By BRIAN SMITH
Sports Editor

ELIDA — The St. Marys Roughriders kept everyone guessing this season.

This season had fake field goal game winners, late long passes down the sideline for scores, fumble recovery runbacks and  goal line stands . It all gave the team that no one knew anything about going into August the league’s biggest accomplishment.

St. Marys grabbed a share of a Western Buckeye League championship, while rolling up almost 700 total yards of offense against Elida in a 68-20 jaunt into the Rider record books and into the postseason. St. Marys, Defiance, Shawnee and Kenton all won a piece of the title.

Even when they were on top of the league and the state, they didn’t do the expected, falling in back-to-back games only to recover in Week 10 to win a Western Buckeye League championship.

Through the  first seven weeks where the Roughriders performed well beyond original expectations to the wilderness weeks against Shawnee and Kenton and back to normality on Friday night, the 2008 St. Marys Roughriders shocked and impressed, frustrated and befuddled.

Now they’re clearly champions. There’s no confusing that.

“It’s always a big deal when you’re Western Buckeye League champs,” St. Marys head coach Doug Frye said. “Whether you share it or not, it’s a special moment. To me it’s a special season. The last two weeks were disappointing, but nobody expected anything out of us this season. Now we have part of the championship and will play in the postseason. Who knows once you’re there?”

The Riders become the 22nd WBL champion in school history — four better than Van Wert’s 18 all-time league titles.
It’s the first league title since 2004, when St. Marys, when the Riders shared the crown with Shawnee.

The chameleon football team is hoping to shock people for  a few more weeks, too.

“We’re just excited to still be playing,” Frye said. “I’m just glad we’re not putting equipment away. It’s icing on the cake, it’s an extra season. We’re excited about it.”

The Riders (8-2, 7-2 in the WBL) will hit the road in Week 11, likely playing at Tipp City Tippecanoe. The Riders and played Tipp City in the preseason in a scrimmage back in August.

St. Marys will return to the postseason for the first time since 2006 and got there in style.

The Riders had 668 yards on the ground without a single pass in the game.

St. Marys scored 21 points in both the first and second quarters to put the game away early, ripping off dozens of yards per rushing attempt while not allowing a first down to the Elida offense in the first half.

Jeremy Frye rushed for 180 yards and three touchdowns in the first half. He was joined by two other St. Marys running backs who went over 100 yards on the night.

Dylan Dietz went over the century mark for the first time this season with 130 yards rushing. Cody Martin also cracked triple digits with 103 yards on the ground.

Kyle Puschel ran for 87 yards, much of it in the second half.

St. Marys did not throw the ball once on Friday night, getting back to what made it so explosive early in the season — an offensive line opening up big holes up front and running backs running hard for extra yards after contact.

“I know Elida wasn’t the best team we’ve played all year, but I really thought we clicked tonight.  Things are starting to come back to where they were at earlier. I’m proud of our kids today.”

St. Marys came up two points shy of the school record for points in a game — a mark the Riders tied last year in a 70-7 win over the Bulldogs. St. Marys scored 70 in 1991 against Van Wert, as well.

Elida lost for the 20th straight game, finishing a second straight season under coach Jason Carpenter at 0-10.
Elida put up a fight in the second half though, matching its season-high scoring output with those 20 points in the second half. The Bulldogs scored 20 points last week against Wapakoneta.

St. Marys celebrated the title by grouping near the St. Marys All Brass Band in the endzone, holding up helmets as the fight song played.

It was the strangest of Doug Frye’s three WBL championships as a coach. Instead of going into the season a prohibitive favorite in the league, most didn’t even know if the Riders could win seven games this season.

They did that in seven games with an offense that piled up nearly 30 points per game over the first seven weeks of the season. And while the offense racked up big numbers, St. Marys’ defense continued to improve each week.

By Week 10, the defense had Frye’s seal of approval.

“Our defense has really been coming on the last three weeks of the season,” Frye said.

St. Marys held Bowling Green football recruit C.J. Warren to just 44 yards on four catches and Elida’s spread offense only found some traction when the game was already out of hand and many of the Roughrider starting defensive players were already relaxing on the sidelines.

Now Frye hopes that everything is back on track going into the postseason.

“In that second quarter, I thought our offense was back to where it was earlier in the season. I saw some good signs tonight. The offensive line gelled tonight. We were crisp, we were sharp. We had to get our mojo back and I thought we started to get it back tonight.”

St. Marys will find out who it plays over the weekend in the first game of the playoffs. JoeEitel.com has accurate predictions on who will play who, while the official announcement will be made on OHSAA.org. Look in Monday’s Evening Leader for a full breakdown on who St. Marys plays and what the Region 10 playoff picture looks like.

Kenton and Shawnee  will be outside the playoff picture after all three won on Friday night. Both had 7-3 records.

The first half ended with a scary scene. With St. Marys driving deep into Elida territory with one minute left, Elida junior defensive back and quarterback Desmond Ragin went down with an injury and was not moving and face down on the field. After about ten minutes of stoppage, he was rolled onto a board and taken off the field on a stretcher. There was no word as of print time as to Ragin’s condition.

Frey scored the first four touchdowns on runs of 11, 52, 27 and two yards.

Aaron Homan went in from 20 yards out to make it 35-0. Jake Taylor took a sneak in from 16 yards out with 45 seconds left in the first half to make it 42-0 at the half.

Elida answered back with a Alex McAdams to Austin Etzler 36-yard touchdown hook-up to get the Bulldogs on the board.

Cody Martin answered back with an eight-yard scamper to paydirt. Justin Thomas plowed in for the Riders to make it 55-7.

Quarterback Reggie McAdams got the third score of the night for Elida with an 11-yard run.

St. Marys’ Thomas scored a again on a two-yard run to make it 62-13. Allen Broyles scored St. Marys’ final touchdown from four yards out with 2:11 left in the game to make it 68-20.v