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By BRIAN SMITH
Sports Editor
VAN WERT — St. Marys’ workmanlike win over Van Wert was simple and not all that revealing for anyone watching the tape.
Some things are best kept close to the vest for when the Roughriders tangle with the Indians.
St. Marys methodically ran over the Van Wert defense for 389 yards on the ground and the defense created four turnovers in a 34-6 win over Van Wert on Friday night— keeping many of the tricks in the bag for next week’s showdown in Lima that can clinch at least a tie for a league title. St. Marys is 7-0 for the first time since 1993 — the year of its last state championship — and is now in the driver’s seat in the Western Buckeye League with a 6-0 record after both Defiance and Shawnee lost on Friday night. “I think we took a step forward as far as putting all phases of the game together,” St. Marys head coach Doug Frye said. “Our kids are starting to get better.” St. Marys can clinch at least assure itself of a share of the WBL title with a win over Shawnee next Friday night in Lima. Shawnee fell to Wapakoneta and Defiance lost to Kenton. Now the Indians, Bulldogs and Wildcats are all two games behind the Roughriders in the WBL standings. Van Wert was without the services of running back Sam Tindall and starting quarterback Tim Hoverman for the game, and Van Wert head coach Bob Priest thought his team fought hard despite the loss. Priest has time to be patient with a squad filled with a large and immensely talented sophomore class. “I thought we took a step forward tonight,” the second-year coach said. “We have a tremendous amount of sophomores, we have a sophomore quarterback who’s been playing tight end moved to quarterback and yet I thought we executed some things. We made a lot of mistakes offensively. We’d get down there and made mistakes. Give St. Marys credit. They caused a lot of those mistakes. You’re never pleased with a loss, but I thought we made positive gains tonight.” Sophomore Austin Fleming got the start at quarterback for the Cougars and went 13-for-31 for 184 yards, three interceptions and a touchdown. “We saw him on tape at the end of last week’s game and thought he was a really good passer,” Frye said about Fleming. The Riders harrassed the sophomore signal caller with a persistent pass rush and a ballhawking secondary all night long. Interceptions by Cory Dammeyer, Dan Roberts and Derek Freewalt ended drives by the Cougars into Rider territory and turned the keys over to an offense that hit the cruise control button. “The secondary is getting better and better,” Frye said. “They did a great job getting the interceptions and I thought our defensive line played better tonight than in past weeks. We hope that continues.”
In a season that St. Marys has expanded the passing game playbook, Friday night’s game was much closer to the vest a week before a WBL showdown. Jake Taylor was 4-for-7 for 21 yards, including a two-point play conversion in the second quarter to Tyler Menker. But the Riders didn’t need anything other than the gaping holes that the St. Marys offensive line was creating in the run game. Both Aaron Homan and Jeremy Frey went over the century mark on the ground and Cody Martin added 76 yards rushing. “As the game wore on, we went back to our running game,” Frye said. “When you get a 21-0 lead, you want to run the ball, mix some other kids into the game. We could have gone back to the passing game, but we felt the running game was something we wanted to concentrate a little bit more on.” The Roughriders averaged 8.8 yards per carry on the night. St. Marys found success with inside traps with Frey and Homan, including Homan’s 51-yard touchdown scamper early in the first quarter that got the Riders on the board first. “That was good, because that’s something we haven’t done very well,” Frye said. “We’ve run the counter, but we haven’t run the trap well. Jeremy Frey did a nice job hitting it up in there a little harder. We saw some improvement there.” “The way we schemed this defense, if kids don’t get to the right spot the counter is open against us,” Priest said. “That’s a good play for them. They get you going heavy one way and then go the other. It’s a highly effective play.” Jeremy Frey scored the first of two long touchdown runs with 3:25 left in the first quarter — a 23-yard run up the middle to make it 13-0 in favor of St. Marys.
C ody Martin busted down the left sideline for a 54-yard touchdown in the second quarter. A two-point pass from Taylor to Menker made it 21-0. The score moved up to 28-0 early in the second half on a three-yard touchdown plunge by Dan Roberts. Jeremy Frey tacked on his second touchdown in the fourth quarter, a 26-yard run up the gut to finish off the scoring with 6:06 left in the game.
