Cardinals' Joe Dickinson tossed 4 more TD passes Saturday in Ireton's win over Potomac School. Dickinson is among top 4 quarterbacks in Washington Post rankings.
Bishop Ireton’s Cardinals secured a state Division I playoff berth with a convincing 45-7 win on senior day at Fannon Field. The Redbirds have final regular season meeting with St. John Paul the Great Saturday in Dumfries, one final opportunity to improve their playoff resume before the final seedings are set.
For sixteen seniors, however, the business at hand was a final regular season appearance on Fannon Field on a picture perfect day for football. The Potomac Panthers arrived in Alexandria riding a 3-game win streak, including a two touchdown victory over Flint Hill School. The Ireton defense, however, wasted little time establishing themselves as an immovable object for the Panther offense. That defense shut out the Panthers, with Potomac earning only a special teams score in the second stanza.
After an interception stalled Ireton’s first drive, the Cardinals used a six-play drive to go 70-yards, capped by a 21-yard Joe Dickinson toss to Drew Smith. David Cooper’s PAT made it 7-0 with 5:53 left in the first period.
The home team would strike again early in the second period with Andrew Latrash under center. The workhorse senior powered his way straight ahead two yards for the Cardinals’ second touchdown at 10:20 left in the first half, a little more than six minutes later, a Latrash toss to Drew Smith, good for 40 yards, would up the margin to 21-0 with just over 4 minutes to play in the opening half.
The second quarter closed with a wild sequence of events. After junior Ryan Verducci broke a tackle enroute to an 11-yard touchdown, the Panthers returned the ensuing kickoff 70 yards for touchdown to close to 28-7. with 1:21 remaining in the half. When the ball was stripped following a pass completion, Potomac School was back on offense at their own 45 yard line with 48 seconds left in the half.
The Panthers pulled a trick play out of their playbook and connected on a 35-yard pass down to the Ireton 10 yard line with :08.7 remaining. After some discussion among the officials regarding the legality of the play, a penalty call was reversed and Potomac was set up with a first and goal situation. Two pass plays were broken up and the Cardinals survived to head to the locker room at 28-7.
Dickinson connected with Drew Smith two more times in the game’s third quarter to set the clock in continuous motion at 42-7. David Cooper added a 36-yard field goal with under six minutes left in the contest and the Cardinals closed their regular season home schedule with a 45-7 victory.
Bishop Ireton (7-2) captured a share of one of four playoff berths with the win. The Cardinals close the campaign next Saturday with the Wolves, kickoff is 1pm. A win and Benedictine loss could vault Ireton into the top stop while a loss could drop them as far as to the 4th seed.
Box Score 1 2 3 4 Final
Potomac School 0 7 0 0 7
Bishop Ireton 7 21 14 3 45
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