Doing what they do best proves best for West Holmes
“The people who tell you, you have to spread things out to win the OCC don’t know anything,” he said prior to the 2011 season. “It’s not the team that’s the most skilled or the team that spreads you out, it’s the toughest team that wins this league. It’s the controlling of the line of scrimmage that wins you games.”
The Knights proved that very point Friday, Oct. 7, on the turf at Arlin Field, as Mansfield Senior abandoned the run for the pass, while West Holmes stuck to its guns and rushed its way to a 45-39 win over the Tygers, keeping themselves tied atop the OCC standings with Ashland and Madison, at 3-1 (5-2 overall), while dropping Senior to 1-3 (2-5).
West Holmes senior running back Joey Gonzalez struck first, last, and once in between for the Knights, as he put West Holmes up 6-0 when he capped a 39-yard opening drive with a seven-yard touchdown run (following a Tygers fumble); gave the Knights their second lead, at 18-12, with another seven-yard run late in the second quarter; and sealed the deal with a 60-yard burst down the near sideline with only 4:14 remaining in the game.
But after running the ball in excess of 40 times in each of its first six games, Mansfield Senior suddenly abandoned the ground game, as Tygers sophomore quarterback Jalen Reese came out throwing, completing three-of-six passes on the Tygers second possession, and polishing off a 72-yard drive with a 15-yard TD pass to junior receiver Deonte Leadingham that gave Senior a 7-6 first quarter lead.
“We were geared up to stop the run and they came out and started passing, passing, passing,” explained Maltarich, after watching Reese hook up with senior running back Terrell Harris for a 39-yard touchdown pass down the right side, immediately following a fumble from Knights 2010 and ’11 leading rusher Garrett Mackey, on a play which also knocked the junior fullback out of the game with a slight injury to his right knee during West Holmes’ next drive. “They’d been relying heavily on the run, so we had to tweak what we did.”
Down 14-6 early in the second quarter, they also had to tweak their offense a little bit by inserting sophomore fullback Layne Perone into the backfield to replace Mackey, as the 5’ 10” 190-pounder carried the ball four times on the Knights next possession, cutting Senior’s lead to 14-12 – following a failed two-point try – when he went over left tackle, veered back toward the middle and completed a 76-yard drive with a 29-yard TD run.
“All of our running backs, even our secondary backs, are right behind our first team, it doesn’t matter who’s in or out” said Perone, who would eventually rack up 187 yards and four touchdowns, on 20 carries, helping negate Reese’s school record-setting 388-yard, five-touchdown performance, on 19-of-38 passing. “I’ve got to thank my line. They did a great job. I had huge holes and nobody touched me half the time.”
Gonzalez would go over the century mark as well, with 107 yards on 17 carries for the Knights, picking up seven of his yards on another seven-yard TD run up the middle – which put the Knights back in front 18-14 – following a three-and-out by the Tygers and a 23-yard pickup on a reverse down the far sideline, from West Holmes sophomore receiver Brady Arnold, on fourth-and-10 from the Mansfield Senior 30-yard-line.
But Senior got the ball back with 0:32 remaining before halftime, leaving Reese plenty of time to move the ball 41-yards in six plays, setting up sophomore kicker Hutch Blackstone for a 32-yard field goal, which sent both teams to the locker rooms, with West Holmes clinging to an 18-17 lead.
“We knew to match up with their speed was going to be a big thing,” explained Maltarich, after watching Reese put up 149 yards in the first-half, on nine-of-17 passing. “You get caught, ‘Do we stay back and play zone or do we send pressure at them?’ We were sending pressure at those guys but we were having trouble getting there and our defensive backs got put in a rough position.
“They burned us a couple times, but we came back and made plays when we had to.”
Perone burned the Senior defense again on the Knights first possession of the second-half, carrying the ball three times, starting from the West Holmes 26-yard-line, and breaking free on his third carry for a 56-yard touchdown, as he busted through the middle of the line, cut left and sprinted down the far sideline to extend the lead to 25-17 less than three minutes into the third quarter.
