Landon 17 McNamara 12 [H] 9/11

Before the opening kick off, Landon honored its alumni and faculty who have served the US as members of our armed forces. Assembled at one end zone were men who served in WWII, the Korean War, Viet Nam and now Enduring Freedom. All of the alumni have done great service for all of us. One example of service to our country is Alex Rhoads (a USMA grad and lacrosse player there), recently graduated from Ranger School and will be deployed overseas soon.

Thanks to each and every one of them for their dedication to our freedom and thanks to the Administration for such a touching and meaningful ceremony!!!

The Bears delivered to Coach Padalino his first Landon victory with a spirited 17-12 win over the bigger and speedy McNamara team.  The Bears out hustled and out executed WCAC Mustangs. The Bears took the opening kickoff and drove 11 plays to a touchdown. By half, the margin improved to 14-12. The Landon defense shut out their opponents while the offense added a 32 yard field goal. Finally, the new home jerseys outstyled the visitors’ uniforms  (thanks to the Lehrman family).

Landon’s offense was led by JohnLynn‘s 128 yards of total offense (17 rushes for 60 yards, 1 TD and 4 of 8 passes for 68 yards, 1TD, 0 interceptions),  but  the story of the offense was not one of just one player. Seven Bears combined for a total of 207 yards on 45 carries( Wynston Bouknight(29yards), Deion Wellington (5 yards), Myles Allen(42yards), Peter Laco (22 yards), Pearce Minshall(44 yards), Antoine Hudson (5 yards) and Lynn’s runs) {NOTE: there is no significance to the order of names in this post– throughout high jersey# to low#). Luke Howard had three catches for 49 yards and a TD and Kellen Miller caught one for 19 yards. Equally important to the Bears’ ball control was the offensive line, which moved the monster Mustangs to create holes for the Landon backs. In the hot weather, there were a lot of  guys with 50s through 70s numbers on their jerseys (hopefully no names were missed) like Dillon Rupp,  Ben Spiritos, Kevin Keegan,John Raesly, James Johnston, Garrett Pan, Matt Hunt and Alex Selowsky.

Bradley Grossmanadded a 32 yard field goal in the 3rd quarter and two PATs (one showed his lax tendency to put it off the pipe!). He also squibbed several kick offs from the Mustang fast return men and had one critical long kickoff.

The Landon defense made big plays when it counted, particularly Antoine Hudson’s knocking down a Mustang’s 2 pt PAT pass attempt that would have tied the game. McNamara’s backs gained only 75 yards on 20 carries.The Bears D line (Dillon Rupp, John Raesly, Taylor Greene, Terrence Fullum, Max Lehrman and Luke Howard; OTHERS?) stopped many runs. The front seven for Landon forced the Mustang’s QB to throw early several times and  sacked  him 3 times for -27 yards (Lehrman 1 1/2, Fullum 1, Howard 1/2). The linebacker corps (Alex Selowsky, Drew Hayhurst, Jeff Johnson, Pearce Minshall)  filled a lot of holes, covered a lot of sweeps and messed with the Mustangs’ short passing game. The secondary (Kellen Miller, Deion Wellington, Patrick Keena, Antoine Hudson) allowed little separation between the Landon defenders and the McNamara receivers.

Johnny Cobb punted 5 times for an average of 34.6 per kick. One punt involved a very athletic catch by Johnny of the long snap; he then made an excellent kick.

quarters	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	final
Landon	7	7	3	0	17
McNamara	6	6	0	0	12

Stats provided by Mac Jacoby, my best math teacher, so the #s must be right.

Next week: Landon at Mercersburg Friday 9/17 @ 2:30pm

Scores from other Bear opponents

GP 35 PIV 0

Woodberry Forest 16 JR Tucker 0

Linganore 24 Middletown 6

Walt Whitman 28 Walter Johnson 7

SSSA17 @ St. Christopher’s 27

Palotti 15 @ Bullis 27

StA 31 @ O’Connell 14

Spingarn32  @ Mercersburg 51

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(a) the content is mine, does not reflect the opinion of Landon, Coach Padalino or anyone directly related to Landon, (b) that any errors that may exist are mine, inadvertent and correctable (please let me know and I will make ALL corrections);(c) that the author (me) is a huge disciple of the Landon team concept and that I will do everything that I can do to mention all the players; however, universal coverage is not really possible through this medium. If someone believes that a player or group (offense/defense; linemen/backs/ LBs/DB/Ss/P, etc.) should receive greater attention, I am open to such suggestions. I will not mention referees at any time and will limit references to the opposition.(d) that BSN is a volunteer publication and that as the editor, publisher, statistician and writer [me], I am all too fallible and I apologize in advance for any error.