The La Jolla Country Day (LJCD) Torreys (ranked No. 3 in Division V) defeated the Foothills Christian Knights, 56-0, in a Pacific League football game at Country Day last Friday, Oct. 6.
“Obviously, we won by a big margin,” LJCD coach Jeff Hutzler said. “More importantly, we’ve played a lot better since our 6-3 loss at Army-Navy on September 22. We’ve been able to come back and put out a good team effort.
“Foothills Christian and Midway Baptist (which was also beaten 56-0 by the Torreys on Sept. 29) are teams that aren’t quite as strong as Army-Navy. The opponent is not the issue, though. It’s how we’re playing. We’re improving each week.”
One player who’ll be downright scary if he improves any more is Country Day’s Collin Tuck. The senior fullback-middle linebacker, and son of KUSI-TV news anchor Michael Tuck, staked the Torreys to an early 7-0 first quarter lead when he took one in from 19 yards out.
“Collin is the mainstay of our team,” Hutzler said. “The I-offense and ’53’ defense that we’re running are both designed around him. So, he’s important. He plays hard and is a load to bring down.”
The Knights were certainly facing a heavy workload. Not only were they trying to slow Tuck down, but they also had to try to stop the Country Day connection of senior quarterback Matt Mulligan (7-of-12, 224 yards, four TDs) and senior tight end Mark Schu.
Mulligan and Schu hooked up twice on touchdown passes from 35 and 5 yards out, respectively. That extended the LJCD advantage to 21-0 at the end of the first quarter.
“Matt keeps getting better every week,” Hutzler said. “He’s a smart guy. He’s improved a ton this year.”
Foothills Christian must have felt like they had a 10,000-ton gorilla to get off their backs after Mulligan continued his air assault with a 37-yard touchdown strike to senior running back Alex Maire. Then, a short time later, Tuck (seven carries, 54 yards) took it in from 1 yard out to give Country Day a comfortable 35-0 cushion heading into the locker room at halftime.
“We don’t have a Lance Rutledge like we had last year,” Hutzler said. “We don’t have any one guy with a bunch of yards. We don’t have any one guy making all of the tackles. It really is a team effort this year.”
In the second half, it was more of the same for the Torreys. Senior Zach Kusnir caught a 61-yard touchdown pass from Mulligan and senior Jaimie Coleman (eight carries, 109 yards) scored on runs of 5 and 14 yards as LJCD pulled away for the victory.
Freshman quarterback Garret Campbell finished with a team-high 65 yards rushing on 10 carries for the Knights, while senior running back Brandon Johnston added 33 yards on 16 carries. Country Day junior kicker Travis Golia was good on all eight of his extra point attempts.
With the win, the Torreys improve their record to 4-1 overall and 2-0 in the Pacific League. With the loss, the Knights fall to 0-5 overall and 0-3 in Pacific League play.