Notre Dame Shuts Down Burroughs

While Notre Dame High’s running backs spent Friday night running the ball with ease, Burroughs’ quarterback Marco Arcipreste spent the evening running for his life.

The Knights, rebounding from a lackluster opening-night performance in a loss to Alemany last week, needed a tenacious effort against fired-up Burroughs, a winner last week against St. Francis.

“We were shooting for a shutout,” Notre Dame fullback Jeremy Harrison said.

They got it, blanking Burroughs, 20-0, at Burroughs for the Knights’ first win over the Indians in three years.

Harrison led the attack, rushing for 138 yards and 1 touchdown in 13 carries. He was followed by Scott Shiu (65 yards, 8 carries) and Errol Small (13 yards, 3 carries, 1 touchdown), as the Knights rolled up 225 yards rushing.

“I just followed the blocking and did the best I could,” Harrison said. “We needed the hard running and all our backs had it tonight.”

The Knights’ ground game complemented a heavy rush on Arcipreste, who was sacked 4 times for minus-15 yards. The Indians managed 177 yards on the ground--89 in 11 carries by fullback Kevin Monaco--but never threatened to score.

Arcipreste completed just 6 of 14 passes for 82 yards. Two of his passes were intercepted.

“We’ve got a couple of kids who are pretty good pass rushers,” Notre Dame Coach Kevin Rooney said. “We haven’t had that the last couple of years.”

Notre Dame scored all of its points in the first half, capitalizing on Arcipreste’s interceptions for two touchdowns.

On Burroughs’ opening drive, the Indians moved the ball to their own 46 before Notre Dame cornerback Reggie Dominique made a leaping interception of an Arcipreste pass.

“The interceptions gave us great field position,” Dominique said.

Nine plays and 67 yards after Dominique’s theft, Notre Dame (1-1) took a 7-0 lead when Small dove one yard for the score with 4:45 to play in the first quarter.

Notre Dame marched 89 yards in 11 plays midway through the second quarter to take a 14-0 lead. Quarterback Bobby Hughes, who completed 5 of 14 passes for 128 yards, scrambled 11 yards around right end to cap the drive.

An Arcipreste was intercepted again, this time by Mike Rimkunas on Burroughs’ next possession. Six plays later, Harrison bolted 14 yards for a touchdown with 1:40 left in the half.

“We put a lot of emphasis on our running game in practice this week,” Rooney said. “We ran the same stuff this week that we did last week. We just ran it better.”

Burroughs finished with 259 total yards and Notre Dame finished with 353.

Tailbacks Chris Valento and Andre Banks led the Burroughs ground game. Valento rushed for 31 yards in 5 carries and Banks totaled 43 yards in 8 carries.