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Keystone - Week 9 2018

Posted by Dave Rea at Nov 1, 2018 5:00PM PDT ( 0 Comments )
Buckeye exits PAC in style, beating Keystone
for a share of the league title
 
10/20/2018 - By BRAD BOURNIVAL The Gazette
 
YORK TWP. — Conference titles never get old. It doesn’t matter if it’s the sixth in a row, 10th in the Patriot Athletic Conference Stars Division or 20th as a program. The Buckeye football team accomplished all that Friday in a 49-7 league win over Keystone that would have been much worse if not for a running clock in the second half.
 
“It’s real special, especially because they’re the main team that wanted us out of the PAC,” Bucks cornerback Anthony Watkins said. “We kind of took this one real personal. Winning doesn’t get old. You just keep doing what you have to do.” What Buckeye (8-1, 4-0) did was clinch at least a share of its last PAC Stars title before heading off to Great Lakes Conference (and guarantee itself a spot in the Division III, Region 9 playoffs).

It was all anyone thought about prior to the game. It’s all anyone thought about during the game and it’s all anyone wanted to talk about after the game. Well, that and taking home the conference outright next week with a win over Brookside (2-7, 1-3). “Winning a championship, with all the emotions that go into it, seems to get better every single time,” running back Dom Monaco said. “The teams we play, they’re coming after us. They have Buckeye circled on their calendar. This is pretty much everyone’s banquet game. If they beat us, it’s all they’ll talk about at the end of the season. We just come out and play to our potential every game.”
 
The Bucks put together arguably their best all-around game. Despite scoring 49 points, it really started with defensive coordinator Luke Beal’s game plan to stop the Wildcats (4-5, 3-1). Buckeye knew the offense revolved around quarterback Jacob Schackelford, so whenever the junior tucked the ball, 11 hats ran toward him. Beal saw what Shackelford did to Cloverleaf, when he ran 10 times for 231 yards and a score in a 38-32 loss.
 
He also saw Shackelford single-handedly bring Keystone back in a 46-42 win over Black River, when he ran for 262 yards and five scores. Against the Bucks, the 5-foot-10, 180-pound signal caller ran nine times for 25 yards, was sacked once and was 11-for-19 passing for 102 yards and a touchdown that came with Buckeye up 42-0 and 8:04 remaining.
 
“We came in and just wanted to stop No. 2,” defensive end Logan Schulz said. “We wanted to take away the running game. That’s all we wanted to do. We wanted him to pass. We just played everything up.” Defense actually led to the Bucks’ first four scores, as Keystone coach Don Griswold went for it on fourth down four straight times and was stopped every time. The turnovers led to touchdown drives of 44, 39, 61 and 54 yards and gave Buckeye a 28-0 lead with 5:22 remaining before halftime.
 
“Those were real big,” Watkins said. “We’ve played teams that have good players like Columbia and (Brandon) Coleman, Cloverleaf had their quarterback (Brody Stallings). We had to take care of business with (Shackelford), so it was kind of big that we stopped him.”
 
The Bucks held the Wildcats to 246 yards (144 rushing), though 70 came on the fourth-quarter score. Buckeye wasn’t without offensive stars, either, despite running only 41 plays. Quarterback Jacob Doerge ran for 124 yards and a score. Armando Nigh had 102 yards, two scores and a handful of crushing blocks and Monaco rushed for 40 yards and three scores.
 
“You could probably say it’s our most complete game,” Nigh said. “We played well on both sides of the ball. You always want to improve as a team. We’ll look at the film (this morning) and figure out what we need to improve.”
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Black River - Week 7 2018

Posted by Dave Rea at Oct 12, 2018 5:00PM PDT ( 0 Comments )
Black River down top two players,
Buckeye rolls arch-rival
 
10/6/2018 - By ALBERT GRINDLE The Gazette
 
YORK TWP. — Outside linebacker Spencer Constable was in street clothes and lineman Mitchell Young exited with a leg injury. Without two of its top three players, the Black River football team still put up a heckuva fight defensively against archrival Buckeye in Patriot Athletic Conference Stars Division action. The Bucks had pocket aces in the hole, however, with their defense and special teams.
 
