On Friday night, Arundel football filed into Navy Marine-Corps Memorial Stadium and walked together, not onto the field, but into the stands.
It was the players’ job to study Wise before the Panthers competed in the Class 4A state final — the tunnel they walked through, the path they took to the field, the pregame procedures.
By the time Saturday night rolls around, when the Wildcats take to the stadium field in earnest to face Linganore, all of the additional trappings and “fish eyes” of a 3A state championship will be dully familiar to them.
Think of it as the last away game against Annapolis, Arundel coach Jack Walsh told his players. It is only a few minutes down the road, after all.
“That way the game will be decided by who’s the better football team,” Walsh said, “not who adapted to the environment better. We’ll see if it pays off.”
No Anne Arundel team has lifted a state championship plaque since Old Mill in 2011. Broadneck last season and Arundel in 2022 made it to the final game, but each fell short.
“It left a sour taste in our mouth,” senior linebacker Nick Oliver said.
Losing to Broadneck on Sept. 13 tasted similarly. Arundel went into it thinking they’d streamroll Broadneck. They didn’t.
“We needed that loss,” quarterback Ahmir Lowery said of the 35-31 defeat. “We needed to lock in.”
From every game forward, they wanted to prove their loss was just a slip-up.
The Wildcats quickly gathered infamy for dumping 60 points on opponents, averaging 55 a game heading into Saturday.
Most of Arundel’s players first met through Gambrills-Odenton Recreational Council youth football. They all remember TJ Mordecai spin-dodging tackles even then.
Most people who watch Mordecai say if he were 6-foot-1, the Division I offers wouldn’t stop. Walsh thinks he takes pride in it. The 5-foot-6 back (207 carries for 1,435 yards) uses his compact body to his advantage, barreling through bigger players before accelerating away.
But if Arundel only depended on him, it wouldn’t be playing in December.
“I don’t think other teams have faced offenses like ours,” Mordecai said.
That’s where Lowery comes into play.
Lowery transferred out of St. Vincent Pallotti during his sophomore year. Upper-body injuries took then-starter Gavin Kamachi out of the 2022 run, leaving Arundel without another option come Lowery’s junior season.
The change was noticeable at first. These were his boyhood friends, but Pallotti’s under-center system developed Lowery on a different wavelength than his teammates.
Arundel’s play-style started to click midway through his junior year, but took off this fall, largely thanks to new offensive coordinator (and former Old Mill head coach) Mike Pfisterer. The awkwardness smoothed out. Confidence replaced it.
“Even the quarterbacks that are as athletic as him are one-trick ponies,” Walsh said. “They’re running around, but they can’t throw or read a defense. Ahmir can.”
All 2,325 yards Lowery’s amassed this fall are split between six main receivers. When they’re not in use, they’re blocking along with their line, Walsh said — and without complaint.
It’s that selflessness that’s run undercurrent to this season. Just as the receivers don’t mind less attention and lower stats in pursuit of the greater goal, the Arundel offense as a whole doesn’t grumble when it’s told to let a spoiled drive go and punt.
Punting, after all, puts the defense in a better spot, and the defense has responded giving up only 10 points per game.
Arundel’s defense took time to gather together.
After leaving the team for personal reasons his sophomore season, senior defensive lineman Ryan Eshenbaugh spent a year laboring to catch up a year’s worth of development. He’s “played on a different level this year,” per defensive coordinator Nick Good-Malloy. Junior Avry Harris (4 interceptions) rolled in from Omaha, Nebraska, as a wide receiver, but took off as a cornerback. Linebacker Kaleb Omotosho battled back from a broken leg in the summer to pull two game-changing turnovers in the state semifinal. Oliver was one of those injured players sidelined during the 2022 run, but blossomed into one of the most “underrated” but irreplaceable cogs in the defensive machine with 52 tackles.
“They’re tough kids from Gambrills and Odenton that just love football. They don’t get caught up in stuff. They don’t come in with these aspirations. They just want to play football,” Walsh said, “and they play it really well.”
In the spring, Walsh still faced a gaping hole on the defensive line. That is, until Brandon Gorham’s number lit up his phone.
The Delaware commit competed for a title in Hawaii in 2023, but felt empty without his friends. This season, Gorham leads the Wildcats with nine sacks and 12 tackles for loss.
“Coming back with my guys, going for a championship,” Gorham said, “that’s what would be amazing.”
The Arundel defense holds daily drills against its offense to sharpen the claws. But at the root of its success, Walsh said, is film.
Good-Malloy, the former Annapolis coach in his second year on Walsh’s staff, slices Hudl film into tenderloin like a fine chef.
“Here’s Sherwood, here’s their best play, here’s them running it against this team,” Walsh said. “And everything we’re given in practice matches up. The kids are watching film every day. They’re locked in and I think they’re seeing success from it.”
Humility extends to defense, too. Elijah Caldwell transitioned from receiver as a junior, to safety to outside linebacker as a senior. On another defense, Jaylen Williams and Gorham would be transfixed to their true spots as defensive ends. In Arundel’s 3-4 defense, they’re defensive tackles, sometimes inside or outside.
“If that means they’re not getting sacks for their highlight tapes, they’re not worried about it,” Walsh said.
They’re not the best at stopping opening drives, Good-Malloy admitted. Glen Burnie and Meade struck first before succumbing. Annapolis hit a 70-yard touchdown on its first drive.
“But our kids do not panic. They stay confident and focused, and they don’t blame each other,” Good-Malloy said.
They’d like if Linganore didn’t score first Saturday. If they do, it doesn’t matter. By the end, the Wildcats intend to be the first Arundel players to bring a football championship trophy home since 1975.
“I’ll probably shed a tear,” Eshenbaugh said. “Every moment in spring and summer workouts, it would be worth it on Saturday.”
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