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Riverside downs Gophers for second straight win

Written by Joshua Keeran

Wednesday, 06 October 2010 15:15

RIDGEWAY – After struggling out of the gate to the tune of four straight losses, the Riverside varsity football team appears to have found its stride as the Pirates made it back-to-back wins with a 33-12 victory over Ridgemont on Friday in Northwest Central Conference play.

“We didn’t play as good as we wanted to tonight, but a win is a win,” Riverside coach T.R. Doty said. “We will take this win and continue to build off it.”

The Pirates wasted little time putting points on the board as on the first play of their first possession, Riverside quarterback Bryce Hodge found a streaking Joe Coulson down the middle of the field for a 78-yard touchdown. With the extra point, RHS found itself ahead 7-0 with 7:34 left in the first quarter.

“That was a great play by Bryce and Joe. We thought we could exploit their defense deep, but to their credit, they kind of took that away from us,” Doty said. “It was great to get the early score because we’ve had that happen to us quite a bit. It was great to finally turn the tables and play with the lead.”

The score remained unchanged until Riverside’s first possession of the second quarter when the Pirates drove 60 yards in four plays, finding pay dirt on a 28-yard hookup from Hodge to Corey Vonderhuevel, who made an over-the-shoulder catch for the TD. The PAT was missed, however, keeping the score at 13-0 with 11:05 left in the first half.

Riverside went on to add another score just before halftime when Hodge threw his third touchdown of the game - a 6-yard strike to Chad Keith, capping off a nine-play, 72-yard drive.

Trailing 20-0 after 24 minutes of play, the Golden Gophers came out in the third quarter and kept the game interesting for a while as they turned a Riverside turnover into six points when on a fourth-and-four play from the Riverside 20, Tyler Tillman connected with Caleb Scott for the TD with 9:27 left to play in the stanza.

After the Ridgemont (1-5) defense forced a turnover on downs, it appeared all the momentum was on the side of the home team, that was until Golden Gopher running back Reese Overly coughed up the football, which was scooped up by Vonderhuevel and returned 37 yards for a TD.

“Corey made a great play with the scoop and score,” Doty said. “It kind of put the nail in the coffin there.”

With a comfortable 27-6 advantage, the Pirates went on to added another touchdown when Hodge scored on a 5-yard QB draw with 7:50 remaining in the game.

After Doty inserted his junior varsity players, Ridgemont was able to find the scoreboard one final time when Myles Hoffman busted off a 43-yard TD run.

Offensively for Riverside, Hodge finished the game 13 of 24 for 256 yards and three touchdowns. Also for RHS, Coulson had two grabs for 100 yards and a score, Trevor Helmlinger pulled down four catches for 53 yards, Vonderhuevel had three catches for 41 yards and a TD, Keith finished with three grabs for 40 yards and a score, and Blaine Dixon rushed for 32 yards on four attempts.

Defensively, Dixon led the way with 14 tackles. Adding 10 tackles each for the Pirates were Justin Worrell, Jesse Kite and Keith.

“I thought our defense played well all night,” Doty said. “The credit goes to the defense because they kept us in the game and allowed us to get the win.”

The victory keeps the Pirates within striking distance of NWCC leader Fairbanks, which remains the lone conference unbeaten at 3-0 on the season.

“Hopefully we can still win the league, but we are going to need some help,” Doty said. “Winning the NWCC remains our goal.”

Riverside (2-4, 2-1) will play host to Troy Christian (2-4) on Friday in non-league action.

Big plays ruin stout effort by Indian Lake

Written by Joshua Keeran
Wednesday, 29 September 2010 17:56
LEWISTOWN – The game of football might be measured in yards, but the Indian Lake versus Bellefontaine rivalry was ultimately decided by inches on Friday night as the Chieftains dodged two early bullets en route to a 17-6 victory in Central Buckeye Conference crossover football at ILHS. In a game in which the final score doesn’t begin to tell the story of what took place on the field, the Lakers will look back on their first two possessions of the game and ask “what if.” On Indian Lake’s first drive of the game, the home team marched 59 yards in nine plays only to see the possession stall inches shy of the end zone when running back Scottie McMillen was stood up on the goal line on a fourth-and-goal play from the BHS 2. The Lakers again came within mere inches of taking an early lead when their second drive of the game stalled at the BHS 17, setting up a 34-yard field goal attempt by Jake Harper, whose kick hit off the top of the crossbar and bounced back into the field of play. “You got to put points on the board,” ILHS coach Dave Coburn said. “We weren’t able to convert down there offensively, and it came back to bite us.” “The last few weeks we weren’t able to keep teams from punching it in,” BHS coach Chris Schmidt said. “Being able to get off the field in those situations I’m sure boosted our kids’ confidence.” While the Indian Lake offense was able to do pretty much anything early on except put points on the board, the same can’t be said about the Bellefontaine offense, which struggled through the first quarter and a half as the Lakers’ defense forced three straight three-and-outs to begin the game. The Chieftains, however, used a little trickery on its fourth possession to catch Indian Lake off guard. On a second-and-22 play from their own 41, Mike Fraim turned a reverse into a 59-yard touchdown score as he raced untouched down the sideline to put the visitors ahead 7-0 with 5:40 left in the first half. “I think the biggest thing was giving up the big plays early on,” Coburn said. “We basically dominated the first half defensively expect for two plays. Until we can stop giving up big plays, we probably aren’t going to win. We’ve got to get over that hurdle.” “It was huge,” Schmidt said. “Whenever you have big plays it usually means a shift in momentum.”
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WL-S continues dominance over Pirates

