Don’t tell David Sua that he didn’t do anything in Port Townsend’s 49-0 win over Port Angeles.
“Hey, I had a 20-something-yard run,” he said after Friday’s game. “I did something.”
Sua did gain 34 yards on three runs, including a 25-yarder, while also completing 4 of 9 passes for 60 yards.
It was the senior’s first game as the starting quarterback after switching from fullback and leading the Redhawks in rushing last season and being named Olympic League 1A Offensive MVP.
“He didn’t need to [do a lot], and he was actually kind of bummed out,’’ running back Wesley Wheeler said.
“I told him [during the game], ‘Man, I’ve only gotten the ball three times.’ He goes, ‘You got like 60 yards on those plays. I’ve only gotten the ball once for like 4 yards.’”
When just about every handoff is gaining chunks of yards, the quarterback becomes merely the middle man between the center and the ball carrier.
Wheeler ran for 147 yards, Detrius Kelsall picked up 61 yards and scored touchdowns on three of his five carries (to go along with an interception he returned for a score), Ezra Easley gained 66 yards on the ground and Kyle Blankenship ran for 41 yards.
In all, Port Townsend racked up 365 yards on 38 runs, an average of 9.6 yards per carry.
Those numbers highlight, obviously, the talent in Port Townsend’s backfield.
But here is the key to the offense’s big day: those runners had some big holes to run through, thanks to the offensive line. And then the blocking by receivers, such as Carson Marx and Jacob Ralls, and the other running backs turned big plays into bigger plays.
While Sua was talking to a reporter after Friday’s game, offensive lineman Lucas Foster made sure Sua remembered how big the holes were.
“You could drive my truck through it,” Foster said.
And all that blocking helped Sua’s tenure as QB1 get off to an easy start.
“Yes, because I have wonderful teammates,” he said. “They work hard all the time, and they’re always trucking people, blocking hard for each other.”
With the offense running on all cylinders this early in the season and a defense that held Port Angeles to one first down in the game, the Redhawks are again a contender, and probably the favorite, to claim their second consecutive Olympic League 1A crown.
Here are two other things learned last week in North Olympic Peninsula high school football:
■ Sequim can chuck it.
Sequim’s biggest question mark coming into the season was how to replace graduated quarterback Miguel Moroles, last year’s All-Peninsula Offensive MVP.
The Wolves can breathe a little easier after some solid play by two quarterbacks in Friday’s 43-6 win against Chimacum.
Senior quarterback Nick Faunce showed off an impressive deep ball on a couple of occasions.
On the game’s opening possession, he rolled out to his right and found a diving Ethan Richmond for a 39-yard gain on third-and-9, putting Sequim in the red zone and setting up a touchdown.
Later, Faunce sent another well-thrown ball deep over the middle to a wide-open Richmond, but the ball bounced off Richmond’s chest at the goal line. If caught, the play would have been a touchdown.
“That’s one of those things that’s definitely a strength for him,” Sequim coach Erik Wiker said. “He has a lot of things that he can bring, but his arm and touch is definitely one of them.
“And that stretches the field. That means the next team we play says, ‘Hey we have to make sure we get deep.’ So that stretches the running game, which is nice.”
Faunce and Riley Cowan are splitting duties under center so far this season.
Cowan also was impressive, completing three straight passes on one drive and showing good touch on an accurate 23-yard touchdown pass to fellow freshman Kyler Rollness.
“Both of our quarterbacks have pretty strong arms,” Wiker said.
The deep ball gives Sequim another weapon to stretch opposing defenses.
“We have jet sweeps with [Gavin] Velarde, we have some power running behind some linemen, and if we take it vertical down field a few times and they are sketchy about that, we’re going wide, we’re going in the middle and we’re going deep, and it makes it tough to play defense against,” Wiker said.
“Last year we could spread teams sideways and up the middle but not too deep, so it made it a little tougher because teams could compact their formations.
“[The deep pass] changes it and makes teams have to defend more of the whole field.”
■ Neah Bay is still good.
If this is how Neah Bay plays with more players on the field and a limited playbook, watch out 8-man football.
The two-time defending Class 1B champions beat Northwest Christian of Colbert 44-36 on Saturday.
Usually, teams will spend a lot of time in the offseason preparing for their Week 1 opponent.
But Neah Bay couldn’t do that with the Crusaders for a couple reasons.
First, the Red Devils play 8-man football, so preparing for weeks for their only 11-man game doesn’t make much sense.
Second, their second game is against Lummi (this Friday in Bellingham).
It might not be a league game (that happens Oct. 16), but beating the Blackhawks is always important for Neah Bay, and also facing them is an important measuring stick.
So the Red Devils need to make sure they are prepared for Lummi.
But that meant their playbook Saturday was limited.
“It was real, real basic,” head coach Tony McCaulley said. “And playing a team as good as [Northwest Christian], I think that it hurt us a little bit.”
Despite that, Neah Bay managed to rack up 444 yards of total offense, including 312 on the ground. Junior Cole Svec gained 264 of those rushing yards.
So it’s hard not to wonder what the Red Devils will be able to do in the wide-open spaces of 8-man football.
By the way, since claiming its first-ever state championship in 2011 with a 36-28 win over Almira-Coulee-Hartline, Neah Bay has been in only two closer games than what Northwest Christian provided: a 34-28 loss to Liberty Christian in the 2012 championship game and the 26-20 win over Lummi in last year’s state semifinals.
Neah Bay’s winning streak is now at 27 games, dating back to the loss to Liberty Christian.
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“Three things learned in high school football last week” appears each week during the football season in the PDN.
Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-452-2345, ext. 5250 or at mcarman@peninsualdailynews.com.