ST. MARYS — When playing in a big game, sometimes a coach has to dig deep into his playbook to garner a victory.
Roughrider head coach Doug Frye did just that to defeat Wapakoneta, 13-7, in a battle of unbeatens at Skip Baughman Field Friday night.
With just 10 seconds left in the first half and the ball at Redskin 33, Frye decided to go with a play that he admits he rarely uses and they only practiced the day before indoors, the halfback option pass. The Roughriders executed the play and it resulted in a touchdown when Julius Fisher found senior split end Seth Warniment open in the right corner of the end zone.
“They say even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while so when I walked out there (during the time out) I had feeling that that might be there so we gave it a shot,” Frye said. “All the credit goes to our kids because they executed it extremely well.”
The touchdown, along with two field goals from Gave Vandever propelled the Riders to end Wapakoneta’s 33-game Western Buckeye League streak and put St. Marys in the driver’s seat for the league title.
“You have got to give them credit for making the play,” said Redskin head coach Travis Moyer. “Obviously we try to prepare our kids the best we could for those situations but you have to give the credit for making that play on that opportunity.”
The Riders improve to 9-0 overall and 8-0 in the WBL. Wapakoneta falls to 8-1 on the year and 7-1 in loop action.
The big play will get the headlines but it was the St. Marys defense that did the job all night by limiting the Redskins offense to just 158 total yards. Coming into the game, Wapakoneta was averaging 357 yards a game and 31.8 points a game.
The St. Marys defense smothered the Redskin offense and made Wapakoneta’s Landon Hall a nonfactor in the game, limiting the third leading rusher in the league to just 33 yards on 8 carries.
“I don’t know if it was anything fancy but we just did the basics real well,” said Frye about his team’s defense performance. The Rider coach praised Nick Yahl, his defensive coordinator and the tremendous game his defense put together.
The Redskins did not generate any serious type of offense until midway through the fourth quarter when they drove for their lone touchdown.
Redskin quarterback Manny Vorhees, who was just 3 of 8 through three quarters, finally found his passing game, and engineered a 73 yard touchdown drive that resulted in a Wapakoneta touchdown when Vorhees connected with Kais Chiles from six yards out on a fourth and 2 with 5:36 left in the game. In the drive Vorhees was 4 of 4 for 66 yards.
The Riders ran the majority of the clock out after the touchdown by picking up two crucial first downs and then finally punting and putting the ball at the Redskin 12 yard line with just 1:10 left in the game.
Vorhees could not rally the Redskins for a second big drive and time ran out on the Wapakoneta. And as the clock read double zeroes the Rider fans stormed the field to celebrate.
For the game Vorhees went 14 of 27 for 110 yards and one touchdown.
“We really got somethings going there in the fourth quarter,” Moyer said. “We really struggled in the first half with field position and give them credit they controlled the field position and they controlled the clock most of the first half. We just didn’t do well early with execution.”
Moyer added that one of the reasons for the Riders success was them controlling the line of scrimmage.
Minus the missed coverage on the halfback option pass, the Redskin defense had stymied the Rider rushing game and yielded just 161 rushing yards. Fisher led the Riders in rushing with just 70 yards on 21 carries and backfield mate Eric Spicer, the leading rusher in the WBL was held to 55 yards on 20 carries.
St. Marys, which garnered a share of the WBL title with the win, will try to win it outright when it faces Ottawa-Glandorf (8-1, 7-1 WBL) in the regular season finale Friday night.
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