Central Catholic football has Mt. Hood win streak snapped by Nelson

HAPPY VALLEY – There’s no way around it: It wasn’t Central Catholic High School football’s night on offense.

Facing off with Mt. Hood Conference foe Nelson, the Rams and Hawks were essentially playing for the league title as they both entered the game 3-0 in league play and 6-1 overall.

The home-standing Hawks picked up six turnovers and dominated time of possession behind running back Corbin Croslin’s 140 yards rushing and three touchdowns.

Ultimately, it was a 26-6 victory for Nelson, its first-ever win over Central Catholic in its fifth season as a program, and it ended a 39-game win streak for the Rams in MHC play.

“I think it’s a collective deal, and I told the guys, ‘We gotta attack the film and lean into this and get better,’” Rams head coach Charlie Landgraf said. “The reality is we fell short of our goal tonight to get that conference title, but there’s still a lot of football left.”

The two sides didn’t score on either first possession and the Hawks punted away their second time with the ball.

Chaz Kaotanga made the first big play for the Hawks on the ensuing Rams possession when he came up with an interception on the Nelson 42-yard line.

The Hawks moved the ball slowly down the field and eventually scored on a 1-yard Croslin run to go up 7-0 following the made PAT.

Central Catholic went nowhere on its next possession, but did force Nelson into a 3-and-out as well. However, a Rams blocker was pushed near the ball on the Nelson punt and tried to reach out and grab the bouncing ball. It bounced off his hand and the Hawks pounced on it for an extra possession.

The Rams hung tough though and forced a punt, but the offense gave it right back on a second INT by Katoanga that he returned to the Rams 11-yard line.

Once again, the Rams got the stop and forced a turnover on downs, but the first play following the turnover was a third interception for the Hawks defense, this one by Drew Newbury.

This time, the Hawks made it sting when QB Danny Leary hit Brody Austin to get down to the Rams 1-yard line and then Croslin punched it in for his second score of the night. A missed PAT made it 13-0 at the break.

“I feel like we played amazing,” Rams senior Cole Thomas said of the defense. “We stuck to our identity, hard-hitting, hard grit football. Tonight, there were a lot of missed tackles, I think that was a big part of it. (Nelson) ran really hard.”

Despite those missed tackles, the Rams were right in it to start the second half. They had to punt on their possession, but stopped Nelson and got the ball back on the Hawks 12-yard line when the punt was aborted on a bobbled snap.

Two plays later, it was a Tyson Davis 5-yard TD to cut the Nelson lead down to 13-6 with 7:12 left in the third quarter.

Nelson used up the clock on its next drive and got all the way down to the Rams 1-yard line again. However, this time the Rams stood up a third-down run and knocked down a pass on fourth down to get the stop.

“They’ve been playing lights out,” Landgraf said of the defense. “(Nelson was) leaning on us a little bit tonight and were able to move the football, created some explosive plays when they needed to. But really proud of that group.”

The Rams ensuing possession carried over into the fourth, but stalled out at midfield and forced another punt.

Nelson went down the field in about 3.5 minutes and found the end zone once again, this time a 15-yard Croslin run where he spun out of a couple tackles and walked into paydirt. The blocked PAT made it 19-6 Nelson with 7:03 to go.

The Hawks got their fifth turnover on the night on the Rams next possession when Abraham Zhyryada came up with a sack on Rams QB Robbie Long to force a fumble. Ian Nix recovered it for the Hawks on the Rams 22-yard line.

Nelson drained the clock and eventually scored one final time, this one a 7-yard Leary pass to Cooper Stevenson. The made PAT provided the 26-6 final.

To seal the deal, Malachi Garlington came up with an INT on a tipped pass to give Nelson its sixth turnover of the night.

Croslin finished with 140 rushing yards on 33 carries with three TDs while Leary was 19 for 29 passing for 167 yards and one score.

Long was 9 for 20 for 97 yards passing with the four picks while RB KK Sombe was held to just 34 yards rushing on 12 carries.

“It was just shutdown on the O-line, we weren’t getting enough push, you tried to hit a gap and there were two guys sitting there,” Thomas said of the struggle on offense. “Their secondary played amazing, four picks, they were flying all over.”

Nelson improves to 7-1 overall and 4-0 in the MHC with one game left against Clackamas where the Hawks will be heavy favorites to win and take the league crown.

Central Catholic falls to 6-2 overall and 3-1 in the MHC and will finish out the regular season at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31 against Sandy at Hillsboro Stadium.

The Rams are certainly still shoe-ins for the 6A playoffs, but with a second loss on their slate, they know there’s plenty of work left to do if they want to reach the ultimate goal of a state crown.

“I told them this thing can go either two ways, ‘You can separate and start pointing the fingers or we can come together and lock in and see what we can do,’” Landgraf said. “I think this is a really talented football team with a great staff. We just gotta attack it and it starts on Sunday getting ready for Sandy.”