PORT ANGELES — The Olympic Peninsula Eagles were missing a few players, and that was enough to suffer their first loss of the year Saturday at Roosevelt Elementary School.
The Portland Inner City Shine shut out the Eagles 26-0 in a semipro football game that was a lot closer than the score indicates, according to coach Mike McMahan.
“We were just short a few key guys, especially on the line, and it really hurt us,” he said.
For instance, the safety was rotating in as an offensive guard.
“They were blitzing us and they were finding gaps because we had players on the offensive line who weren’t used to playing with each other,” McMahan said.
Still, the Eagles (1-1 overall) managed a total of 200 offensive yards.
Quarterback Steve Monger had a good throwing game, McMahan said, and wide receiver Eddie Obuho had a couple of catches for 75 yards.
Obuho is a former rugby player from Kenya with limited football experience.
The running game also was strong with B.J. Johnson gaining 45 yards on the ground and Luke Dixon 20 yards.
The game is under protest because the Shine used helmets with five different colors.
“That’s against league rules, so we are protesting,” McMahan said.
The game collected more than 100 pounds of food from fans for the Clallam County food bank.
Next week the Eagles play at Foster High School against the Tacoma Invaders on Saturday at 6 p.m.
Then the Eagles have two weeks off before playing in Everett on June 11 against a team McMahan used to coach.
The next home game is June 18 against Bellingham at Roosevelt.
