Saturday, November 17, 2007
Gallery
By TOM WILLIAMS
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
AUSTINTOWN — Ursuline High football coach Dan Reardon isn’t surprised that his Irish found the inspiration to pummel South Range, 31-7, in Friday’s Division V Region 17 playoff.
Reardon, Ursuline’s fourth-year coach, said his players had chips on their shoulders after reading, hearing and seeing their team disrespected by the Mahoning Valley media in the days leading up to the Week 13 contest.
“All week, our kids have been hearing about how much heart South Range has and how much of a work ethic they have and how well-coached they are,” Reardon said. “And they are.
“But our kids work very hard, they have heart and they are well-coached,” Reardon said. “They’ve been hearing in the media from virtually everybody about things that South Range was better than us at. Our kids took great exception to that and I don’t blame them.
The win advances the Irish (11-2) to a state semifinal game next Friday against an opponent to be named on Sunday. It will be Ursuline’s second appearance in the state semifinals in six seasons.
“They took exception to people saying that Ursuline has good athletes and that’s why they win,” Reardon said. “That is not why we win. We win because we have great kids who work hard and they have very good character.”
Friday’s game was over almost as quickly as it began. On the Irish’s first play from scrimmage, sophomore tailback Allen Jones broke through the center of the line for a 67-yard touchdown and 7-0 lead 20 seconds into the game.
“I saw a little bit of a cutback and I took it,” Jones said. “It felt great. After I broke that last tackle, I said I can’t let anybody catch me. This is a big step from the past couple of years.”
Jones was referring to the Irish’s last playoff appearance in 2004.
“This is my best so far,” said Jones who rushed for 137 yards on 12 carries. “I have to give credit to my offensive line — Michael Paul Jenkins, Harold Coates, Justin Brown, Mike Herns and Ryan Kelly.”
Kelly, who shifted from guard to center when Jenkins left the game with a leg injury, said the Irish “had a bad game last week against Apple Creek. We really struggled. So they put it on us this week and we took care of business.”
Deflated by the quick score, the Raiders (12-1, Inter Tri-County League Tier One champions), saw their spirits revived when Nick Golec returned Michael Metzinger’s kickoff 54 yards to the Ursuline 37.
One penalty and three plays that resulted in a loss of 8 yards had the Raiders punting.
Three plays later, Irish senior Darrell Mason burst through the line for a 56-yard score and 14-0 lead with the game not even three mi nutes old. He rushed 10 times for 142 yards.
“Gameplan-wise, we went with some unbalanced formations in the first half, so we had them outflanked a couple of times,” Reardon said. “Our offensive line took care of the rest.”
The Irish’s third possession was a 10-play drive triggered by quarterback Lamar McQueen’s 32-yard run into Raiders territory. Dwaine Thomas’ 4-yard run with 1:53 remaining in the opening quarter had the Irish cruising, 21-0.
“We tried to adjust on the fly to their speed and their speed was pretty good,” South Range coach Dan Yeagley said. “It was tough.
“They are very fast and very big and very strong and they were a very good team,” Yeagley said. “We’ve seen some fast kids but as a team they were very fast.”
The Raiders’ offensive struggles continued in the second quarter when the Irish scored 10 more points.
At halftime, the Irish defenders had shut down South Range’s high-powered scoring machine, limiting the Raiders to 11 yards passing and minus-17 running.
“We came out tough, we executed,” linebacker Nick McGahagan said. “We held them to three-and-out a lot of times, we did our jobs.”
In jumping ahead by 31 points, Reardon said the gameplan worked better than expected.
“If you would have told me that [in advance], I would have been surprised,” Reardon said of the 31-0 lead, “but I know how hard our kids practice. They had something to prove tonight and they did that.”
With 7:22 remaining, South Range quarterback Jack Dawson scrambled for a 27-yard touchdown.
williams@vindy.com