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McDonald faces dangerous Wellsville offense
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Wellsville vs McDonald
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High School football week 5. Wellsville vs McDonald. McDonald won 50-12.
By Pete Mollica
McDONALD — If there is one thing that McDonald High football coach Dan Williams and Wellsville coach Dale Skinner are in agreement on, it’s that tonight’s Inter Tri-County League (Tier Two) battle between will be a real dog fight.
Both teams come into the contest with perfect 4-0 season records and are 1-0 in the conference. The Tigers are ranked No. 2 in Region 23 of Division VI in the first computer rankings, while the Blue Devils are No. 5 in Region 21.
McDonald won its conference opener last week with a 50-6 victory over Lowellville, while the Tigers won their league opener with a 20-0 shutout over Southern.
Both teams have outstanding running backs to lead their respective offenses. Wellsville has 6-foot-2, 210-pound senior Jeremy Carter and the Blue Devils are led by 5-10, 180 senior Nick Cupan.
Last week, Carter ran for 185 yards on 37 carries and scored three touchdowns, including a 94-yard jaunt against Southern, while Cupan rushed for 118 yards on 18 carries and scored four touchdowns against the Rockets.
“He’s all I got and I’m sure glad that he’s playing for Wellsville,” said Skinner about Carter. “He one of the best that I’ve seen in a long time around here.
Skinner, who is in his third season with the Tigers and has a 16-8 overall record, said his team is living up to his preseason expectations.
“Probably the two reasons that we’ve been having this success are our senior leadership and our offensive line,” Skinner said. “We’ve got nine seniors who have just been doing an outstanding job leading this team, while our offensive line was somewhat of a question mark going into the season, but they have really gelled and developed into an outstanding unit.”
When the season began, Carter was listed as a quarterback, which he played last season, but was moved to tailback before the opener.
“We did some evaluating there before the season and made the switch and it was probably the best move that we could have made,” said Skinner.
While Carter has been Mr. Everything to the Tigers on offense, the defense is led by senior middle linebacker Bubba Dowling, also a three-year letterman.
“He’s a good one and he’s gotten so much better over a year’s time and he was pretty good last year,” Skinner added.
McDonald’s Williams wasn’t sure what to expect this season after losing all-state running back Alex Sampson and several other key players through graduation.
“We knew we had a pretty good nucleus coming back, but we needed to get our new kids some early game experience,” Williams said. “We are very happy to be in this situation right now.”
With Sampson gone the Blue Devils have relied mainly on Cupan.
“He’s our horse and last year he missed a couple of games with injuries and still rushed for 800 yards,” Williams added. “He moved to fullback this year and really stepped up his game and he’s definitely our go-to guy.”
Williams said that the key to the Blue Devils’ defense has been the play of the front four.
That group, all seniors, include David John (6-3, 210), Trent Clay (6-2, 210), Same Claybourne (6-2, 250) and Mike Kelly (6-0, 210).
“They’ve played so well this season and are a key reason that we’ve only been giving up 10 points a game,” he added. “We got the most returning veterans on defense and they have really been the key this season.”
Williams knows that the key to beating Wellsville will be to contain Carter.
“He’s a good one and they like to get him the football 30 times a game,” he added. “They don’t throw the ball much and we don’t expect them to change things against us. We know we are going to have our hands full.”
mollica@vindy.com