On a very wet, Black Friday the Sheldon Irish remained undefeated by knocking off the Southridge Skyhawks 62-27 in the quarter finals of the OSAA state playoffs.

Sheldon started their opening drive going in the wrong direction getting called for holding and two false starts. The penalties didn’t seem to faze the Irish and on the next two consecutive possessions senior quarterback Taylor Alie completed touchdown passes of 11-yards to Mike Ralston and a 35-yards to Mitchell Herbert and later ran in a 15-yard touchdown to make the score 20-0 at the end of the first quarter.

For the game Alie completed 25 of 31 passes for 350 yards and five touchdowns and carried the ball 12 times for 112 yards and a touchdown.

Southridge came out strong in the second quarter and scored three times on touchdown runs by quarterback Resa Aleaziz and running back Jacob Pruit and on a 34-yard touchdown pass from Aleaziz to wide receiver Kevin McClean.

The Skyhawks’ defense could not stop Sheldon and the Irish responded with 21 points of their own and took a halftime lead of 41-21.

Sheldon wide receiver Connor Strahm who had the only score in the third quarter, a 9-yard pass from Alie, was sensational on the night catching 13 passes for 156 yards and three touchdowns.

With the Irish up 55-21 in the fourth quarter Pruitt took a handoff and busted out a 45-yard touchdown run but on the very next Sheldon possession wide receiver Dylan Lewis took the kickoff back 90-yards for the touchdown and made the final score 62-27.

Junior running back Devin Martinez was the one bright spot for the Skyhawks carrying the ball 17 times for 185 yards.

Tonight’s game was a rematch of the opening night game between both teams which the Irish won 35-28 at Sheldon High School.

The Skyhawks’, who won their first Metro League Title this year, had their seven game winning streak snapped and end the season with an 8-4 record.

The Irish will face Jesuit next weekend in the state semi-finals at Jeld Wen Field and a Sheldon win and a win by Lake Oswego over Tigard would set up a state final rematch of last year which the Lakers won 47-14.

his evenings coverage made possible by the support of Oregon Paintball.

Story by PAUL WAGNER
Photos by NICK JONES
For NWPreps.Net