Blink and You’ll Miss It: Karr’s Explosive Offense Dominates Brother Martin
by: Mike Strom // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Do not blink.
Take it from Brother Martin.
The Crusaders had few answers in trying to defend the Karr Cougars Friday night.
Karr’s dynamic and quick-strike capabilities were on full display Friday night in scoring four touchdowns covering 50 yards or more that produced a 42-14 District 9-5A victory at City Park’s Tad Gormley Stadium in New Orleans.
Two of those long touchdowns came on Karr’s first two snaps from scrimmage prior to quarterback John Johnson directing three other morale-busting scoring drives covering 80, 51, and 97 yards that helped the two-time Catholic League champions roll up 464 yards behind Johnson’s 273 passing yards and a 191-yard rushing effort.
“They are so darn dynamic,’’ Brother Martin coach Mark Bonis said. “You blink and they score two touchdowns. I said before the game that in week six you want to see where you are. Well, I can’t say Karr is the best team in the state because I haven’t seen other people around the state, but, obviously, their success and what they’re doing speaks for itself. (The long touchdowns) speaks to how athletic they are and how good of a job they do.’’
Johnson accounted for 320 yards and four of Karr’s six touchdowns with his passing and running while completing 7 of his first 8 passes in finishing 15 of 19 without being intercepted. A two-year starter, 5-10, the 170-pound junior threw scoring strikes of 58 and 61 yards to wide receivers Taron Francis and Daejawn Smith in the first and third periods respectively in addition to rushing 2 and 17 yards for touchdowns to cap drives of 51 and 97 yards.
Karr’s firestorm additionally included a 57-yard scoring run by running back Bryant Sanchez in the second quarter for Karr’s second touchdown and a 50-yard scoring run by Smith on an end around. Sanchez’s touchdown followed the Johnson-to-Francis bomb on Karr’s opening p Stopping the big play on defense and creating the big play on offense, that’s the way we play.
“When you’ve got special players, they make the plays look even more spectacular,’’ Karr coach Brice Brown said. “I think that’s what we’re blessed with. We’ve got to put good players in good situations. I think that’s what we’re doing.
“They’re athletic and we have to put them in space. What you saw tonight, we really spread the field wide trying to create matchup problems and that’s what we do.’’
Karr (5-0 overall, 3-0 in District 9-5A) entered as the state’s No. 2 ranked team in Class 5A by both geauxpreps.com and the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. The Cougars also carried the No. 1 ranking in the Louisiana High School Athletic Association Division I Select power ratings and certainly played the part in rolling to their 14th district victory in 15 games in three seasons as members of the Catholic League.
Brother Martin (4-2 overall, 1-2 in District 9-5A) entered unranked, but boasting the No. 4 power rating from the LHSAA among Division I Select teams. The Crusaders also had the momentum of having downed previously undefeated Rummel, 17-13, last week, but they fared little better than their first two meetings against the Cougars that produced 19-7 and 40-7 defeats respectively in the previous two seasons.
Things started off promising for Brother Martin when the Crusaders went 58 yards in 4 plays on the game’s opening possession to take a 7-0 lead. Quarterback Seth Dazet and wide receiver Easton Royal teamed up for the first of their two scoring passes, with Royal sprinting 48 yards through Karr’s secondary for the touchdown and Grayson Smith kicking the PAT.
Matters deteriorated quickly in the second half, however, particularly after Dazet and Royal collaborated on a 23-yard scoring pass that culminated a 5-play 86-yard drive which had trimmed Karr’s advantage to 21-14 with 4 minutes, 7 seconds remaining in the third period.
As it did following Brother Martin’s first touchdown, Karr answered with three consecutive touchdowns for a second time with Smith striking via pass and run from 61 and 50 yards and Johnson culminating the 97-yard march with his 2-yard touchdown run.
“Our kids played hard,’’ Brother Martin’s Bonis said. “We wanted to be close going into the fourth quarter. You make it 21-14 and we hold the ball. We make it 21-14 with four minutes left to go in the third. I kind of felt like, hey, this is where you want to be. You don’t know what’s going to happen, but you want to make it close in the fourth quarter.’’
In addition to Karr’s quicksilver-like passing, Sanchez rushed for 65 yards on four carries with the 57-yard touchdown while Johnson ran 7 times for 47 yards with touchdowns of 2 and 17 to pace Karr’s 191-yard rushing effort.
Francis and Smith keyed the passing attack as receivers with Francis totaling 6 receptions good for 122 yards and the 58-yard touchdown and Smith catching 4 passes good for 112 yards and the 61-yard touchdown.
