By Chuck Housteau

The Panthers made a few mistakes but they did enough to get the win.

CANFIELD — The two-year-old East High football team is batting .500 in season openers.

The Panthers defeated Cleveland South in a mistake-filled 26-6 victory Saturday night at Canfield High.

“There’s an old saying that it is better to win ugly than to lose and play a good game,” East coach Brian Shaner said. “That was us tonight.

“But you know what we’ve never been 1-0 and we’re going to enjoy it, but I don’t think our players know how much work we have to do to get better.”

The Panthers were saddled with several bad snaps from center, two turnovers and several costly penalties but still managed to make enough big plays to come away with a victory.

“We gave them two scores,” Cleveland South coach Jarvis Gibson said. “We gave them their first score [on an errant lateral] and on the kickoff return.

“We can be a good team but I think we needed this punch in the mouth by East to make us realize that,” Gibson said.

The Panthers scored in the opening minutes after an East punt pinned the Flyers at their own 10.

A pass from heralded South quarterback Devontae Payne to Alexander Brown was ruled a lateral and picked up by East’s Braylon Rogers and returned for a touchdown.

East led 6-0 after the extra point kick was blocked.

Both teams struggled offensively for most of the first half, but two big plays allowed both teams to score before halftime.

Midway through the first period, Payne showed why he is a coveted Division I college prospect when he led the Flyers on their only scoring drive.

The 6-foot-6 quarterback completed a 16-yard pass to Brown and then found his favorite receiver again for a 38-yard touchdown pass to tie the score at 6-6.

Payne finished 9 of 22 for 155 yards. Brown caught seven of those passes for 142 yards and a score.

The Panthers regrouped in the second quarter and slowly moved the ball when they began to utilize the stacked-I formation because of several bad snaps in their spread offense.

Anthony Robinson, who rushed for 130 yards on 18 carries, raced around left end 62 yards for a score and a 12-6 halftime lead.

“We did some good things tonight especially on defense,” Shaner said. “We’re not going to be able to line up with people offensively and take them on like last year.

“We’re going to have to score with our defense and on special teams like we did tonight.”

East’s Michael Starkey did that at the start of the second half when he took the kickoff and raced 89 yards for a touchdown.

East’s defense was outstanding all night long as they pressured Payne and knocked him out of the game for several series in the third quarter.

The Panthers defense sacked Payne three times and limited the Flyers to 20 rushing yards on the ground.

The Panthers closed out the scoring in the fourth quarter when Rogers completed his only pass for a 20-yard scoring play to Mose Fleeton.