the first offensive play of the game for the Yellow Jackets, as he caught a screen pass from senior quarterback Cory Dillon all the way across the field, before turning it up and running 64 yards for the score. Dillon then kept the ball himself for the two-point conversion to make it a 8-0 game.
Mistakes by both teams stalled potential scoring drives for the rest of the first quarter, and on York’s first possession of the second quarter they were able to tie it up. Hollister sacked York sophomore quarterback Cody Dubiel, which set up a 3rd and 16 from the Perry 20 yard line, but that was no problem for Dubiel as he completed a long TD pass in the corner of the endzone to senior receiver Tyler Fuller. Dubiel then kept the ball himself and ran it in for the 2-point conversion to tie the game up at eight early in the second quarter.
After the teams traded three-and-out drives, Perry got the ball back at around midfield. A few runs by Dillon led to Hollister taking another screen pass for a touchdown, this one 30 yards with just 2:09 left in the half.
York was in position to answer quickly, as their hurry-up offense produced a long pass from Dubiel to Fuller down to the Perry 7-yard line as they looked to tie it up right before the half. But on the next play, Dubiel lost control of the ball while running, it was scooped up by Perry senior defensive end TJ McGinnis, and he returned it 95 yards back the other way for a touchdown with just 31 seconds left in the half. Dillon converted the 2-point conversion again to take a 24-8 lead into halftime.
“Well, we’re a really young team, and sometimes that momentum swing is something that we need to learn to deal with,” York head coach Eric Amorese said after the game. “It was a great hit, but as a young team we’re going have to learn to deal with adversity.”
York was never able to recover from that swing in momentum, as Hollister ran for three touchdowns on consecutive drives in the third quarter, including a 96-yarder to go up 46-8 and effectively put the game out of reach.
“It’s impossible to mimic that speed in practice,” Amorese said of Hollister and the rest of the Perry offense. “We just weren’t used to that speed.”
Hollister’s younger brother, Andrew, a sophomore, came in and replaced Dillon at quarterback in the fourth quarter and took a run 77 yards to score the final points of the game with 7:26 left.
York (1-2) looks to bounce back next Friday at home when they take on Cuba-Rushford.