“He got thrown into the fire last year and got some good, valuable playing time,” said Maltarich, talking about Perone. “He’s been our leading tackler all year and he’s just a good football player.”
But after watching Reese lead the Tygers out of a third-and-27 situation, from their own 18, during Senior’s next possession – when he found Harris down the left sideline for a pickup of 38 – West Holmes junior linebacker and 2010 leading tackler Keaton Leppla said, “He [Reese] is a good quarterback. All game he saw the blitz coming and he got rid of it real quick.
“They came out and threw that first pass after halftime and I looked at Coach and said, ‘They’re going to throw the ball all day.’ And they did.”
They sure did, completing three more passes on the drive and knotting the score at 25 when Reese hit junior receiver Chris Diaz in the left corner of the end zone, from 15 yards out, before finding him again on the opposite side to tack on two more points with 6:59 left to play in quarter number three.
Then, after forcing a three-and-out on the Knights next possession, Reese made it three scoring passes in a row, as he hooked up with Leadingham down the far sideline, on the Tygers next play from scrimmage, and watched the 5’ 11” 160-lb. junior race into the end zone to put the home team back in front 32-25.
“They got us out of our element,” explained Leppla. “They started passing the ball around and we thought they were going to run a little bit more. We had to adjust on the fly.”
But the Knights didn’t have to do anything on the fly offensively, methodically marching 80 yards down the field on their next possession, chewing up the last 3:44 of the third quarter, and the first 1:47 of the fourth, with 10 running plays and a 29-yard pass play from junior quarterback Gabe Snyder to junior running back Grant Hay, on fourth-and-four.
Perone put the finishing touches on the drive and tied the game back up at 32 apiece, bullying his way into the end zone from four yards out, to pick up his third rushing touchdown of the game.
His fourth touchdown would come less than four minutes later after Arnold picked off Reese on second-and-10, at the near-side 36-yard-line of Mansfield Senior, cutting all the way across the field to the far sideline, then back to the near side, while returning it 62-yards all the way down to the West Holmes 24.
Three alternating carries between Perone and Gonzalez setup Perone from 13 yards out as he bull rushed his way up the middle and pushed his way into the end zone to give West Holmes a 39-32 lead with 6:51 left to play.
Finally, on first-and-10, from the West Holmes 36, the Knights defense caught Reese in the backfield during the Tygers next drive, as senior lineman Dustin Shaffer and senior linebacker Tyler Butler sacked the Senior quarterback for a loss of eight, but on third-and-18 Reese found senior receiver Joe Lindhout cutting across the field, and hit the 5’ 10” 160-lb. target for a 43-yard TD, which tied the score again at 39-39, with only 4:34 remaining on the clock.
“When our offense is clicking we can get some big plays,” said Maltarich, after watching Gonzalez break free for his 60-yard scoring run down the far side, on the Knights very next offensive play, putting West Holmes back in front for good, 45-39. “When we get a crack our backs know what to do with it and we were able to do that a couple times tonight. We broke their backs a couple of times.”
“Two tackles got their blocks, Grant [Hay] sealed the end, there was just one man to beat and luckily I beat him and took it the rest of the way,” explained Gonzalez, who, along with Perone, combined for 294 of the Knights’ 372 rushing yards.
Meanwhile Senior was held to -7 yards on the ground after Shaffer flushed Reese from the pocket on third-and-10, for a three-yard loss, and Leppla broke through to seal the victory with a 10-yard sack on fourth-and-13.
“The last play I looked over at Coach and said, ‘Let me go get him.’ He said, ‘You better go get him,’ so I went out there, looked for the nearest opening, saw him roll out, grabbed him and I just wasn’t letting go,” explained Leppla. “It’s just amazing what you can do when you set your mind to one thing.”
Like running the ball.
“We knew we had to come down and beat these guys,” said Maltarich. “They gave us everything we wanted and to our kids’ credit, we stepped up.
“We’ve got about six or seven kids that can carry the ball and we’re looking to control the tempo of the game and control the line of scrimmage.”
Because that’s what wins games in the OCC…and this game proved it.
Published: October 7, 2011
