Defense is a shade better

By PETE MOLLICA

VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF

YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown State defensive unit will keep its red practice jerseys for the remainder of the 2008 football season, but that accomplishment didn’t come easy.

In fact, it came down to the final play of Saturday’s Red and White jersey scrimmage at Stambaugh Stadium.

The score was deadlocked 45-45 and the offense had the football, fourth-and-1 at their own 29 yard line. If the offense made the first down, it wins the scrimmage. But if the defense holds, it wins.

The defense held and it wasn’t even close.

Led by All-American tackle Mychal Savage, the defense ganged up on junior running back Jabari Scott and nailed him for a 2-yard loss to win the scrimmage, 46-45.

“That’s what it came down to and the defense responded and the offense didn’t,” YSU head coach Jon Heacock said.

“I just told the kids that whenever you scrimmage against yourself something is going to look good on one side and bad on the other.

“The defense allowed two big touchdown plays, which wasn’t good, but the offense produced those plays, which was good,” Heacock said. “On the same hand, the offense turned the ball over twice on fumbles, which wasn’t good, but the defense forced and recovered those fumbles which was good.

“Overall there was a lot of good hitting going on and I was pleased with the enthusiasm on both sides,” Heacock said. “We still won’t know everything until we evaluate the tapes.”

Junior quarterback Todd Rowan, who is expected to be the team’s starter come Aug. 30 when the Penguins travel to Columbus to meet Ohio State, saw his first real action in scrimmage play. Rowan has been recovering from an injury to his leg.

“I though Todd did okay since he’s out there trying to play while he’s still hurting, but he wants to be there,” Heacock said. “He looked a little rusty, but that’s just from not getting any action to date.”

Even rusty, Rowan didn’t take long to put points on the board for the offense as on the first series he connected with Scott for a 76-yard touchdown pass.

Scott did most of the work on the play as Rowan just dumped off a short pass in the backfield and the 5-foot-10, 195-pound speedster from San Antonio took it from there, cutting back across the field, getting open and out-racing the defense to the end zone.

Rowan finished the scrimmage 5-of-10 passing for 136 yards and the touchdown. Junior transfer Brandon Summers also was impressive as he connected of 10-of-15 passes for 157 yards and two touchdowns.

One was a 45-yard toss to sophomore wide receiver Dominique Barnes, who made a nice over-the-head grab for the score. The other was to redshirt freshman receiver Josh Lee, who leaped high in the end zone to grab a 16-yard scoring pass.

The defense came up nine sacks, but the quarterbacks were considered down as soon as they were touched. The defensive rush was outstanding.

“I thought we played very well today, especially shutting down the run,” Savage said. “We were all running to the football and that’s all you saw was red around the ball on every play.”

Freshman tackle Joe Marshall led the way with two sacks while sophomore free safety Andre Elliott finished with eight tackles and a forced fumble.

Savage and sophomore Torrance Nicholson each had six tackles while redshirt freshman linebacker David Rach of South Range had five tackles, two for losses and one sack.

Freshman Noah Taylor and senior Mike Barlak each had five tackles and one sack.

Junior cornerback Lenny Wicks recovered one fumble and sophomore defensive end Nick Mernedakis picked up the other one.

The running game was pretty much bottled up by the defense. Top rusher was redshirt freshman Kamryn Keys with 31 yards on 11 carries. Freshman Gary Thornton added 30 yards on nine carries and junior Dana Brown had 25 on six tries.

The top receiver was Barnes with 95 yards on four catches while senior Ferlando Williams had three catches for 37 yards.

“I thought the offense came together today and we looked sharp at times, but we didn’t get the job done at the end when we need to do it,” Williams said. “We’re coming and we’re getting better every day, we just have to keep working at it.”

Senior place kicker Brian Palmer of Mineral Ridge had a good scrimmage. He was three-for-three in field goals under game conditions, including one from 51 yards out and another from 46 yards.

Sophomore kicker Stephen Blose from Erie, Pa., handled the kickoffs and all three of his boots from the 30-yard line made it inside the 5-yard line, although one was returned for 42 yards by Lee.

The Penguins will hold a single workout today at 2:30 p.m. and return to two-a-day workouts on Monday at 8:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. at Stambaugh.

mollica@vindy.com