“It’s hard when you’re trying to get something going and you’ve got to play the kingpin of the GMC,” HHS coach Chad Murphy said. “With 16 years like they’ve had, this is what you get. All the props to them. They’re very, very good.”
The Cardinals ripped off 337 yards on the ground and stormed to a 42-0 halftime lead, prompting a running clock the rest of the way on Senior Night.
Colerain, 8-1 overall and 6-0 in the GMC, will be a heavy favorite to capture the outright GMC championship next Friday at Oak Hills.
“I think it’s pretty cool. It never does (get old),” Cardinals coach Tom Bolden said. “I was teasing the kids. I said, ‘Some of you were still in diapers when all this was happening.’ The trophy’s in the front, and it’s collecting dust. Our kids just know it’s an expectation that we have. We’re going to be who we are, and being the GMC champions, that’s who we are.
“The kids work hard. They deserve it, and we coach ’em hard. We don’t hide from any of that stuff. We had a hundred and whatever workouts in the offseason. I said, ‘It all pays off.’ ”
It’s the ninth conference crown in the Bolden era. The first seven titles in this streak were won by Kerry Coombs’ teams.
“I might call and tease Kerry,” Bolden said. “I’ve got one thing over (him).”
Colerain had little trouble dispatching Big Blue in front of a statewide Time Warner Cable audience. The Cardinals had seven possessions in the first half, scoring on the first six and running one play to finish out the clock on the seventh.
Hamilton (4-5, 3-3) was down 7-0 when it got the ball for the first time. The visitors collected four first downs on a 15-play drive that reached the CHS 22, but turned the ball over on downs.
“It took something out of us,” Murphy said. “It does on a normal night, let alone on a night like this when a team can offensively do what they do once they get it back in their hands. It’s just draining, especially when you allow it to happen.”
“They took it down on us,” Bolden admitted. “We bowed our neck back a little bit and made some adjustments. We changed a little bit here and there, and I think a lot of it was a little bit of an attitude adjustment too. Sometimes you’ve just got to help motivate them a little bit.”
Quarterback Deshaunte Jones was a force for the Cardinals. He ran nine times for 139 yards and two touchdowns while throwing for 112 yards with a 6-of-9 effort that included a scoring connection with Zach Johnson.
Monalo Caldwell (nine carries, 64 yards) also rushed for a pair of touchdowns. Johnson ran twice for 56 yards and a TD.
“No disrespect to Hamilton and Oak Hills next week, but it’s not only about this game and this week,” Bolden said. “We want to make memories and be ready to play come playoff time. As long as we can play fast and take care of the football offensively, I think we’re pretty good.”
Colerain wasn’t perfect in the first half. Big Blue’s Alberto Zapata recovered a fumbled punt in Cardinal territory, and a pass interference call helped HHS reach the 17-yard line. But Kevin Hyde picked off Hamilton quarterback Steve Cunningham at the 1, and the hosts responded with a four-play, 99-yard scoring surge.
Big Blue drove 66 yards to the Colerain 14 right before the half, only to watch Cunningham get intercepted again by Amir Riep in the end zone.
“It felt good,” said Riep, a junior cornerback. “The half was about to be over, they wanted to get a score, and I knew the deep ball was coming. I was there to get it.”
Riep added a second-half interception for a Cardinal defense that limited Hamilton, which began Thursday as the GMC leader in yards per game (410.1), to 220 total yards. Colerain had six sacks, getting two from Kawantay Stanley.
“That’s what we expect,” Riep said. “The defense has to execute and keep that tempo up, and hopefully the offense will feed off of it.”
Cunningham was 14 of 25 for 139 yards, and A’Shon Riggins caught five passes for 92 yards. Riggins did not play in the second half.
“He had like a cramp,” Murphy said. “There just wasn’t any sense in putting him back in. I hate to say it that way, but the last thing you want to do when you’re getting your butt whipped like that is have an injury.”
Hamilton did lose strong safety Marviel Matthews to a knee injury in the first half. Murphy said he was unsure of his status moving forward.
Big Blue avoided the shutout when Eric Jackson scored on a 3-yard run with 7:12 remaining. Vince Sanford ran for the conversion.
“I guess it felt good for a moment,” said Jackson, who gained 64 yards on five carries and had four total tackles. “I just kept playing as hard as I could no matter who was in.”
Jackson said he wasn’t intimidated by the Cardinals “and I hope our team wasn’t intimidated either. I felt like we could’ve stopped them more. We didn’t make enough plays.”
The message at halftime was clear: Don’t give up and show some pride. Did HHS accomplish those goals?
“I feel like we showed more pride defensively than offensively,” Jackson said.
Murphy could see his players’ heads dropping in the second quarter. Colerain put up 28 points in a span of less than nine minutes during that stanza.
“When it started getting bad, that’s tough. There’s nothing easy about it,” Murphy said. “We’re going to win together, and we’re going to lose together. We’ve just got to stay together and not finger point and focus on Week 10.”
Hamilton will close the season at home against Fairfield next Friday.
“I think we’ll bounce back,” Jackson said. “I feel like our team is going to have a great week of practice and show it Friday night against Fairfield.”
Hamilton 0-0-0-8—8
Colerain 14-28-0-0—42
C: Deshaunte Jones 21 run (Christian Dinevski kick)
C: Monalo Caldwell 7 run (Dinevski kick)
C: Caldwell 24 run (Dinevski kick)
C: Zach Johnson 35 run (Dinevski kick)
C: Johnson 6 pass from Jones (Dinevski kick)
C: Jones 49 run (Dinevski kick)
H: Eric Jackson 3 run (Vince Sanford run)
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