By Jeremy McDonald
jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
DALLAS, Ore.– With Dallas losing over 20 Seniors from last year’s squad, the Dragons 5-0 start to the Spring Season has been something extradentary.
They’ve come together since last March and through all the turbulence of what could have been and should have been has helped the squad draw closer together as they came out swinging on Senior Night against South Albany.
“It’s just been our focus since the beginning of the year…well since a year ago, since Spring of last March. So we’ve been grinding for a while, and have been playing team football ever since,” said Luke Hess. “We’ve been chasing that perfect game. As long as we’re playing together, we will be good.”
Friday’s 50-6 victory over the Redhawks may have not been perfect, it surely seemed near it. Dominate perhaps as has been Dallas’ motive all year with their closest game coming Week 2 against Lebanon in a 38-27 victory on the road.
Senior Night wasn’t as close as their Week 2 game, but they did come out like a team possessed.
29 first quarter points, leading 36-0 at halftime. All but one touchdown, an Ashton Foster rushing strike, came from a Senior. Jace Grillo and John Hofenbredl each had two touchdowns, Aiden Henrickson and Chase Brushe each had one for Dallas.
“It felt amazing, we’ve been working for four years with this program so coming out here and putting up 50 like that with all of our Seniors balling out. It felt great, it was great to see,” Grillo said, who had four carries for 40 yards.
“Defense has been pretty on fire, we’re rocking and rolling,” adds Hess. “Offense is doing awesome…we’re pretty much rocking and rolling,”
But as they are riding high, they still have one more task at hand to try to finish off the perfect season:
Central.
The Dragons Coaches reminded them of that one opponent. Looking at it as the Championship bout and reminded their players not to overlook the Panthers who are on the prowl to snap their three-game skid to end the season strongly themselves.
“We just got to come out and execute, play a clean game, we’ll get it,” Grillo said. “It’s been huge. The coaches have been pushing us big time in practice, they never let us slack and none of that. Play clean every day.”
Foster threw for 168 yards on nine completions with two passing touchdowns to go with his scrambling score in the victory.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