Penalties were an issue for the Cougars, being called for six infractions totaling 68 yards.
“When we’re in the four-minute offense, I need him to look at the play clock,’’ Brown said of his quarterback Johnson. “Other than that, he has been playing very well. He’s making good decisions (in) not turning (the football) over, that’s the most important thing. If you win the turnover battle, you put yourself in a good situation. But we’ve got to clean up some of these penalties. Some were self-inflicted and some inflicted on us.’’
Dazet completed 9 of 14 passes for 172 yards and the touchdowns of 48 and 23 yards to Royal, who totaled 4 catches good for 78 yards. Wide receiver Rex LeBlanc had one catch good for 46 yards and wideout Brodie Dumontier had two receptions for 39 yards.
Except for three second-half runs totaling 59 yards, Karr completely smothered Brother Martin’s running game. The Cougars held the Crusaders to minus 8 yards rushing in the first half and 65 for the game while allowing 237 yards total and 11 first downs.
“We’ve got to finish more in the third quarter, probably, when they really popped some runs on us,’’ Brown said of his defense. “We subbed some guys out, but we’ve got to build depth in this league. We’ve got Jesuit (next) and we’re just getting into the heart of this thing. So it’s not over by any means. We’ve got to keep competing every single week.’’
In the first half, Karr spotted Brother Martin a quick 7-0 lead before answering with three scoring drives, the first two of which took only one play apiece, to take a 21-7 lead to intermission.
Johnson got the Cougars rolling on their first snap when he hit LSU-committed Francis in stride streaking up the right sidelines for a 58-yard touchdown. Brayan Castellon kicked the PAT after the 1-play drive to forge a 7-7 tie.
Sanchez then struck with a 57-yard run off the left side that Castellon followed with the PAT to put the Cougars ahead to stay at 14-7 with 6 minutes, 57 seconds remaining until intermission.
Johnson then directed an 8-play, 51-yard drive to put the Cougars up by two touchdowns with 56 seconds remaining before the half. Johnson had a 45-yard completion to Smith negated by a holding penalty on the opening snap but then completed 4 of 5 passes to set up his own 17-yard scoring run up the middle on a pass play that had broken down.
Johnson completed 7 of 8 first-half passes for 101 yards with Francis snaring 4 catches good for 76 yards and a touchdown. Coupled with Sanchez’s 59 rushing yards on 3 attempts, the Cougars totaled 187 yards and 5 first downs to Brother Martin’s 72 yards and 5 firsts.
Brother Martin was held to minus 8 yards rushing in the first half with Dazet being sacked three times for minus 36 yards.
“We know what we’ve got to do,’’ Bonis said. “We’ve got to go back to the drawing board. We made some mistakes. But I’m proud of our guys effort. They battled. I’m happy about the way they prepared this week, with exams. It can be a distraction. They didn’t allow it to be a distraction. They busted their tails.
“We’ve got to get better. We’ve got weeks 7, 8, 9, and 10 to get better and hopefully we stay healthy. I want to make sure we fix things, fix the mistakes that we made. But I do want to point out to our young men, let’s keep the process going, let’s get better. We can’t let (the loss) distract us from what we’re doing. That team is one of the best teams in the state.’’
Karr next plays host to Jesuit at 7 p.m. Friday at Morris Jeff Stadium in Algiers. Brother Martin plays John Curtis at 7 p.m. Friday at the Shrine on Airline in Metairie.
“I think we’re more capable of doing better,’’ Brown said in offering the rest of the league a sobering thought. “And I think that’s what football is about, doing better every week.’’
KARR 35, BROTHER MARTIN 14
Karr 7 14 14 7 — 42
Brother Martin 7 0 7 0 — 14
KAR BM
First downs 13 11
Rushing 191 65
Passing 273 172
Total offense 464 237
Passes 15-19-0 9-14-1
Punts 2-41.5 6-29.2
Fumbles/lost 2-1 3-0
Penalties 9-68 6-52
SCORING:
BM: Easton Royal 48 pass from Seth Dazet (Grayson Smith kick).
K: Taron Francis 58 pass from John Johnson (Brayan Castellon kick).
K: Bryant Sanchez 57 run (Brayan Castellon kick).
K: John Johnson 17 run (Brayan Castellon kick).
BM: Easton Royal 23 pass from Seth Dazet (Grayson Smith kick).
K: Daejawn Smith 61 pass from John Johnson (Brayan Castellon kick).
K: Daejawn Smith 50 run (Brayan Castellon kick).
K: John Johnson 2 run (Brayan Castellon kick).