By turns, Service High's defense mauled and manhandled West High's offense. The Cougars battered and bruised the Eagles, clobbered and crushed them.
Pick your poison -- any particularly nasty active verb will suffice. It was a Friday night beat-down by thesaurus.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Cougars' sacking -- literally -- and pillaging was positively medieval.
Service 31, West 0.
And that doesn't even begin to catalog the carnage at Anchorage Football Stadium.
The Cougars limited -- and limited is probably too gentle a word -- the Eagles to minus-44 yards total offense. And doesn't a stat called "total offense'' read like a contradiction in terms right up there with jumbo shrimp? By unofficial count, the Cougars racked up 10 sacks and at least 15 plays in which they pancaked the Eagles for negative yardage.
Oh, and the Cougars generated a defensive touchdown, a safety and a special teams turnover.
Mostly, it was a bashing by blitzing.
While Service defensive linemen like Josh Tofaeono and Brown Faaaliga, otherwise known as Triple A, attacked the middle of West's offensive line and drew double teams, linebackers like Izavia Parker and Chris Culbertson blitzed around the flanks and stormed quarterback Silas Drayden.
Parker generated at least four sacks, one of which caused a fumble. He also caused a fumble on a kickoff return. As the ravaging rover in Service's 4-3 defense, the speedy 6-foot-2, 225-pounder spent the rainy evening running unabated sprints into West's backfield.
You can only imagine his joy at his unobstructed path.
"They don't block me,'' he said, incredulous, "and that's a good feeling coming off the corner. I give all the credit to my defensive linemen. I couldn't have done it without them getting in there and getting on those offensive tackles.''
Parker enjoyed plenty of company in creating chaos. Linebacker Chris Culbertson racked up at least two sacks, one of which caused the fumble teammate Deontae Daniels recovered for a touchdown. Linebacker Zac Carey chipped in a couple sacks. Hans Wilhelm furnished a sack and the monster hit of the game. Leo Aukusitino and Vladimir Gamassov joined in the jubilation.
Basically, it was domination by committee. The first-quarter safety Service recorded served as the perfect snapshot of the evening -- no less than four Cougars hauled Jordan Slay down in the end zone.
Safe to say that the Cougars had their defense game-planned to perfection.
"It was great coaching,'' Culbertson offered. "They called perfect plays at perfect times.''
On most of those occasions, which will haunt the Eagles when they review the video of the violence, Parker and Culbertson blitzed from the outside. This was no read-and-react defense, but seek-and-destroy model.
So it was early in the first half, when Drayden appeared to attempt a fake punt from deep in his own territory, only to have Culbertson deliver the hit that freed the ball and led to Daniels' touchdown.
"Blitz, blitz, blitz -- that's all we did,'' Parker said. "That's what we want to do -- come at teams all year.''
So far, so good.
Service knocked off East, 28-21, in double overtime last week, and Friday's victory lifted the Cougars to 2-0 in the Cook Inlet Conference.
And Friday's shutout came against a West team that dropped 327 yards total offense -- including 192 rushing yards by Slay -- and 44 points on West Valley in its season opener last weekend.
West can only console itself that its loss to Service was just an early-season setback and there's time to left to mend the mess.
But Friday really was all about Service's defense.
It delivered a whipping and a walloping -- your basic football flogging.
This column is the opinion of Daily News reporter Doyle Woody. Find his blog online at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.
