Sharon Tigers maul Mercer, 27-0

The winning coach said his team has a lot to learn and a long way to go.
By BILL ALBRIGHT
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
SHARON -- What a difference a year makes.
In his rookie season as head coach of the Sharon football team last year, Bob Fromm realized his first win with a 26-6 conquest of the Mercer Mustangs in the fourth game of the season.
Although the victory was a stepping stone for Fromm and his Tigers, it proved to be their only win in a 1-9 season.
Friday at Tiger Stadium, Sharon again defeated the Mustangs by a 27-0 final, but this time it was the third win in four outings. The Tigers are off to their best start since the 2001 campaign.
"I am real happy for the kids because we have been through a few years of frustration," Fromm said. "By no means are we playing to our potential at this time, because we have a lot of room for improvement."
As for the possibility of his team's being 3-1, Fromm used it as a motivator during the week.
"I told the kids, hey, we haven't been 3-1 since the 2001 season and that team ended up in the quarterfinals of the state tournament," he said.
Missed opportunities
The Tigers scored the only points in the first half, needing only four plays to go 58 yards with tailback A.J. Wilson scoring from 3 yards out.
Although the Tigers had scored the only points they would need for the victory, Fromm and his staff were somewhat concerned about the missed opportunities in the first half.
"We just made a lot of mistakes by shooting ourselves in the foot on just about every offensive drive," said Fromm of two penalties that cost the Tigers a pair of touchdowns.
"We are happy to get the win, but believe me, we have a ton of work left to do. We are getting better, and I think we are taking the steps in the right direction. As a staff, we were frustrated with just the one score at the half, but we also knew we were only one or two plays away from scoring a couple more touchdowns."
Though the offense was sputtering at times, the Tiger defense was strong, holding Mercer to just four first downs and 47 yards total offense.
"Obviously, we played a pretty sound ball game on defense and we needed to do that," Fromm said. "We had some frustrating times in camp about reading keys, but we have gotten better each week of the season. Sometimes we do let some kids loose because we don't want them to lose that aggressiveness. It is a long process and it is taking a while, but we are learning to play our defense pretty well. Tonight my hat is off to those guys for putting the zero on the board."
The Tigers finally got things going late in the third period and early in the fourth with a pair of scores as K.J. Smith hauled in a 6-yard pass from Mike Snyderwine before Wilson scored his second touchdown on a 1-yard run.
Wilson finished with 190 yards on 30 carries. Bill Altman scored the game's final touchdown on a 15-yard run.