Crafty punter helps Cards outfox DeSales

By Joe Scalzo

MASSILLON — On a field filled with some of the state’s biggest and best players, a 5-foot-9 punter named A.J. Fox made the biggest play.

It came with about seven minutes left in the second quarter of Friday’s game with Mooney leading Columbus DeSales 7-0.

On a fourth-and-13 at the Stallions’ 45, A.J. Fox lined up to punt when the snap flew over his head. He retreated back to the Mooney 30 to pick up the ball, headed for the right sideline and got off a line drive punt that rolled to the Stallions’ 4. Senior Adam Griffin picked it up, but was immediately buried under three Cardinal tacklers.

“I’ve been taught to run in that situation, but I saw they weren’t really blitzing me so I decided to kick it,” Fox said.

Did he try to angle it?

“I just tried to get it out,” he said.

When Coach P.J. Fecko heard that, he said, “You should have told them you tried to angle it. That was your chance.”

On the next play, DeSales QB Nick Gentile fumbled away the ball and it was recovered by Mooney senior Mark Pelini at the 1.

Cardinals QB Alex Zordich scored on the next play to make it 14-0.

Fox, a first team all-district player who averages an area-best 41 yards per punt, quit soccer after his sophomore year to focus on football, where he could end up being a Division I college player.

“A.J.’s done a really good job all year of winning the battle of field position,” Fecko said. “That shows the focus that he has and the tenacity that he has to make sure he gets that ball off. And he not only got it off, but pins them inside the 5.”

“It was huge,” Fox said of the play’s impact. “My heart was racing. I was sweating.”

Ultimately, the play probably didn’t affect the game’s outcome, but there’s little question it sapped a lot of the drama.

“That’s kind of our whole day in a nutshell,” DeSales coach Ryan Wiggins said. “We can’t get a break when we needed one or two against a team like this. That goes from being a possible field-position changer or a turnover in our favor to them pinning us down at the 4 and on the next play we fumble.

“So that was a big momentum swing right there. But when you look at the whole game in general, we didn’t do enough to win.”

scalzo@vindy.com