Trinity Classical Academy followed up an undefeated pre-season by knocking off The Webb Schools 49-14 in the Cottonwood League opener Thursday night at Cougar Stadium.

The Knights (6-0, 1-0) despite scoring seven touchdowns had a rough night with penalties, one of which erased what would have been a pick-six.

“I feel we kind of stole one tonight, because we were sloppy. We weren’t playing well and [The Webb Schools] have a real good team,” said Trinity Head Coach Mike Parrinello. “Sometimes you get out of one of these when you don’t play your best. We played at least consistent enough to win one when we weren’t at the top of our game.”

Parrinello added that the run game struggled to get going, quarterback Noah Visconti was frequently rushed while in the pocket and the offensive line struggled early on.

But when the field was clear of flags and Visconti had adequate time in the pocket the Knights were on point.

Against the Gauls’ defense, Visconti threw six passing touchdowns to five different receivers, including his brother Aiden.

Aiden Visconti breezes by a defender and into the endzone for his first touchdown of the night.
Steven Barrera | KHTS

Visconti also connected with Luke Backes, Andrew Kelley, John Carlson and Andrew Carlson who had two touchdowns on the night.

Andrew Carlson breaks a tackle as he runs into the endzone.
Steven Barrera | KHTS

Parrinello champions his team for having the ability to spread the ball around and not have to rely on a single receiver to make all the plays.

“That’s what we try to do. We want to mix it up,” said Parrinello. “We have some players that we know teams will target but what we want to show is that if you double up some of our guys we have some other talent.”

Throughout the season Trinity has had seven different receivers score a touchdown demonstrating the depth that the team has at the position.

Running a progressive read offense makes it easy for the Knights to get multiple receivers involved since there isn’t a specific player being targeted but they are just looking for the open man.

“It’s just nice when we know no matter who it is, we are comfortable throwing to him,” said Parrinello. “Noah does a great job of going through the progressions and throwing it to who he’s supposed to.”

Defensively Parrinello was pleased with the way the team was able to slow down some explosive players for The Webb Schools.

“We have a lot of good players on defense. [The Webb Schools] have a lot of athletes and we didn’t shut them down but we were able to slow them down,” said Parrinello.

Overall the defense was playing solid in the secondary with Corey Moberg, Adam Hirsch and Nick Delgado rotating at cornerback. 

Adam Hirsch lines up at cornerback and prepares to defend against Guals’ receiver Miles Park.
Steven Barrera | KHTS

The glue that holds the whole defense together is John Carlson, who is described by Parrinello as an extra coach on the field.

“John Carlson, he’s a captain for a reason. He knows the defense, he’s vocal, he’s a coach on the field and he keeps the defense rolling,” said Parrinello.

Besides scoring on offense Carlson had multiple hurries on the Gauls’ quarterback throughout the night and was a source of energy for the entire defense.

John Carlson applies pressure on The Webb Schools quarterback as he releases the ball.
Steven Barrera | KHTS

Heading into another week of league play Parrinello hopes to clean some things up while also building on what the team did well.

Next Friday Trinity will take to the road to play the 4-1 Santa Rosa Academy at 7 p.m.

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