Stephenson, Shawnee shutout Bath

SHAWNEE TOWNSHIP - Close to nothing.

That's what Bath's offense was able to accomplish against Shawnee on Friday.

Toss in Brandon Stephenson's 210-yard rushing night and Shawnee rolled to a 46-0 victory over Bath on a rainy night at Shawnee.

Stephenson rushed for 210 yards on 21 carries with four touchdowns over three quarters of work. He had TD runs of 3, 13, 58 and 34 yards.

The key to the Shawnee victory was holding the Bath one-two rushing attack of Gavin Painter and Aaron Smith in check. Painter had 44 yards on 12 carries, with the bulk of those coming in the final quarter. Smith had 34 yards on 10 carries before leaving late in the third quarter with an ankle injury.

Overall, Bath was held to 45 yards on the ground and 71 total yards.

"We really came off the ball hard and physical and wanted to stop those backs, with the inside and outside running game," Shawnee coach Dick West said. "They've been doing that all year."

Bath coach Todd Clark said, "They outhit us up front and we have to get better on our offensive line. ... We have to improve and we have to get back to where we were a couple of weeks ago."

Shawnee linebacker Nick Truesdale led the Indians with 13 tackles.

"We knew they were good, tough running backs, but we preached to our defensive line and they did a great job of closing down to free Trey Runneals and myself up to start making more plays," Truesdale said. "The defensive line did a great job.

"The shutout is big to me. I don't like when people score, I'm a competitor."

Shawnee linebacker Sheldon Hall had 10 tackles, while defensive lineman Isaiah Irons had eight stops.

"We knew it was going to be a challenge, but we have Brandon Stephenson and we practice against him and he's a pretty decent back. ... After the second series they had, we felt we were doing pretty decent. They broke a pretty big run (31 yards by Smith), but we fixed that."

Shawnee's offensive line plowed straight ahead opening holes and Stephenson quickly followed into the Bath secondary. On the Indians' first drive, Stephenson ran for 44 yards on six carries. Quarterback Josh Miller hit Chad Gillis with a 16-yard touchdown to put Shawnee in front 6-0 with 7:26 left in the first half.

Shawnee's Dillon Risser came up with his first of two interceptions on Bath's first drive. He picked off Cam Garver at the 50 and returned it to the Bath 3.

Stephenson's 3-yard touchdown run on the next play gave the Indians a 12-0 lead with 4:07 left in the first quarter.

Stephenson's 13-yard touchdown run pushed the Shawnee lead to 18-0 at the end of the first quarter.

And Stephenson wasn't finished.

On the Indians' next drive, he went inside bounced off three tackles at the line, found daylight and cut back across the field and ran for a 58-yard touchdown. That gave Shawnee a 25-0 lead with 9:12 left in the first half.

Miller completed 2-for-7 with touchdown passes of 16 and 19 yards to Gillis.

"We need to keep working on that passing game to make sue when people load up to stop Brandon we have something to go to," West said.