Rootstown plays keep-away to beat Valley Christian

October 7, 2018 at 12:05a.m.

By BOB ETTINGER

POLAND

There are nights the offense just isn’t going to click, which is exactly what Valley Christian experienced on Saturday night. Rootstown didn’t help the Eagles out much in that regard as it kept the ball out of the Eagles hands in a 30-16 victory at Dave Pavlansky Field.

“We just couldn’t get the offense going,” Valley Christian co-head coach Jeff Hether said. “There were certain things we saw we could go after and we went after them. We just couldn’t produce. We came out and smashed some heads, but it didn’t show.”

The Eagles (5-2, 1-1 Portage Trail Conference County Divsion) ran just three offensive plays in the first quarter and trailed, 8-0, followed a 1-yard quarterback sneak by the Rovers’ Scott Steger as Rootstown used a running offense to move the ball down the field.

“That was their scheme to keep our offense off the field,” Hether said. “They did that because our offense is fast-paced. They slow-played us. We couldn’t score quick enough to get out of the hole. We could not get going. The times we did, we just couldn’t score quick enough.”

Following a Rootstown fumble, Valley Christian was able to capitalize as quarterback Milan Square ran it in from the 3 for an 8-8 tie with 7:01 remaining in the first half.

“I thought our offensive and defensive lines played pretty well,” Rootstown coach Keith Boedicker said. “We had too many stupid penalties. It was not a good performance for us. I’m disappointed overall.”

The Rovers (7-0, 2-0) answered on their next possession with Trey Burch’s 4-yard run to go up, 14-8, with 1:08 left in the half.

In the third quarter, Rootstown added a 26-yard field goal from Josh Collins and a 38-yard scoring pass from Steger to Travis McCrady to take a 23-8 lead heading into the final 12 minutes.

Steger scored from the one to make it 30-8 midway through the fourth period.

The Eagles weren’t quite finished as Square scored on a 34-yard run to get Valley Christian to with two scores, 30-16, with 4:27 remaining.

“The defense played well,” Boedicker said. “We gave them their first score on a turnover and we didn’t tackle the quarterback very well on their second one.”

A fumble recovery put the Eagles in position to close that gap, but the drive stalled out on the Rootstown 5 in the final minute.

The Rovers ran 52 times for 237 yards and helped amass 16 first downs while the Eagles netted 174 total yards.