By CHRIS
EASTERLING
The Independent
The St. Ignatius Wildcats spent the first
half of Friday night’s game at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium putting on a clinic. Unfortunately
for the Massillon Tigers, they were on the other end of the Wildcats’
demonstration.
St. Ignatius jumped out to a 49-0
halftime lead and never looked back in posting a 49-7 victory over the Tigers
in front of around 8,000 at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium. It is the worst defeat
the Tiger program has suffered since a 46-0 loss to
“They came out and executed, and we
buried ourselves in a hole defensively and offensively
right off the bat,” Tiger coach Jason Hall said. “We were just never able to
... we were just almost shell-shocked. That’s the feeling I saw and I felt with
our kids. They’re a good football team. Do I think they’re 49-7 better than us?
No. We made some mistakes in all phases of the game. It’s just a situation where
we have to keep working.”
The loss dropped
The Wildcats, who led 35-0 after one
quarter, scored on all five of their first-half possessions, and added a pair
of interception returns for scores in building up their seven-score edge at the
intermission.
“Mainly the message was like anything
else,” Hall said of the halftime talk. “I told them it’s a life lesson. Winners
fight and losers quit.”
St. Ignatius, which has won five in a row
since dropping their season opener to Glenville, was led by the precision
passing of quarterback Andrew Holland.
By the end of the first quarter,
“Quarterback presence really was what you
saw tonight,” St. Ignatius coach Chuck Kyle said. “When he felt the pressure
from the outside, he did a very good job of stepping up into a seam and still
looking downfield. A lot of quarterbacks will step up, but they look down to
see where they can run. But he was still looking up for where he could throw,
and that paid off.”
Where the Wildcats hurt the Tigers the
most was with the deep post pattern. Connor Ryan had all three of his catches
for 136 yards and two scores on that particular play.
Joey Parris added five catches for 101 yards
and a touchdown.
While the Wildcat offense was clicking on
all cylinders in the first half in racking up 373 yards, the Tigers were
struggling to get anything going against a stout St. Ignatius defense.
“They controlled the line of scrimmage on
both sides of the ball,” Hall said. “They were being aggressive. We just
couldn’t get anything moving up front.”
Adding to
The Tigers’ first score didn’t come until
J.T. Turner stepped in front of a pass in the third quarter and returned it 60
yards for a touchdown to make it 49-7 Ignatius.
St. Ignatius 49,
At
Paul Brown Tiger Stadium
St. Ignatius 35 14 00 00 49
SCORING SUMMARY
SI – C. Ryan 30 pass from Holland (Hennessey kick)
SI – J. Ryan 25 interception return (Hennessey kick)
SI – C. Ryan 68 pass from Holland (Hennessey kick)
SI – Parris 25 pass from Holland (Hennessey kick)
SI – Fox 35 interception return (Hennessey kick)
SI – Holland 1 run (Hennessey kick)
SI – Johnson 47 run (Hennessey kick)
M – Turner 60 interception return (Geier kick)
First downs 15 9
Rushes-yards 35-145 32-78
Comp-att-int. 10-14-1 9-26-3
Passing yards 262 57
Fumbles-lost 2-0 2-0
Penalty yards 59 35
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing:
Roberson
8-29;
Turner
10-27;
Reiman 6-19.
St. Ignatius
Johnson
18-129 TD;
Myers
3-19.
Passing:
Partridge
9-21-57 INT;
St. Ignatius
Myers
0-2-0 INT;
Teresczuk 0-1-0.
Receiving:
Phillips
3-19;
Roberson
2-6;
Remark
1-10;
Adkins
1-8;
Grunder 1-7;
Price
1-7.
St. Ignatius
Parris
5-101 TD;
C.
Ryan 3-136 2 TDs;
DeSico 1-17;
Johnson
1-8.
Records:
St. Ignatius 5-1.