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Rallying for Red
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YSU WR Dionte Snow can't break away from safety Scott Sentner during Saturday's scrimmage at Stambaugh Stadium. Sentner is a McDonald high graduate.
Penguins offense comes from way back
YOUNGSTOWN — The way the Youngstown State offense played Saturday, nobody would have given them much of a chance to retain the red practice jerseys that the players have had since spring practice.
Midway through the first jersey scrimmage of the fall camp, the YSU defense was playing outstandingly and the offense found itself trailing 41-10.
Through the first three series with the No. 1 offense going against the No. 1 defense, the offense was held to minus 6 yards rushing and just 6 total yards.
But the offense came to life in the second half. Sparked by a freshman quarterback, the offense pulled off a trick play on the final play of the regulation session for a 52-49 come-from-behind victory to retain their red jerseys, for at least another week.
Freshman quarterback Kurt Hess, a recruit from Dayton, led the offense to two late touchdowns. The final one came on the old hook-and-lateral play that produced the winning points.
From his own 36 yard line, Hess found a wide-open Aaron Pitts, a senior wide receiver, at midfield. Pitts made a perfect lateral to junior wide receiver Dominique Barnes, who cut across the field outraced everybody to the end zone.
“It was a play that we had way back in the playbook and I don’t think we ever used it before, but we needed something to keep us going,” Pitts said.
The play came on a fourth-down situation and if it hadn’t worked the defense would have won the scrimmage.
“It came down to you have to win the fourth quarter and the offense did and the defense didn’t,” YSU head coach Jon Heacock said. “I thought both sides played very hard. The offense came out a little flat to start and the defense was fired up.”
The offense produced four touchdowns. Surprisingly, senior starting quarterback Brandon Summers didn’t have a hand in any of the scores. He threw the only interception of the session and finished his day hitting 7-of-9 passes for 35 yards.
Hess finished with 5-of-11 completions for 106 yards and one touchdown. He also directed another scoring drive that ended with a 14-yard end around touchdown run by sophomore wide receiver Josh Lee.
Barnes caught three passes for 66 yards, two of them for touchdowns. He also caught an 8-yard scoring toss from sophomore Dailyn Campbell for the offense’s first touchdown.
Campbell, who went into the scrimmage as the No. 2 quarterback, finished 7-of-8 passing for 36 yards and also rushed 11 times for 38 yards.
Sophomore Marc Kanetsky, a Hubbard native, finished 9-of-13 passing for 77 yards and had an 8-yard touchdown pass to sophomore Dionte Snow.
The defense dominated the early goings sparked by sophomore linebacker David Rach, a former South Range High standout who had 12 total tackles. Six of them were for losses and one sack.
Sophomore linebacker Deonta Tate had 11 tackles, two for losses while senior tackle Mychal Savage, who is returning after missing almost all of last season, had 10 tackles, one for a loss.
“I thought the defense played well early, forced some turnovers to get points, but the offense never quit playing and they came back and made the plays at the end like they needed to,” Heacock said.
Savage said that the defense had control of the scrimmage, but then let things get away from them.
“We’ve got an exciting group out there and we really came out ready to play, but we’ve got to remain consistent the entire way and we didn’t do that today,” Savage said.
Summers wasn’t the only senior starter that didn’t have a good day for the offense.
Senior tailbacks Kevin Smith, Jabari Scott and Dana Brown combined for a total of 15 yards on 15 carries.
The top rusher was freshman Jermaine Cook who finished with 69 yards on 14 carries. Campbell was the second best rusher with 38 yards on 11 tries.
Cook also fumbled twice with sophomore Scott Sentner of McDonald picking up one and former Cardinal Mooney safety Vinnie Patella, a redshirt freshman, getting the other.
Junior linebacker Na’eem Outler had the game’s only interception, picking off Summers.
The Penguins have today off and return for one more week of camp before school starts on Aug. 24. They will hold a second jersey scrimmage on Saturday at 9:50 a.m.
mollica@vindy.com