Coldwater makes short work of North College Hill

COLDWATER - Coldwater's football team jumped on North College Hill early and often and rolled to a 42-0 victory in the Division IV regional quarterfinal contest at Coldwater Stadium.

The story of the night was the Coldwater defense that shut down University of Cincinnati-bound running back/defensive back Everett Horne. Horne managed just 52 yards on 13 carries. On the season Horne carried the ball 147 times for 1,749 yards and 25 touchdowns.

The Cavaliers will face Dayton Oakwood on Friday at a location to be determined. Kickoff is 7:30 p.m.

"Every time you thought about those guys you thought about them going, boom, heading up the sidelines," Coldwater coach John Reed said. "There was only one time he was able to cut back and make a big gain against us and even then we did a good of stretching the field. Their speed can kill you."

The Cavaliers (11-0) allowed just 18 yards on the ground, 119 yards passing, forced two interceptions and limited the Trojans to one first quarter first down.

"Three and out and boom, we are able to go right in and score," Reed said. "We just build off of that. I don't know if that was deflating to them or not, but it certainly really helped us."

Offensively, the Cavaliers got on the board on their third play from scrimmage. Senior quarterback Cory Klenke connected with senior Mitch Giere on a 36-yard touchdown pass at the 9:07 mark of the first quarter.

For the game the Cavaliers rushed the ball 38 times for 160 yards while completing eight of 17 passes for 259 yards and three touchdowns.

After three plays and a punt the Cavaliers offense was back at it. Tony Harlamert carried the ball four straight plays before Klenke found tight end Eric Lefeld for a 38-yard pass to move the ball to the North College Hill 10-yard line. Harlamert finished the drive with a 10-yard TD reception from Klenke.

For the game, Harlamert finished with 11 carries for 53 yards, one touchdown and four receptions for 118 yards and two touchdowns. Klenke was 6-for-12 for 184 yards and three touchdowns in the first half. He threw one incomplete pass in the second half. On the ground Klenke carried the ball three times for 20 yards and two touchdowns. He also caught one pass for 27 yards.

"This is as good as a team effort that we have had all year," Reed said. "And playing without four starters is a great credit to these guys."

The Trojans next drive stalled and on fourth and 17 from their own 12 yard line tried a fake punt. Keith Wenning's tackle of Horne after a gain of nine yards gave the Cavaliers a short field.

"Keith Wenning made a tremendous play on that play," Reed said. "In the Anna game they burned us on that and Keith said ‘it's not going to happen twice'."

"The fake punt was not called," North College Hill coach Bruce Baarendse said. "He (Horne) has the option if he sees one of the ends drop off. It was risky, but we needed to make something happen and it just didn't work."

Five plays later Klenke found a crack in the line and scored on a 3-yard run with 40 seconds left in the first quarter.

"Coming in we knew we were going to have to take some chances early," Baarendse said. "We did a couple of things early. It seemed the whole first quarter we were playing backed up and they had such great field position and against a great team you cannot put it on a plate for them."

The Cavaliers made it 28-0 with 4:31 left in the first half when Klenke scored on a 7-yard run. The score was set up by a Wenning to Harlamert pass on third down that covered 48 yards and took the ball to the seven.

"There were several third down plays were they just came up big," Baarendse said. "We had a couple of plays were we had decent coverage and the quarterback put it right on the money and 28 (Harlamert) made some outstanding catches."

Coldwater finished the first half scoring Harlamert once again broke through the Trojan secondary for a 31-yard pass from Klenke.

The second half saw the Cavaliers grind out the clock and secure the victory. The scoring was capped with a Harlamert touchdown run of six yards.

"We did want to run the clock as much as we possibly could," Reed said of the second half. "You hope you can wear them down and you can see us gain momentum and getting more and more confidence. We just knew as explosive as they were, we wanted to run the clock, drive the football and run the clock."