By Pete Chiodo
September 6, 2008
September 06, 2008 12:26 am
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SAEGERTOWN — In the game of football, it’s not often that a group of linemen steal the show. It’s a rather unglamorous part of the game. They grunt and push over a few inches of turf and if they do their job right all the action and everybody’s attention has already relocated down the field.
However, following Saegertown’s 42-7 trouncing of Eisenhower on Friday, the thing that everybody was talking about were the Panthers’ blockers.
“The game was won up front,” Saegertown coach Ken Achenbach said. “Our offensive and defensive lines controlled the line of scrimmage.”
Jim Penley, Eisenhower’s head coach, was forced to agree. ”Their front line beat our front line off the ball. That is the whole story of the game.”
Yet if there was any group involved in last night’s action that had even more reason to hype the front line, it was Saegertown’s running backs; all three of whom had 100-yard games.
“We definitely give all the credit to the linemen.” said wingback Ian Price, who had 125 yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries. He scored twice on carries of 3 yards in the second half, and once on an 11-yard run in the second quarter.
“Our line has been blocking for us since day one. That’s why we’ve been having these good games,” said fellow wingback Keenan Ellison, who carried the ball eight times for 153 yards and one touchdown — a wild 78-yarder in the first quarter.
“Every play they came off the ball hard. It seemed like every time I got the ball there was a huge hole.” That was — last but not-at-all least — fullback James Chest. He led the team with 32 carries for 173 yards and one score. His 9-yard scoring run in the first quarter got Saegertown on the board.
“All three of them,” asked Achenbach when he heard the news that all of his starting backs had over 100 yards. “My goodness. Anytime that happens, obviously the line has done an awesome job.”
Oh, and back-up rusher Joe Waddell had one rush for two yards. That also scored a touchdown, capping the score at 42-7 in the fourth quarter.
And that was all of Saegertown’s offense. The Panthers ran the ball 68 times. Each one of their 450 yards was charted on the ground.
Saegertown quarterback Aaron Stirling dropped back for one pass in the first half. He was blitzed. The Panthers didn’t try another pass the rest of the night.
“(Eisenhower) blitzed,” Achenbach said. “They bring a lot of heat off the corner. And we were moving the ball so effectively on the ground ... I don’t know ... we never really thought much about (passing).”
Flipping over to defense, Saegertown’s defensive line — and it’s linebackers — made sure that Eisenhower wasn’t going to run the ball last night.
The Knights ran the ball just 17 times for a total of 26 yards.
So, the Knights went with the pass. That didn’t go much better. Ike quarterback Cody Crosby completed just 3-of-25 pass attempts and was picked off twice — once by D-back Jared Campbell and once by linebacker Jake Carter.
However, one of Crosby’s completions was good for six points. In the second quarter, trailing 21-0 and facing 3rd-and-long; Crosby flung a beauty to Ben Wilston, who caught it in stride behind the secondary and legged it into the end zone for a 59-yard score.
“Defensively, I thought we played very well,” Achenbach said. “One play (went wrong). But then we made an adjustment coverage-wise in the second half and that took care of that. I don’t think they ran the ball very well against us.”
So finally, the linemen get their say.
“That makes us feel good,” said senior center Nick Sullivan, asked about the big night had by Saegertown’s backfield trio. “It shows that all the hard work that we’re putting in during the week is paying off. It shows that we work well together.”
“We have a good line,” added junior tackle Elijah Mattocks. “And we came smoking off the ball and we just lit people up These are all great guys. We’re all mentally and physically strong. And we just lit people up.”
Game notes: The rainy conditions did make it a little difficult for Saegertown to hold on to the ball. They fumbled the ball eight times, yet only lost possession twice. ... Saegertown’s kicker Matt Stearns was 6-for-6 on extra points last night. ... With the win, Saegertown improves to 2-0 overall and 1-0 in Region 2. Eisenhower is 0-2 overall and 0-1 in region play.
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