Poland gets a kick out of first-round victory

Poland Bulldogs vs St. Vincent-St. Mary Fighting Irish

Gallery

The Bulldogs dominated SVSM, 38-14.

By CHUCK HOUSTEAU

Vindicator Correspondent

POLAND — The Poland Bulldogs had a few surprises and a lot of tailback Luke Wollet for the Akron St.Vincent-St.Mary Irish in a Division III, Region 9 playoff game Friday at Dave Pavlansky field.

Wollet scored four touchdowns, rushed for 96 yards and caught four passes for 115 yards to lead the Bulldogs to an impressive 38-14 win

Poland (9-2) executed two perfect onside kicks, including one on the opening kickoff, which resulted in points, scored another touchdown on a trick play and dominated the Irish in all phases.

“We’re very, very happy, obviously,” said Poland coach Mark Brungard. “Coming off of last week’s disappointing week 10 loss and for us to respond the way we did and for things to go our way was special.

“We beat a great program, a perennial program that St.V’s has. It was a great night.”

Things went right for the Bulldogs right from the start when they executed a perfect onside kick that was recovered by Darius Patton.

Poland marched down the field and scored on a 21-yard field goal by Kyle Filicky for a 3-0 lead.

SVSM had the ball for only 11 plays in the first half because of the onside kicks and Poland’s domination.

But the Irish took their first and only lead, 7-3, when Dominique Mitchell beat the Poland secondary on a 74-yard play after catching a pass from Oliver Hildebrant with 3:21 left in the first quarter.

After that it was all Poland with a lot of help from Wollet.

Wollet said the sting from last week’s loss to Canfield was a wakeup call.

“This could have been the last game I would be playing with my buddies,” Wollet said. “We went into practice knowing we had to get better and we worked hard.

“Everything went our way tonight.”

Wollet’s 8-yard touchdown run after he caught a 59-yard pass from Colin Reardon to set up the score in the first quarter gave Poland a 10-7 lead.

Poland then pulled off another onside kick that was recovered by Ed Kosec and marched down to the SVSM 5-yard line.

On fourth-and-2at the 5, Reardon looked like he was trying to draw the Irish offside for a first down and when that didn’t work he walked away from center like he was giving up on the play. Poland then did a direct snap to Wollet that caught SVSM off guard and he nearly walked into the end zone for a 17-7 lead.

“Boy was that fun, what did we have to lose,” Brungard said. “We knew we had to play lights out so we tried some things and boy, they worked.”

Poland pooched the next kickoff and SVSM fumbled to give the Bulldogs great field position again.

Poland went right down the field again and scored on Wollet’s third touchdown, a 1-yard run to take a 24-7 lead into halftime.

“You gotta field kickoffs,” said SVSM coach Dan Boarman. “If you don’t field kickoffs you won’t have much of an offense because you won’t have the ball.

“I’ve never been involved in a game where we didn’t field three kickoffs.”

Poland put the game away in the fourth quarter when Wollet scored on a 54-yard touchdown run after he took a deflection away from an Akron player and raced to the end zone.

The Bulldogs got their final tally on a 1-yard run by Nick Heltzel.

Poland’s defense was outstanding all night as they kept SVSM’s talented running back, Mark Murphy, and receivers Doran Grant and Dominique Mitchell in check most of the game.

Poland held Murphy to 65 yards rushing on nine carries and picked off 2 of Hildebrant’s passes.

“We knew we had to bring heat on their quarterback,” Brungard said. “Our defense was outstanding tonight.”