by Brooklyn – The wheels were turning for the Brookside Cardinals from the first whistle as they went into Brooklyn and shut out the Hurricanes 26-0. Leading the way for the Cardinals was their senior Quarterback Nick Arra who threw for 263 yards and 2 touchdowns while running for another 47 yards on the ground.
The first drive for the Cardinals ended in a goal line touchdown when Nick Arra scrambled to his left and was able to find Dominic Lundberg on the left side of the end zone to open the scoring up with 6:30 left in the 1st quarter.
The rest of the first half seemed to be more of a defensive outbreak for both teams. Brooklyn struggled to get anything going on the first drive and were hit with 2 costly penalties that would back them up early and force a punt. The Cardinals looked to be getting into striking distance again when on a crucial 3rd down, the Hurricanes came up with a sack for a huge loss by John Treska.
The Hurricanes would struggle to get much going on the next drive and would boot the ball away again.
Brookside would then lead a promising drive early in the 2nd quarter, leading to a 32-yard field goal attempt knocked in by Noah Adkins.
Brookside’s own Nick Arra would continue his success on the ground with a 19-yard run on 4th and 2 which looked to set up the Cardinals for points but would again be stalled when a failed 4th down conversion attempt forced by an intentional grounding would turn the ball back over to the Hurricanes offense.
The stifling Brookside defense shut down the Brooklyn offense and would go on another drive of their own before halftime, hitting big chunk plays for 20 yards to Lundberg and 33 yards to Casey with under a minute to play before the break. With under 10 seconds in the half, Arra threw up a 50/50 ball to Domenic Rodriquez that hung up in the air a little too long and was intercepted by the Hurricanes and Kevin Nguyen.
The game would go into the break 10-0.
Coming out of the locker room for the second half, the Cardinals defense continued to dominate and didn’t allow for the Hurricanes offense to get any sort of rhythm going as the Hurricanes were backed up on their first second half drive inside the 10-yard line. Mason Vega dropped back trying to find someone to throw to but ran out of time and was hit in the end zone in what would end up being a safety.
Brookside would gain possession after and waste no time to score a quick long touchdown of 56 yards to Dominic Lundberg and extend the lead to 19-0.
Later on in the 3rd quarter, it looked like Brooklyn got a defensive stop until Brookside faked the punt inside their own 20 and ended up with a new set of downs and a couple more chunk plays later on in the drive that would end up leading to a 5-yard touchdown scamper by Alex Arra to put the Cardinals up 26-0.
Much of the fourth quarter was running out the clock by both teams, but Brooklyn did manage to get a 33-yard run on a trick play to Aiden Starr that would put them in enemy territory.
The clock would hit zero soon after for the end of the night as the Cardinals would go home victorious and move their record to 1-0, looking to continue their winning streak in week 2.
Players of the game:
Brookside QB Nick Arra- 15/20 263 yds, 2 TD’s and 47 yds on 10 carries
Brookside WR Dominic Lundberg- 5 Rec, 134 yds, 2 TD’s
Brooklyn CB Kevin Nyugen- INT