Van Wert scored its lone touchdown with 8:00 left in the game on a 17-yard hoist from Fleming to running back Donny Sites. St. Marys last moved to 7-0 in 1993 with a win over 41-14 win over Wapakoneta. Since, unbeaten Riders teams had been tripped up before or in Week 7.. In 2001, Kenton beat a previously-unbeaten Roughriders team in Week 6, 22-21. Kenton beat a 6-0 Rider team 28-0 in 2003. In 2004, Shawnee beat the unbeaten Riders in Week 6, 7-6. Now St. Marys travels to face the preseason favorites, who have lost two straight WBL games and now lack two of their best defensive players for the rest of the season. Frye said his team will treat this game with the same importance as if both teams were still unbeaten. “Dick West is a great football coach and obviously Shawnee is the most talented team in the league,” Frye said. “Everybody talked about how they were going to win the league this year. It will be another big challenge for us.” NOTES: Add another experiment gone well for the Riders. After moving defensive players around like Paul Lauth and Josh Zimmerman into the offennsive rotation, this week it was offensive tackle Michael Breland’s turn to switch sides of the field. Breland played at defensive tackle throughout the game, giving the Riders another run stuffer to stick in the rotation. “Every week we discover a new thing and try new things,” Frye said. “Mike is a pretty big guy and we stuck him in the middle of the defensive front.”...St. Marys had three interceptions, but it could have been more. The Riders sat underneath some flat routes on Friday night, and just had several would-be picks go past the outstretched arms of Rider defenders...St. Marys improved its turnover margin to plus-9 on the season after the Cougars turned the ball over four times (three interceptions and one lost fumble) to St. Marys’ one fumble on a punt return...The Roughriders got sacks from David Long (2) and Adam Lininger and tackle for losses from Long and Paul Lauth. Lauth scooped up a fumble recovery, as well. St. Marys 34
Van Wert 6
1 2 3 4 F
St. Marys 13 8 7 6 34
Van Wert 0 0 0 6 6
SCORING SUMMARY
First Quarter
SM — Aaron Homan 51-yard TD run , Adkins PAT good, SM 7-0, 8:05 (1-play, 51-yard drive).
SM — Jeremy Frey 23-yard TD run, Adkins PAT no good, SM 13-0, 3:25 (9-play, 66-yard drive).
Second Quarter
SM — Cody Martin 54-yard TD run, 2 pt. conversion Jake Taylor to Tyler Menker good, SM 21-0, 6:18 (6-play, 85-yard drive).
Third Quarter
SM — Dan Roberts three-yard TD run, Adkins PAT good, SM 28-0, 6:40 (8-play, 57-yard drive).
Fourth Quarter
VW — Austin Flemming to Donny Sites 17-yard TD pass, PAT no good, SM 28-6, 8:00 (10-play, 70-yard drive).
SM — Jeremy Frey 26-yard TD run, PAT no good, SM 34-6, 6:06 (5-play, 60-yard drive).
SM VW
First Downs 16 11
Rushing 45-396 28-34 Yards per rush 8.8 1.2
Passing 4-7-21 13-31-184
Penalties 3-35 1-5
Total Yards 382 213
Turnovers 1 4
Rushing — SM - Jeremy Frey 14-103, Aaron Homan 7-114, Cody Martin 8-76, Cory Dammeyer 4-21, Jake Taylor 1-2, Kyle Puschel 5-34, Dan Roberts 2-9, Dylan Dietz 4-37.VW - Connor Massillo 9-40, Austin Fleming 10--8, Donny Sites 8-2,
Passing — SM - Jake Taylor 4-7-21. VW - Austin Fleming 13-31-184, 1 TD, 3 INTs.
Receiving — SM - Cody Martin 1-8, Matt Watkins 1-14, Tyler Menker 1-3, Jeremy Frey 1--4. VW - Nate Williams 6-107, Cole Blackmore 1-7, Donny Sites 12-31
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