ND’s Williams twins run all over Hamilton
HAMILTON » It’s tough to get a read on that Notre Dame High football team so far.
Coming off an opening-day blowout loss to Burlington Twp., the Irish did a complete 180 and trounced Hamilton West, 42-14, at Steinert Saturday to give the Hornets their first loss. Hamilton (21) was considered the home team as its new bleachers are still being installed.
And while it was a bad day for the Hornets team, it was an outstanding day for two players from the Hamilton West school district as sophomores Coleon and Cortaz Williams ran wild for the Irish. The twin brothers live right behind Hamilton High School and treated their buddies rudely as Cartaz ran for 121 yards and three touchdowns and Coleon rushed for 105 yards and a TD.
Cortaz was coming off 200-plus rushing game against the Blue Devils and enjoyed some success running the ball as a freshman. Coleon started as a defensive back last year.
“Those kids work incredibly hard,” Irish coach Marc Lordi said. “The amount of times they come in early in the day to ask questions, they’re always listening to coaching. I’m really proud of them, and all the other guys because we really have a lot of high quality kids on our team that want to learn and want to play better.”
The Irish played a hundred times better than in their opener, outgaining Hamilton 286-219 and outrushing the Hornets 256-110 as the Irish’s line was outstanding. Notre Dame took a 28-0 lead by scoring three touchdowns within seven minutes at the end of the first half, and was then stunned when Hamilton used just two plays to go 53 yards and make it 28-7 with 14 seconds left in the half.
It appeared that might be the momentum changer the Hornets needed.
“We just told them to stay focused,” Lordi said. “That’s all it was. The touchdown was easy for them to get us off our game. We said if we let them get us off our game then they won the end of the first half. We just told our guys to stay in it, listen to the plan, keep doing what they’re coached to do and they’ll be fine.”
That’s exactly what they did. On the second play of the third quarter Coleon Williams scored on a 51-yard run and ND would never look back.
“That felt great,” Williams said. “It felt great to get momentum back and it kind of killed their drive and got us this win.”
Hamilton moved the ball well on the game’s first series but turned the ball over on downs. Notre Dame responded with a 66yard drive capped by Cortaz Williams’ TD run and the Irish defense played well for the remainder. Tom Burns, a big part of that defense, kicked the first of his six extra-points.
Midway through the second quarter, West assisted on the next three Irish TDs. A personal foul penalty out of bounds on third down kept an ND drive alive that resulted in a Rob Buecker’s TD pass to Michael Whalen Connolly. A bad snap on a punt and a fumble deep in Hamilton territory set up two more Cortaz Williams TD runs.
Despite Hamilton’s late-half touchdown, the landslide was on.
“We just tried to show everybody we were good,” Cortaz Williams said. “Everybody doubted us, but we had the confidence we could win.”
“Last week we really felt we had a good game plan and we didn’t execute the way we wanted to,” Lordi said. “For the first time in a while our guys came out and executed everything we asked them to do and I’m really proud of them.”
Notre Dame (1-1) Hamilton (2-1) First Quarter ND— Second Quarter ND— ND— ND— HW—
kick) Cor. Williams 5 run (Burns kick)
Connolly 33 pass from Buecker (Burns kick) Cor. Williams 4 run (Burns kick)
Cor. Williams 2 run (Burns kick) Charles 9 pass from Patterson (Cooper
Third Quarter ND— ND— Fourth Quarter HW— 7 0 21 7 14 0 0 — 7 —
Col. Williams 51 run (Burns kick) Buecker 1 run (Burns kick)
Boswell 1 run (Pazdan kick)
42 14