By John Bassetti

bassetti@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

East hasn’t started classes yet, but the Panthers hope to start a winning streak following a 48-6 victory over Cleveland Lincoln-West (0-2) Saturday night at Rayen Stadium.

Running back Derrick Tensley ran for two touchdowns and quarterback Jamir Humphrey ran for one and threw to Taylor Johnson and James Merchant for two more TDs.

Humphrey also recovered a fumble — as did Curtis Bevly — and Rodney Brown returned an interception 97 yards for a TD.

Although East (1-1) clung to a 7-6 lead after one quarter, it became obvious that the Panthers were the superior team. For that reason and because of the threat of lighting after halftime, a continuous clock ran.

DeAndre Johnson also scored from 27 yards out and Jujuan Jones kicked four PATs.

Tensley had eight carries for 109 yards, DeAndre Johnson ran twice for 45 yards and Bevly had four carries for 22 yards.

East outgained the Wolverines, 188-81.

Despite his first win as East’s head coach, Jim Vivo was disappointed.

“Any time you win it’s good, but we keep telling our kids that they’ve got to prepare during the week,” he said. “We didn’t have a very good week and, obviously, it showed.”

Vivo was talking about bad snaps that sailed over Humphrey’s head for 49 yards in losses on back-to-back plays.

“We’re not going to beat the people we play by making those mistakes,” Vivo said. “We won, but we’ve got to get a lot better.”

Vivo didn’t question the Panthers’ skill, with players such as Humphrey and Tensley, but if mistakes the magnitude of those East had Saturday night are made, the talent doesn’t help.

“We’ll just keep working and, hopefully, they’ll get better at those things,” he said. “It’s kind of funny that, when it started raining, we didn’t snap the ball over our [quarterback’s] head once, but when it was dry, we did it 2-3-4 times.”

While Vivo is willing to forgive the bad snaps at this point, he’s not going to tolerate a repeat, or the QB will be under center in the spread offense.

“If we can’t get that snap, we’ll call it a center,” he said.