Hun School slams Hill School, 44-6

PRINCETON, N.J. >> The Hun School Raiders don’t believe in taking their foot off the accelerator.

Couple that philosophy with Hill School’s figurative failure to get their own engine started Saturday afternoon, and it was a collective crash-and-burn for the visiting Rams.

Coach Dave Rackovan’s Rams — who entered the game winless but with the confidence that they had competed very well in those four games and been in the thick of three of them until the end — were never really in this one. By halftime, they were well out of it (36-0) and by the end they were looking at a 44-6 shellacking in the Raiders’ homecoming.

While again the Rams faced an opponent with more size and speed, it was the first time this season they got walloped basically start-to-finish.

In falling to Germantown Academy (30-15), Episcopal Academy (23-18), Springside Chestnut Hill (23-20) and Peddie School (42-23), the Rams were in all but the Peddie School game late in the fourth quarter. Were the undefeated Raiders (5-0, 2-0 Mid-Atlantic Prep League) that much better than those four? Rackovan wasn’t sure. What he was certain of was that his team was not ready.

“The bottom line is we weren’t ready to play, and that’s my fault,” Rackovan said. “That’s a real good football team. We played a real good football team last week (Peddie School), and we thought we had a good plan. We weren’t ready this week to play a good football team.

“Peddie was good, and (Hun School) they’re good, they’re similar. They’re both big and fast, and they have skill that we can’t match up with. We’ve got to be ready to play a game like that. We didn’t play with any emotion. We played with emotion last week; we didn’t this week. It was disappointing the way we played, and I look at myself; I’ve got to get the team ready.”

Now 0-5 overall and 0-2 in the MAPL, Hill School didn’t mount any offense until the second half, when it was too late. Defensively, a team with many two-way starters wore down dealing with the Raiders’ big size advantage up front, their wide array of air weapons, and running back Imamu Mayfield.

Mayfield rushed for 96 yards in the first quarter — when the Rams didn’t record a first down — and 154 for the game, scoring four touchdowns.

Two of Hun’s offensive linemen are over 300 pounds and two are in the 290s; Hill goes basically from the 240-280 range on its O-line and D-lines. Hun quarterback Simon Vadas, a 6-3 slinger, completed 16-of-31 for 278 yards. Luke Apuzzi snared seven balls for 138 yards and a 67-yard TD.

At halftime, Hun held a 340-56 advantage in total yardage, and Mayfield had 142 rushing.

“We couldn’t get drives together early — some dropped passes and miscommunications,” said Hill School running back/defensive back Trey Humes.

Hill actually trailed only 8-0 after the first quarter as Hun took 10 plays to go 75 yards for its first TD. A 62-yard march capped early in the second quarter with Mayfield’s second touchdown a two-pointer made it 16-0.

Hill got to the Hun 36 on its next possession, but a sack of quarterback Clayton Oliver forced a punt. Hun responded with the big bomb from Vadas to Apuzzi and Mayfield’s conversion run with 7:23 left in the half. It came on a fourth-and-four play from the Raider 33. Such is their confidence in their offense.

“They run their offense no matter what. If it’s fourth down, they don’t punt the ball,” Humes said. “They come at you. All we can do is learn from it and come back next week.”

Oliver, a gutsy and talented QB from Texas, found A.J. Bates for 32 yards to put the Rams in Raider territory, but a failed fourth-and-one at the 30 ended the march. The Raiders then went 71 yards — Mayfield’s 31-yard blast being the key play — en route to a 30-0 advantage.

A terrible ending for a tough half for Hill came when Oliver, fighting for extra yards, fumbled, and Apuzzi took it to the house, 55 yards, with time expired.

Most of Hun’s starters didn’t come out in the third quarter and they didn’t stop throwing, but Hill didn’t stop playing. Humes ran tough and Oliver uncorked a 48-yard run to the Raider red zone, though the drive died. Late in the game, freshman quarterback Syre Gruber finally put Hill on the board with a strong, spinning 5-yard run to the end zone, 2:13 left in what was a very long day for the Rams.

“This team is resilient,” Humes said. “We have heart and we fight as much as we can. We have to keep bringing that to the table and the ‘W’ will come.”