EAGLES ‘PUNCH IT IN’ VS. LANDON

McDonogh receiver Gerrard Sheppard caught two touchdown passes, and teammate Andrew Hood rushed for two more in Saturday’s 35-6 rout.

by Lem Satterfield

The past two weeks have been troubling for McDonogh, a team that had high hopes coming off of last year’s season, when they shared the MIAA A Conference title with Gilman and Loyola.

With a talented offensive line, anchored by Notre Dame-bound Lane Clelland, the Eagles have had no problem moving the ball up and down the field.

Coach Dom Damico estimates that “about 28 points” were lost due to his Eagles failure to penetrate the goal line against William Penn, a game that had been scoreless until McDonogh yielded a fourth-quarter field goal in a previously scoreless contest.

Last week, when problems in the red zone surfaced, yet again, the Eagles were plagued by problems in the red zone.

But on Saturday against Landon of Bethesda, the Eagles were able to “punch it in” a number of times, said Clelland, whose team routed the visiting Bears (1-3) by 35-6 to improve to 2-2 on the year.

Andrew Hood scored a couple of touchdown runs, Bryan Ellis rushed for another, and receiver
Gerrard Sheppard caught his third and fourth scoring passes of the year from Rudy Johnson to help the Eagles tune up for next week’s clash with MIAA A Conference rival Loyola (5-0), a team that defeated the Eagles, 34-28, in overtime last season.

“Today, we were able to punch it in just about every time,” said Clelland, whose line mates were Doug Schenk, Tyler Goldberg, Sam Greenberg and Eric Oros.

Sheppard caught scoring passes of 35 and 50 yards from sophomore quarterback Rudy Johnson.

“It feels good. We needed this coming off of the last two games,” said Sheppard, a first-year high
school player. “This time in the red zone, we kept our composure and focused on what we needed
to get done.”

Defensively, Gabe Macis, Brian Hess and Matt Hart all had interceptions for the Eagles.