Halloween came early for Maricopa High School as its offense seemed to be cursed all night. Flags and incomplete passes haunted the Rams on All Hallow's Eve in many of their plays.

Notre Dame Prep put together a dominant 47-0 shutout against Maricopa Rams on Friday, October 30, at home.

It was the end of Homecoming Week at Notre Dame Prep, which meant a bulk of the crowd were the students in the Homecoming Court. These particular students were the ones that started the mask-muffled chants and got the crowd of predominantly parents riled up.

Notre Dame Prep kicked off to start the contest and the Rams got off to a shaky start. On the first play of the game the Rams had a false start that put them back five yards before even beginning a play. The Rams had a chance to score on the very first drive, but the Saints got a sack and held the offense to the line of scrimmage. Saints head coach George Prelock said that getting the Rams down without a score early on helped them keep their game plan and to stay calm. 

The first quarter featured the first three of the Rams' many flags that they would collect during the game--a key reason for their scoreless first quarter. The Saints appeared to have their first touchdown of the game in their opening drive, which sent the home fans into a frenzy. However, a flag for offensive holding took the six points off the board and silenced the crowd. This was the only real opportunity either side had to get points on the board before getting into the second quarter.

The second quarter was what got the Saints into gear. They put on an offensive clinic by scoring three touchdowns. Two of these touchdowns came on pinpoint throws from Saints quarterback Tyler Schweigert to one of his most dependable receivers, Harrison Wood. Schweigert later said that  Wood is one of his leading receivers right now and he "trust(s) him (Wood) to catch it completely." That trust paid off many times last night as almost all of the times Schweigert opted to pass in the first half it was to Wood. 

Schweigert missed last week's game with a hand injury but it clearly did not slow him down this week. Three of the touchdowns the Saints collected were on passes from Schweigert. Schweigert said that adrenaline takes over, which allowed him to trust his throws a lot more.

The Saints entered the half with a dominant 20-0 lead, but coach Prelock made sure that didn't get into the heads of the home team. In his words, they have had a few games this season where they had leads entering halftime and then "fell flat" afterwards. He let the boys know that they needed to play four quarters fully and to make sure to finish it.

And finish it they did. Other than an injury to Harrison Wood that held him out the third quarter, the Saints were somehow even more dominant in the last two quarters of the game. They racked up 27 points in the second half on the backs of sloppy defense from the Rams. The Saints got two touchdowns in the second half on returned punts that the Rams defense simply couldn't handle. Add that to the eleven flags, more than 14 incomplete passes- eight of which came in the fourth quarter--and the one Saints interception that eventually led to a touchdown, and you have one long post-game chat from the coach and likely many laps ran at the next practice.

All of those flags added up for the Rams and cost them multiple opportunities to get ahead, as well as pushing them further back into their own endzone. The Rams highest "to go" number was 32 yards until first down, which occured two separate times during the game. Being so close to their own endzone allowed the Saints to practically walk into a touchdown many times. 

The Saints hope to ride this momentum next week as they will take on the Gilbert Tigers on Senior Day.