Written by Joshua Keeran
Wednesday, 15 September 2010 15:10
DeGRAFF – The backyard brawl between West Liberty-Salem and Riverside has been a lopsided rivalry since 2004, and the trend continued on Friday night as the Tigers came to town and dished out a 66-18 defeat of the Pirates in non-league football. “I felt like we came out ready to play, and I thought we executed well,” WL-S coach Toby Smith said. “I’m disappointed in some of the mistakes we made. We’ve got to get better at doing some of these little things if we expect to keep winning.” “The scoreboard was a little lopsided tonight, but we are playing better,” RHS coach T.R. Doty said. “We are making improvements, and we are coming along.” The offensive onslaught by WL-S was led by senior signal caller Levi Reed, who accounted for six of the Tigers’ touchdowns (four passing and two rushing). Also finding pay dirt on multiple occasions for the orange and black – winners of seven straight over Riverside – were Michael Mack (two TD receptions) and Zach Konkle (one receiving score and one TD run). “The offense is set up to take what the other team is giving us,” Smith said. “I thought (Reed) did a pretty good job of that if he had six touchdowns. He’s really throwing the ball well for us, and taking what the defense is giving him.” Despite the dominance over the past six years in the series by WL-S, the Pirates had thoughts of ending the winless drought against the Tigers, but those thoughts were squashed early on as the visitors needed just three plays to find the end zone on their opening series. The 51-yard drive was capped off with a 27-yard touchdown pass over the middle of the field as Reed hooked up with Mack. Eight minutes later, WL-S made it a 14-0 contest by making good on a short field, marching 38 yards in seven plays. Reed’s TD jaunt from 12 yards out gave the Tigers a two-touchdown lead with 39 seconds left in the first quarter. The second 12 minutes of play was dominated by WL-S, who outscored the Pirates 28-6. During the second quarter, a long punt return as well as a long kick return by Mack set up two of the four Tiger scoring drives. “Michael is a good player,” Smith said. “He is one of our go-to guys, and we are going to keep riding him.”   Finding pay dirt for WL-S before halftime was Konkle on an 11-yard touchdown run, Cade Hunt on a 4-yard TD dive, Konkle on a 23-yard touchdown reception from Reed and a 67-yard TD hookup from Reed to Greg White.
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Cavs’ balanced attack too much for Indian Lake

Written by Bill Shoffner
Wednesday, 15 September 2010 15:06
PIQUA – The Sidney Lehman Cavaliers showed little mercy in Friday night’s football game against the Indian Lake Lakers, holding them to just 24 yards of total offense in the first half en route to a 34-6 victory. Lehman’s Joe Staley started the scoring with the first touchdown of the night, hauling in a 48-yard pass from quarterback Jonathon Slagle. Shortly after the start of the second quarter, Kaleb Goins scored the first of four touchdowns on the night with a 10-yard screen pass from Slagle. Goins also had second- and third-quarter touchdown runs of 1 and 3 yards, and capped his scoring on a fourth quarter 9-yard pass from Slagle. Goins had a total on the night of 184 yards on 24 carries. Slagle, meanwhile, had a good night, completing 13 of 23 pass attempts for 200 yards and three touchdown strikes. “It’s just a typical night from Kaleb Goins,” Lehman coach Dick Roll. “We got great play out of our quarterback and that will open some things up down the road for our running game.” Lehman’s defense was outstanding, giving up only 132 total yards of offense to Indian Lake. “The defense did a good job. It was a good win for us.” said Roll said. The Lakers’ lone highlight of the game was a 16-yard touchdown run by senior Brandon Goings in the final period, well after the Cavaliers had the game in hand. Indian Lake will look to get back on the winning track Friday when it travels to Tippecanoe.

Second-half collapse dooms Indian Lake

Written by Joshua Keeran
Wednesday, 08 September 2010 14:01
LEWISTOWN – After going back and forth for the first 24 minutes of play on Friday, Kenton Ridge used a 20-0 run in the second half to pull away from Indian Lake 41-20 in Central Buckeye Conference crossover football. “We didn’t play very well defensively, and in the second half we didn’t play at all,” ILHS coach Dave Coburn said. “I think they wanted it more than we did. That’s what it comes down to.” As the first-half clock expired, both schools went to the locker room knowing the game was anyone’s for the taking as the Cougars held a slim 21-20 lead. It was during the halftime break, however, that something changed as the tide of the game took a huge swing once the teams stepped on the field for the third quarter. Before the fans in the stands had a chance to get comfortable for the second half, the Kenton Ridge supporters found themselves on their feet cheering while the Lakers faithful sat in disbelief as on the very first play from scrimmage to start the second half, Cougars running back Anthony Cole-Young turned a sweep to the right side of the line into a 65-yard touchdown scamper. John McKinney missed the extra point, however, leaving the score at 27-20 with 11:41 left in the third quarter. Five minutes later, Kenton Ridge found itself knocking on the door once again following a long punt return by Jeff Tiffner, who gave the visitors great starting field position at the ILHS 32. Two plays later, Nick Lias connected with Jeremy Armstrong, who made a diving reception in the end zone for the 30-yard score, increasing the Cougars’ advantage to 34-20 with 6:05 remaining in the third quarter.
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