Ground game carries Irish over Redmen

The one-two punch of Terrence Graves and Delbert Ferguson led Ursuline to a 54-0 win.
By BOB ROTH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Ursuline High football team used a devastating ground game as it scored eight touchdowns, seven in the first half Friday night, to derail Wilson 54-0 at Stambaugh Stadium.
For the second consecutive week, it was the Irish's powerful one-two punch of junior Terrence Graves and sophomore Delbert Ferguson who led the way.
Both played only the first half and accounted for 284 of the Irish's 432 rushing yards.
Graves scored the first two touchdowns, on one-play drives, on runs of 48 and 41 yards. He finished with 115 yards on seven attempts.
"On my first run, John Angelo and Brandon Brown, my fullbacks, did some excellent blocking for me and the second TD, a draw play, was set up by a great block from Jimmy Riley," Graves said.
Top rusher: Ferguson, who also tallied on one-play drives, scored on 50- and 66-yard runs and was the team's top rusher with 169 yards on five carries.
"Our offensive line just dominated the game, blowing people off the ball, and for me our downfield blocking by Isaiah Poindexter, Louis Irizarry and Jimmy Riley was big," Ferguson said.
Sophomore quarterback Darryl Clark threw a pair of touchdown passes that gave him five on the season on just five completions.
Defensively for the Irish, Rob Smaltz was just one of the standouts. The 6-foot, 210-pound senior linebacker had six solo tackles and recovered two Redmen fumbles.
"I had to do some digging on both of those recoveries, but I was right there to get them," said Smaltz. "Wilson was tough up front, but we are starting to jell offensively."
Great week: Jim Vivo, coach of Ursuline, said, "We had a great week of practice, and the first half of this game was as well as we have played since I have been here.
"The weather dictated what we did," he said. "We wanted to pass more, but because of the wet field we had to run the football.
"Defensively, our people up front and our secondary really played well."
Wilson (0-2) only had 52 total offensive yards. A high point was, after the second Ursuline touchdown, the Redmen's Quinn Humphries returned a kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown, but a needless clip brought it back.
Ursuline had a 17-3 advantage in first downs.
"Ursuline is a great football team," Wilson coach Mark Lyden said. "They have it all -- good running, good passing and an outstanding defense.
"We had a lot of missed tackles and we didn't do much on the offensive side of the ball, so we have a lot of work to do."