For three of four quarters today, Notre Dame dominated Red Jacket, leading to a 45-18 victory in the first round of sectional playoffs.
Before the Red Jackets could even get its offense going, Notre Dame's big play offense had 17 points on the board.
"We played three great quarters and that’s the kind of intensity we wanted to bring," said Head Coach Rick Mancuso. "After that lull in the game in the second quarter, we kind of got them back in the game."
That lull, Mancuso said, seemed to be as the result of an injury time-out in which a Red Jacket player was hit hard by a Notre Dame linebacker on a run play. The Red Jacket runner was slow getting up and then collapsed as he tried to leave the field.
"We lost some of our emotion, which was actually a concern to me," Mancuso said. "I was saying, 'Hey, don’t let this get you down,' but we did lose some intensity there and then we made a couple of mistakes and basically let them back in the ball game."
Red Jacket closed out the second quarter with 12 unanswered points.
Mancuso said he didn't say anything special to his players during half time, but from the start of the third quarter, the Fighting Irish were focused again and scored three consecutive TDs, and adding another 7 points in the fourth quarter before Red Jacket scored a touchdown in the final two minutes of play.
"We started the game fast. We played really well. We played with emotion," Mancuso said.
Notre Dame is now 6-1 on the season.
Running back Mike Pratt keyed the offense with 220 yards gained on 27 carries, scoring four touchdowns.
Bo Ricter scored Notre Dame's first TD on a three-yard run.
Notre Dame then surprised Red Jacket with an onside kick. On the very next play, Nick Bochicchio hit Gianni Zambito on a 51-yard TD pass. Zambito scored after the Red Jacket defender over committed to the ball, missed it and Zambito snatched it from the air and turned toward the end zone with no Red Jacket defenders between him and the goal line.
Matt Thompson closed out the first quarter with a 28-yard field goal.
Red Jacket scored in the second quarter on a 21-yard pass from Tyler Hixson to Trevor Sanders and a 32-yard pass from Hixson to Sanders. Both two-point conversion attempts were stopped by the Notre Dame defense.
The next four TDs all went to Notre Dame: Pratt had TD runs of 1 yard, 4 yards, 15 yards and 7 yards.
The final score of the game was a Chris Coslasurdo 35-yard pass to Sanders. Again, Red Jacket was unable to convert its two-point try.
Cam McDonald had eight tackles.
Kicker Thompson had eight points in the game, converting all of his PATs plus the field goal.
