Knights use balanced offense, suffocating defense to beat Tigers, 26-6
Trinity Classical Academy football’s defense was everywhere in Saturday’s win over Bosco Tech, racking up 11 tackles for loss as the Knights (2-0) remained undefeated with a 26-6 victory over the Tigers (1-1) on Saturday at College of the Canyons’ Cougar Stadium.
Five of those tackles in the backfield came from sophomore John Ryan, while freshman Andrew Carlson had three. Junior John Carlson picked up the lone sack for Trinity.
“I think we caught Bosco on a good week,” Trinity head coach Mike Parrinello said in a phone interview with The Signal, referring to a couple of injuries that the Tigers were dealing with. “But, we kind of had a game plan for them. We knew what they were really good at and they’re really good at running the football. We just said if we could stop the run, it’ll be harder for them to keep up with us.”
The Carlson brothers are a force as a linebacker duo, with Andrew picking up after his older brother at a young age. The freshman has shined in the Knights’ first two games and looks like a future defensive stalwart, if not already one. Even with just a week between games, Parrinello saw much improvement from him.
“It’s a nice brother duo in our linebacker corps,” Parrinello said. “[Andrew] knew what to expect. He knew he could compete with them and he went out and just had a great day. We kind of called a scheme that we knew would loosen him up a little bit and get him into the backfield, and he didn’t disappoint.”
The Knights went up quickly with a 14-0 advantage after the first quarter before taking a 20-0 lead into the half. They picked up another six points in the fourth before allowing a late touchdown to Bosco senior running back Andrew Shahin, who Parrinello was impressed with despite his team not giving up much.
“We really didn’t stop him,” Parrinello said. “We kind of wore him down. We kind of wore the team down more than him and held him just enough to slow them down enough … It’s just hard. You’re not gonna stop a runner as good as he is all day long.”
Trinity has now allowed just 14 points through two games.
As great as the defense was on Saturday, Trinity’s offense seemed to be firing on all cylinders as well. Junior quarterback Noah Visconti threw for 213 yards and two touchdowns while completing 15 of 28 passes. One of those touchdowns went to John Carlson and the other to junior Luke Backes.
Carlson had four catches for 61 yards while adding a touchdown on the ground. Backes showed Parrinello that his athleticism on the baseball field does translate to production on the football field, corralling three catches for 55 yards. Junior Andrew Kelley added three catches for 48 yards.
“We saw John Carlson a lot in the first game, and we know what John’s capable of, but we’ve got a lot of talented players,” Parrinello said. “We’ve got a few guys that could put up those kind of numbers if they get the touches, and you know, we don’t want to be predictable and we want people to know that.”
Trinity has a bye week before its first road game of the season on Friday, Sept. 8, at Arleta, with kickoff set for 3:30 p.m.
