Notre Dame Steamrolls Sequatchie Co. In 38-0 Romp

It's been a difficult football season at times for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish this fall, but things seem to be clicking just fine for a team that won 12 straight games before losing in the Class AAA semifinals last year.

Facing a Sequatchie County team on Friday night at Finley Stadium in the opening round of the TSSAA playoffs, it's safe to say that Notre Dame played its best game of the season by far and the results showed as they sent the Indians back to Dunlap following a 38-0 shutout.

Notre Dame will now travel to Upperman next Friday to face the Bees, who eliminated Red Bank by a 35-15 final on Friday.

Both teams entered Friday's game with identical 7-3 records, but this one was never close.

Senior quarterback Alex Darras had one of his best games ever as he completed 11 of 12 passes in the first half for 232 yards before finishing with an outstanding performance of 14 completions in 15 attempts for 269 yards and three touchdowns.

The Notre Dame receivers have had games this season where they had trouble holding onto perfectly-thrown passes, but that wasn't the case as they came out ready to play.

Darras had a 31-yard scoring aerial to Calvin Sims on the fourth play of the game and his 37-yard field goal on Notre Dame's second possession extended the lead to 10-0 before the first quarter ended.

A 34-yard pass from Darras to Patrick Johnson made it 17-0 on the fourth play of the second quarter while a 58-yard punt return by Ricky Ballard extended the difference to 24-0 with 8:53 left in the second stanza.

Then with 4:38 left before intermission, Darras connected with speedy Andrew Banks on a 48-yard TD and the difference was 31-0 at the half.

The Indians got the second half kickoff and managed a first down on the first play when Colby Reed picked up 10 yards on a sweep, but on fourth-and-11 four plays later, Sequatchie County attempted a pass from punt formation that was dropped.

Notre Dame took over at the Sequatchie County 29 and put the icing on the cake minutes later when Akil Sledge bulled his way into the end zone from the 2.

By that time at the 7:31 mark of the third quarter, a steady rain had begun to fall, the mercy rule was in effect and neither team threatened the rest of the way.

Darras was all smiles when the game ended.

"I always hope and pray that we'll come out and play strong and that's what we did tonight," he began his interview.

"We had watched a lot of film and knew what routes we could run.  Our offensive line did a great job of protecting me and giving me time to throw and my receivers did a good job of catching it.  It's nice to be back in a rhythm as I think we're finding our groove.  We're hitting our peak at just the right time," the slender quarterback added.

Notre Dame coach Charles Fant was happy that his team has finally started to jell after a great season a year ago.

"We knew that something had to change with the chemistry of this team about midway through the season.  We had way too many individuals at that point and we weren't playing well, but things are a lot better now and these last three weeks have started feeling more like last year again," he expressed after his team had won for the fourth straight week.

"There's only one way to play successfully and that's together.  We had outstanding play on special teams, offense and defense, but the key was our play up front on both sides of the ball.

"Sequatchie County has some physical players.  We had to match that intensity and we did.  Our defense kept pounding as we kept taking it to them.  I'm sleeping much better these days as we're finally headed in the right direction, but we probably would have lost this game four weeks ago," Fant added matter of factly.

It certainly wasn't the way first-year Sequatchie County coach Adam Caine wanted his team's season to end, but he was still somewhat upbeat after their worst loss of the season.

"I really don't have a lot of good things to say right now.  Notre Dame has a really good football team and they did a good job of making big plays tonight.  We weren't able to get anything going offensively and we let it sort of snowball at times, but give Notre Dame a lot of credit for a job well done.

"This was a tough loss, but when you consider where we started at the beginning of the season, going 7-3 before tonight was really outstanding for us," he added.

 Notre Dame finished with 351 total yards, including 284 through the air.

Banks was the leading receiver with three catches for 98 yards while Sims had three grabs for 57.  Wynn had four for 49 while Johnson had one for 34.

Ballard had 32 rushing yards on seven carries and one reception for 17 yards in addition to his punt return.

The Indians finished with 175 total yards, including 135 on the ground and 40 through the air.

Senior quarterback Houston Mainord was the leading rusher with 59 yards on six carries, including a long of 43 late in the first half.

Brandon Rudd picked up 36 yards on 10 carries before leaving with a painful knee injury with less than two minutes left in the second quarter.  Reed had 12 yards on two second-half rushes and two catches for 10 yards.

Tyler Enos had a fumble recovery on the play where Rudd got hurt while Ari Ruffin had an interception for the Irish in the final minute of the game.

SEQUATCHIE COUNTY  0  0  0  0  --  0

NOTRE DAME  10  21  7  0  --  38

ND -- Calvin Sims 31 pass from Alex Darras (Alex Darras kick), 10:21 left in first;

ND -- Darras 37 field goal, 1:25 left in first;

ND -- Patrick Johnson 34 pass from Darras (Darras kick), 10:57 left in second;

ND -- Ricky Ballard 58 punt return (Darras kick), 8:53 left in second;

ND -- Andrew Banks 48 pass from Darras (Darras kick), 4:38 left in second;

ND -- Akil Sledge 2 run (Darras kick), 7:31 left in third.

(email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)