Wilde Lake dominates Oakland Mills, 50-0

Senior running back Kalil Vierra scored the game’s first touchdown on a 49-yard run and later caught an 11-yard scoring pass from senior Joe Kelly as Wilde Lake secured Friday night’s 50-0, Howard County League shutout at rival Oakland Mills in a clash of teams that entered the game with identical 3-1 conference records.

“In any football game, you want to score first in an impressive fashion if you can,” said Wilde Lake head coach Mile Harrison. “It doesn’t matter if it is a one-yard plunge or a 49-yard run. It was good to have Khalil back, he was off for a week with a concussion and we were glad to have him back.”

Senior defensive end Alvin Harris scored on a 3-yard run and had a safety, and junior Jordan Mynatt made two interceptions for the Wildecats.

Junior Anthony Miller ran for a 15-yard touchdown and made a 3-yard interception return for another score, and junior Kenzie Evans recovered a fumble that set up the Wildecats’ final scoring run of 17 yards by junior Bryce McDaniel as Wilde Lake held the Scorpions to 38 total yards of offense, and minus four yards in the first half.

E.J. Gilman ran for a 25-yard touchdown for the Wildecats, and Kelly ran for a two-point conversion and was good on four extra point kicks behind a fleet-footed, athletic offensive line comprised of Tom Klotz (6-foot-3, 190 pounds), Matt Holdefer (6-3, 205), Derian Williams (6-0, 205), Griffin Guardala (6-2, 205), Teka Hayes (5-11, 260) and EricHandy (5-11, 225).

“We just dominated,” said simply by Hayes. “We wanted to just come in and take over and that’s what we did.”

Vierra led the Wildecats with 79 yards on five carries during the shutout, which marked the second straight for the Wildecats (4-1), who led 42-0 at halftime against the Scorpions (3-2), and were coming off of last week’s 50-0 rout of Mount Hebron after leading that game 36-0 at the intermission.

“When we created our game plan this week, we decided to turn up the intensity and blitz a little bit more,” said Wilde Lake head coach Mike Harrison.  “We thought that we could put some pressure on their quarterback and I think that’s what helped us out.”

Oakland Mills had begun the season with a 3-0 record but have dropped the last two contests, including last week’s loss to host Long Reach, 31-26.

Wilde Lake bottled up one of the County’s top offenses by stopped the running back game and getting pressure on Scorpions quarterback Jarrod Montoya.  The Wildecats kept a double team on All-County wide receiver Terrance Drew and kept Oakland Mills out of sorts.

The Scorpions punted after three-and-outs on its first two drives followed by back-to-back interceptions on their next two.

“Earlier on in the season, we didn’t really have that [killer] instinct but as the season has [gone on] we’ve been developing it and we just came out there and wanted to get in the end zone,” said Kelly.

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