Bluejays get big second half to flatten Swedes
Ishida, Butler lead No. 12 Tabor to 38-7 blowout of Bethany
By RYAN RICHTER
Sports writer
Heading into arguably the biggest showdown in recent KCAC football history, the Bluejays had a trap waiting for them on a dreary Saturday in Hillsboro.
The last time Tabor met the visiting Bethany Swedes on the gridiron, the Swedes handed the Bluejays their sole conference loss of a year ago in double overtime.
For much of the first half, it looked like the Swedes might give the Bluejays a battle.
But Tabor (5-0, 4-0 KCAC) came to life the second half thanks to big plays from Ricky Ishida, Roger Butler, and a smothering defense, to trounce the Swedes, 38-7.
The last time the Bluejays had a player rush for 200 yards in a game, the late Ronald Reagan was in the White House in 1985.
Butler changed that Saturday, pounding out a game-high 203 yards on 27 carries with Ishida picking up three touchdowns while throwing one more.
Tabor's defense shut down the Swedes' running game, holding them to 38 yards and 218 yards of total offense.
The Bluejays jumped out of the gate in a hurry, driving 66 yards in 4:08 with Ishida hitting a wide-open Jeff MacKinnon for a 20-yard touchdown.
Butler's touchdown came on Tabor's next drive, leaping over the Swedes' front wall to put the Bluejays in front 14-0 with 50 seconds left in the first quarter.
A few pass interference calls and a pair of turnovers changed the complexion of the first half.
Bethany used a Tabor fumble to get back in the game 4:00 into the second quarter with Steve Baker finding Brandon Krinhop for a 16-yard score.
By halftime, the Swedes' were hanging around, trailing 14-7.
"The only thing I can say is Bethany stepped it up on defense," Bluejay coach Mike Gardner said of the first half. "Offensively, we were hurt by penalties, we had those four or five pass interference calls in the first half, and anytime you have PIs, they're going to come back to hurt you."
Tabor's defense stepped it up the second half, though.
With the help of Mike Skvor booming kicks deep into the Swedes' territory, Bethany had a hard enough time making it past midfield let alone finding the end zone.
That explained Bethany picking up one first down and never picking up more than 15 yards on its eight second half drives.
To make matters worse for the winded Swede defense, Tabor had a short field to work with most of the final 30:00 of the game.
That came from five returns for 111 yards by the always dangerous Caleb Marsh.
Completing 22 passes of 33 attempts for 233 yards, Ishida fired a 38-yard bullet to Layne Frick to move the ball into Swede territory.
After two runs by Butler, Ishida zipped around the left side for a 16-yard run to turn the tide back in Tabor's favor, up 21-7.
The Bluejay quarterback struck again with a five-yard touchdown before putting the finishing touches on his day with a one-yard dive up the middle with 11:11 left in the game.
On the PAT attempt, Ishida fired the ball to TJ Jackson for the two-point conversion to make it a 35-7 game.
Skvor added the icing on the cake with just under 7:00 to go, connecting on a 32-yard field goal.
"The first half wasn't all that good but Coach just told us we had to come together the second half and play together as a team and the o-line stepped it up, got our running back some yards," said Bluejay lineman James Pizano.
Pizano and the unsung Bluejay line helped blast open holes so the backfield could put up 266 yards on the ground.
"We started doing the hurry-up offense and they were getting real tired," Butler said of tiring out the Swedes. "It was difficult for them to line up, we were snapping the ball and they weren't even lined up so we were catching them off guard. That helped us out tremendously."
Despite surrendering 180 yards passing to the Swedes, Gardner was hardly concerned.
"We just didn't get pressure, and if you don't get pressure on a college quarterback, college quarterbacks will complete passes," he said. "It doesn't matter, if you can't get pressure on him, get in his face and force bad balls, anybody will pick you apart. We've got to do a better job of getting pressure."
The Bluejays travel Saturday for perhaps their toughest test of the regular season at No. 20 Sterling in a 1:30 p.m. kickoff.
