Never-say-die Tigers
rally
past Iggy
By JOE SHAHEEN
Joe.Shaheen@IndeOnline.com
Four quarters.
Forty-eight minutes of football.
The Massillon Tigers felt as if they didn’t play a full
game in their biggest win of the season, a harrowing 35-31 victory over
Cincinnati Elder in Week Two. They gave up three fourth-quarter touchdowns in
that one to turn a laugher into a nail biter.
The Tigers were determined that wouldn’t be the case on
Saturday night at Byers Field in
“We never gave up,” said Tiger coach Tom Stacy. “We
established before the game started we were playing four quarters. We weren’t
going to do what we did down at Elder when we went up big and they came back in
the fourth quarter. It was our time to play four quarters and we did it.”
But the Tigers were undeterred.
“We got off to a terrible start,” said Stacy. “Give them credit, they did a good job in the kicking game. That really
cost us and I really felt if we could get back into it before the end of the
first half that we’d have a chance.”
The Tiger comeback officially began with 8:03 showing on
the second quarter game clock and the ball at the
Junior quarterback Bobby Huth
then found Zack Vanryzin for 14 yards and a first
down, and the Tigers kept working their way downfield. A holding penalty set
But St. Ignatius countered with a three-play 76-yard
touchdown sprint that took all of 1:20 and followed with a 50-yard field goal
at the break that seemed to swing the momentum away from
“Our kids at halftime, they were just ticked off,” Stacy
said. “They said ‘We’re going to get back into it.’”
And they did, taking the second half kickoff and moving
from the
From there, Gamble carried the ball three times as did
junior fullback Quentin Nicholson, who covered the final yard for the
touchdown. Schott’s point after made it 19-14 Ignatius midway through the third
period.
St. Ignatius did what all great teams do, returning the
favor with a seven-play scoring drive, highlighted by a 61-yard Rudy Kirbus to Nick Secue screen pass.
Secue scored from a yard out with 3:54 left in the
third and the conversion made it St. Ignatius 26,
Back came the Tigers, this time with a 90-yard drive. Huth and Vanryzin meshed for a
23-yard gainer along the right sideline on the second play of the march. An
unsportsmanlike conduct call on the Wildcats on a third down play gave the
Huth threaded the needle to Brett Huffman for 25 yards to the
St. Ignatius 2. Two plays later the
It was St. Ignatius 26,
St. Ignatius moved from its 20 to its 37 on the ensuing
possession but on third-and-four from that point tragedy struck the Wildcats. Kirbus dropped back and hit Parris with a pass, only to see
the ball dislodged on a thunderous hit by Gamble that left the Ignatius
All-Ohio wideout sprawled prone on the Byers Field
playing surface.
Coach Chuck Kyle and a trainer rushed to Parris’ side but
he had to be removed from the game via ambulance with an ugly looking lower leg
injury.
“We were moving the ball but Robby’s hurt,” Kyle said.
“He’s hurt. It’s not good. It’s bad.”
The Tiger defense had no margin for error and it came
through, forcing a St. Ignatius punt after just three plays.
“Third-and-three, third-and-four,” Kyle said. “We didn’t
convert a couple of those and that hurts. That hurts. You have to make a play
at that point. They did. We didn’t.”
Beginning at their own 29, the
Tigers got a big play as Gamble broke free for 19 yards on an option pitch
around left end. Then senior running back Lanale
Robinson picked up 10 more on a counter play to the Iggy
37.
On an incomplete pass, however, Huth
was dinged and wobbled off the field
with the aid of trainers. That brought in Weisend,
who – two snaps later –
was faced with a fourth-and-15 situation.
“Shawn Weisend never batted an
eye, never batted an eye,” Stacy said. “He looked at me and said ‘Coach, I’m
going to get it done,’ and he did.”The unflappable
senior hit Vanryzin across the middle on a broken
play for a 26-yard gain to the host’s 17-yard line.
“It was a busted play, I had to scramble,” Weisend recalled. “He wasn’t open at first. I was
scrambling and I saw him going across the middle and I threw him the best ball I
could.”
On second down Weisend threw a
quick slant to Vanryzin who didn’t stop churning his
legs until the ball was at the 4.
A pass interference call on St. Ignatius set up first and
goal from the 2. After a loss of three yards on first down, Weisend
took the shotgun snap, sprinted left, saw an opening and dashed for the pylon
and the game-winning touchdown with just :10 on the
clock.
“Their offense started doing some nice things, counters,
hitting those little passes, just to keep us off balance,” Kyle said. “Hey,
they’re on a roll. Tom’s doing a great job. They got the momentum going. You’ve
got to give them credit.
“They were still running the counter and started finding a
seam through there. And then rolling out, they were getting outside the contain. And even on the touchdown, we thought we were
in a good call. We were coming from way outside and coming in. I have to see
why the guy didn’t pin him in because we were coming from way outside and
coming in.”
“What a great high school football game,” Stacy said.
“That’s a big win for us.
“We’re a good football team. I think we’ll learn a lot
about our team on tape. But we beat a really good football team. I don’t think
there’s any question about that.”
Stacy admitted the Tigers got a monkey off their back by
finally getting past St. Ignatius for the first time in nine games.
“Our kids believed they could do it,” he said. “If that
hadn’t been the case, there was no way they could come back from 11 down at
halftime. We couldn’t have done it. But our kids believed all week they could
do and you can see the end result.
“The thing that impressed me was how hard both teams played
and our resolve. Our resolve to get it done was unbelievable. I haven’t been
around that kind of resolve probably since the Galion state championship game
in 1985. Our guys wouldn’t back down.”
“(Defensive coordinator) Steve Kovacs made some great
adjustments at halftime,” Stacy said. “He kept his cool and made some great
adjustments and I’ve got to give him a lot of credit.”
Backup
QB proves big
By JOE SHAHEEN
Joe.Shaheen@IndeOnline.Com
In the long and storied history of Massillon Tiger
football, Shawn Weisend has written his number into a
chapter all to himself.
The senior back-up quarterback came off the bench with less
than two minutes to play after an injury to starter Bobby Huth
and completed the game-winning drive that carried
The Tiger win snapped an eight-game losing streak to St.
Ignatius and lifted a weight off the program’s back that had reached crushing proportions
in the last several years.
With tears of elation streaming down his face after scoring
the game-winning touchdown, Weisend tried to express
his emotions.
“I can’t explain how it feels,” he said amidst a joyous
on-field celebration. “They called my number and I did the best I could. They
all had faith in me and faith in the offense.
“Before I was in, Bobby was in, there was 7:10 left and I
said ‘It’s going to come down to seconds. Let’s take
this game home.’ We did it.”
Trailing 26-21 and facing a fourth down-and-15 from near
midfield, Weisend received a critical block from
tackle Brendon Smith to elude a fierce pass rush and
threw a strike to senior wideout Zack Vanryzin for 25 yards – and a first down – to the St. Ignatius
17.
On the next play, Weisend hit Vanryzin on a quick slant at the 10 and Vanryzin
scratched and clawed his way to the 4-yard line.
Four plays later, from the St. Ignatius 5, Weisend rolled left, dove into the left corner of the end
zone and victory was
What was going through Weisend’s
head minutes earlier when he was summoned into such a huge game with the
outcome hanging in the balance?
“I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “I was more focused
than I ever was in my life. I knew I had to do it and I did it.”
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