Vikings clobber varsity football

BLAZER STADIUM, Oct. 1 —

The varsity football team (1-4) fell to the Whitman Vikings (4-1) in a 35-12 thrashing on Friday night. The Blazers have now dropped two straight games after losing to Springbrook 8-3 last week.

The Vikings' domination of the Blazer defense can be attributed to Whitman's balanced offensive attack. Whitman senior quarterback Henry Kuhn, son of head coach Jim Kuhn, aired it out for more than 200 passing yards and a pair of scores, while senior running back Miles Davis rushed for over 100 yards and two touchdowns of his own. The Blazers didn't have an answer for Whitman's high-octane offense and failed to find rhythm on offense for the second week in a row.

The Vikings never trailed and made things looked easy on their way to a big win over the Blazers. Head Coach Jeff Seals was disappointed in his defense's inability to stop Kuhn. "We just played bad — we didn't play well at all," he said. "They beat us in the passing game."

Whitman struck first, as the Vikings capitalized on an early Blair fumble and scored on a 12-yard touchdown pass from Kuhn to junior receiver Arsalan Nejad. After senior co-captain Caleb Furlow put Blair on the scoreboard with a 5-yard run, Whitman responded with two touchdowns late in the second quarter to put the Vikings up 21-6 to end the half.

Senior defensive back Jonathan Aiken said that Blair's defense was simply not ready to face an offense like Whitman's. "They came out really aggressive in the passing game," he said. "We weren't prepared and we had blown coverage."

The Blazers looked promising in the second half, as junior linebacker David Chow picked off a Kuhn pass, quickly followed by a 51-yard touchdown run by junior quarterback Robert Clingman to bring the score to 21-12. But Blair's defense couldn't muster any strength in a fourth quarter owned by the Vikings. Whitman ate large chunks of clock as Kuhn calmly drove the ball downfield on multiple possessions to solidify the win. When Davis scored on a 7-yard run with 3:45 left in regulation, the game was virtually over.

Aiken pinpointed the team's need to improve its blocking. "We'll be more disciplined next game," Aiken said. "We'll work on our blocking assignments and try to learn from our mistakes."

Seals thought that his team played well for certain stretches, but failed to keep up its solid play throughout the entire game. "We were good in spurts," he said. "We just weren't consistent enough, and that hurt us."

The varsity football team will play their next home game (Homecoming) on Friday, Oct. 22 against Walter Johnson at 6:30 p.m.