By joe scalzo

scalzo@vindy.com

niles

Niles senior quarterback Stefan Yuhas ran for more than 100 yards, threw for more than 100 yards and scored two touchdowns, including the game-winner with less than three minutes left.

And yet, after Friday’s game, he looked like a man who had just avoided a car wreck.

“It would feel so bad if we had lost this,” said Yuhas, who helped the Red Dragons to a 12-6 win over Liberty at Bo Rein Stadium. “It was so frustrating because we felt like we controlled the whole game and the scoreboard didn’t show it until the end.

“We have harder games ahead of us. This was one we needed to win.”

In one of the ugliest games you’ll ever see, Niles overcame three turnovers, three empty red-zone trips, 45 yards in penalties and some bad kickoff coverage to improve to 2-0 for the second straight straight year.

“Any time you get a win, it’s a good win,” said first-year coach Brian Shaner. “There are ugly wins out there.

“I’m not going to take anything away from Liberty. I said going in, that’s a much-improved Liberty team. They play with a lot of heart and a lot of fight.”

What the Leopards don’t play with is a lot of offensive cohesion, at least not yet. Liberty also had three turnovers and managed just 19 yards rushing on 34 carries, getting its lone score on John Helms’ 85-yard kickoff return to start the second half.

But Liberty’s defense repeatedly came up big, keeping the Leopards in it until the closing minutes when Niles capped a 15-play, 80-yard drive with Yuhas’ 2-yard run with 2:42 left.

“Niles is a superior football team,” said first-year coach Brian Jones. “They played a great game and they had a good defensive plan.

“We knew what they would do on offense, which was run with Yuhas. We felt we played a great defensive game. They put 34 on Girard [last week] and 12 on us, so we felt good about that.”

Yuhas carried 33 times for 130 yards and John Cicero added 93 yards on 12 carries, with 92 of those yards coming in the second half.

“The kid never says a word, he’s always working hard and we bumped him into the starting role tonight and he took advantage of it,” Shaner said of Cicero. “It was a special night for him the way he ran the ball.”