By Steve Carpenter
HCCSports Information Director
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Scoring touchdowns on their first nine possessions of the game, the sixth-ranked Hutchinson Community College Blue Dragons put an historical beating on 23rd-ranked Independence in the Jayhawk Conference opener on Saturday night at Gowans Stadium.
Seven different Blue Dragons scored touchdowns asHutchinsonrolled up the fourth-most points and produced the second-biggest blowout inHCCfootball history in a 70-0 victory.
“We feel like we have a bunch of guys who are dangerous with the football,” said Blue Dragon head coach Rion Rhoades, who tied David Wheeler for fourth on HCC’s career coaching list with his 28th victory. “You have to take your hats off the O-line. When you run for 377 yards, there is a lot of good blocking by the O-line, tight ends and full backs. There were a lot of good blocks tonight.”
Hutchinson(2-0, 1-0 Jayhawk Conference) scored on 9 of 10 offensive possessions in reaching the 70-point mark for the fourth time in program history. The last timeHCCreached 70 points in game was in 1997 when the Blue Dragons scored a team-record 83 againstDodge City.
OnlyHutchinson’s 77-point blowout overArkansasCityCollegein 1950 was a bigger margin of victory than Saturday’s outcome.
HCChas won 11 in a row at Gowans Stadium. The Dragons have won six straight and 23 of the last 24 againstIndependence(0-2, 0-1).
The Blue Dragons rolled up 557 yards of total offense on 54 plays, getting 377 rushing yards.HCChad 27 first downs, 17 by rushing plays, and were a perfect 6 of 6 on red-zone possessions.HCChad 10 plays of 10 or more yards and averaged 10.3 yards per play.
“As an offense, you have to take what the defense is giving you,” Rhoades said. “Last week, Kilgore was putting a lot of players stacked in the box to take away the run. Indy was giving us a light box and we got some good runs.”
The longest play from scrimmage on Saturday night was an electrifying 90-yard touchdown run from redshirt freshman Deveon Dinwiddie. That run tied for the second-longest run from scrimmage in team history, tying Renard Douglass’ 90-yard TD run againstDodge Cityin 1999.
“Everything happened so fast,” Dinwiddie said. “I was a little down after last week. Tonight, we did a great job. The O-line did a great job today. We trust those guys. That’s what makes our offense run. We have confidence we can score.”
Dinwiddie rushed for a game-high 135 yards on only six carries and two touchdowns (90 and 1 yard). He also had a 35-yard run vs. the Pirates. Dinwiddie had 147 all-purpose yards.
Freshmen running backs LaQua Mayes andTerrell Lanescored two touchdowns each. Mayes ran nine times for 69 yards and had scoring runs of 8 and 29 yards. Lane went for 58 yards on 10 carries, scoring on runs of 2 and 3 yards. Sophomore Derek Campbell rushed 12 times for 60 yards with one touchdown run of 3 yards.
“The offensive line stays out every day after practice and does extra work,” Lane said. “We wanted to establish our running game tonight and we did.”
Sophomore quarterback Elliott Alford had another accurate game, completing 9 of 9 passes for 180 yards and three touchdowns. Elford moved into No. 10 on the Blue Dragon career passing list with 1,874 yards. Alford also rushed five times for 49 yards to run his career total yardage total to 2,253 yards.
Sophomore Cordarrelle Patterson had four receptions for 83 yards with one touchdown on a 58-yard catch and run. Patterson became the fifth receiver in Blue Dragon history to reach the 1,000 yards for a career.
Freshman Jatavious Stewart had three catches for 51 yards and one touchdown. Freshman Miguel Johns had two catches for 46 yards and his first career touchdown.
Defensively, the Blue Dragons posted their fourth shutout of the Rhoades era and the third in the last nine games dating back to last year.
HutchinsonheldIndependenceto 201 total yards (168 rushing, 33 passing). The Pirates drove intoHCCterritory only twice, losing one possession on a fumble and getting to the Blue Dragon 7-yard line on the final play on the first half. The furthest drive of sixIndependencepossessions in the second half was the Pirate 44-yard line.
The Pirates, who have been outscored 133-0 in the first two games of 2011, fumbled the ball eight times, losing three.HCCfreshman linebacker Tim Edmond had two fumble recoveries and lineman Toby Johnson had the other.
Linebacker Shane Smith had 11 total tackles and a forced fumble. Defensive end Tyler Rayl also had double figures in tackles with 10, including three tackles for loss.
“We had a pretty good game play and we all had responsibilities,” Rayl said. “Everybody played their spot and did a really good job. Our main concern was to get takeaways and we did a pretty good job of doing that.”
“If we would have won 28 or 35 to nothing, I would have been just as good about it,” Rhoades said. “We didn’t make a lot of mistakes. We wanted to clean some things up and be efficient.”
Hutchinsonled 14-0 after one quarter, and then turned in another monster second quarter with 28 points to lead 42-0 at halftime. Last week,HCChad a 40-point second quarter againstKilgoreCollegelast week.
The Blue Dragons will have a short week for their Week 3 game.HCCtravels to Air Force Prep at2 p.m.(CT) on Friday inColorado Springs,Colo.
GAME NOTES – The Blue Dragons have scored 130 points in the first two games of the season. That’s the most points ever in consecutive games in team history. The previous high was 96 scored in the first two games of 2010. … Cordarrelle Patterson is now tied with Danny McEvoy for fourth place on the career receptions list with 61. …Hutchinson has outscored opponents 68-3 in the second quarter of the first two games of the season. …HCC kicker Michael Mesh was 10 for 10 on point after touchdowns. He became only the second kicker in team history to have 10 or more extra points in a single game. Mesh has five kickoff touchbacks.