Bleacher Bits: Offensive explosion leaves heads shaking

It's been said of many team sports that it's defense that wins ballgames, but offense that fills the seats.

If that's truly the case, then the stands at one high school football field were probably not only overflowing, but rental bleachers were most likely needed to handle the overflow.

Fans in Colusa County were treated to a 55-41 RedHawks win over University Prep on Sept. 14, but even that can't hold a candle to the epic offensive onslaught witnessed Sept 14. in Kent, Wash.

The final score — amassed during just four quarters — was Kentlake 76, Puyallup 55.

There was no word as of Thursday if either school's defensive coaches were seeking coaching gigs at other institutions.

According to the story on the Prep Rally blog on Yahoo! Sports, the two teams combined for 1,607 yards of offense, with Puyallup quarterback Brendan Illies credited with 572 yards on his own (25 of 46 passing, for 396 yards; 18 carries for 176) on MaxPreps.

He threw for five touchdowns, but was also intercepted six times.

In a bit of an understatement, Kentlake coach Chris Paulson said of the performance, "You feel like you're unstoppable offensively. But the same 11 kids defensively could not stop anybody either."

While there is no official record for most combined yardage in a single game, I'd like to hear of any one that tops this.

The Falcons from Kentlake landed only after generating 916 yards of offense.

On the losing side of the field, the Puyallup Vikings must have had a sinking feeling upon realizing that not even their 55 points or 691 yards of offense was good enough to win it.

After the first quarter alone, Kentlake held a 35-14 lead.

Being a sports reporter, naturally I chuckle when I think of the poor reporter who most likely went through a couple of notebooks trying to document the game, and who probably had smoke pouring out of his computer as he attempted to write it up.

Better yet, I feel for the plight of his editor who was not at the game but had to edit the story. The guy had to have been thinking back to whether he had ever upset this reporter badly enough that the reporter would go to the length of submitting a phony write-up just to get even with him.

Kirk, Emily — don't get any ideas!

CONTACT Craig Purcell at 824-1036 or cpurcell@tcnpress.com.