The advantages couldn’t have been more decisive. Returning a punt for a touchdown, setting up the offense for short-field touchdowns twice on other punt attempts and getting two defensive scores Friday, Buckeye turned a one-point halftime lead into a 38-6 obliteration after the Pirates imploded following Young’s injury with 3:36 left in the first half.
 
Coach Greg Dennison’s Bucks (6-1, 2-0) have won five straight against Black River (3-4, 0-2), by an average of 25.6 points. “After Coach got on us (during a timeout late in the first half) we decided, ‘You know what? We can just punch these guys right in the mouth and get the ball rolling,”’ tight end/defensive end Logan Schulz said. Black River (3-4, 0-2) got the score to 7-6 when Riley Bartolic nailed Ryan Shultz for 15 yards on fourth-and-9 in the final minute of the first quarter.
 
The Pirates defense then went to work, limiting Buckeye to 60 yards on 23 first-half plays. Even with a 65-yard drive that ended in a Clay Gunkelman 21-yard field goal to open the third quarter, the Bucks struggled to contain Pirates linebackers Alex Vormelker and Bartolic and safety J.T. Armstrong.
 
Buckeye finished with 198 yards, as quarterback Jacob Doerge had 12 carries for 17 yards but had help from tailback Dom Monaco (20 carries, 89 yards) and fullback Armando Nigh (11, 70). “(Young) coming out, losing him was big, and also having (Constable) out this week, that’s also big. That’s two studs right there that we’re missing,” Vormelker said. “All we could have done was play hard. “I’m proud of (the defense). We studied hard all week and studied our checks so we knew what they were doing first string through third string. I’m glad we held them to what we held them to, and we’ll get back at it next week.”
 
The Black River punt team had nothing to be proud of. Two minutes in, Buckeye’s Brock Brumfield fielded a punt, kept his balance after slipping on the wet field and rumbled 64 yards down the home sideline. Buckeye went up 10-6 on Gunkelman’s field goal with 8:22 left in the third quarter and 17-6 only 14 seconds later when Schulz returned a bad pistol formation snap 21 yards.
 
The dagger came when the Pirates’ Conner Burke tried to punt from his own 28 but was forced to run due to pressure from A.J. Kirlough. Buckeye’s Zack Weber made the tackle shy of the marker at the 32, and the Bucks forged a 24-6 advantage when Doerge broke three tackles from 4 yards. Adding to the game-changing theme, Monaco partially blocked a Burke punt that rolled dead at the Black River 17 early in the fourth.
 
Monaco scored from 5 yards shortly thereafter, and he initiated a running clock with 1:38 to play on a 15-yard fumble return. “They really are crucial moments that people don’t really look at in the scores because they look at stats,” Brumfield said. With the way Buckeye’s defense was playing, that was more than enough support. Black River finished with 49 plays for 94 yards.
 
The Pirates lost 49 on five fumbles — two on errant snaps after center Young exited — and faced poor field position as Buckeye’s Nigh pinned punts at the 14 and 5. The Buckeye kick coverage unit allowed Black River to surpass the 35 only once. Schulz had another fumble recovery in the third quarter. Jacob Stahl was a force at outside linebacker, end Austin DiBiasio added a sack, All-Gazette lineman Ryan Smith contributed a tackle for loss and Michael Knoll broke up a pass.
 
Considering the Pirates were averaging 36.2 points on 373.5 yards, the overall performance was the Bucks’ best of the season. “We know they hit hard and come off the ball,” Schulz said. “We figured we’d hit them right back in the mouth because that’s our philosophy. It’s what we do. We wanted to get back there and disrupt everything with that wing-T.”
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Firelands - Week 8 2018 Chronicle Article

Posted by Dave Rea at Oct 12, 2018 5:00PM PDT ( 0 Comments )
Young starting line-up issue for Firelands,
falls in PAC Stars loss to Buckeye
 
10/13/2018 - By MIKE PERRY The Chronicle-Telegram

HENRIETTA TWP. — Too many sophomores was a problem for Firelands on Senior Night in a 50-12 Patriot Athletic Conference Stars loss to Buckeye. With seven sophomores starting for Firelands on both sides of the ball, Buckeye controlled the line of scrimmage all evening. The Bucks scored 23 points in the first quarter, 36 in the first half and cruised to their 26th straight win within the division.

“Monday we probably could have drawn Buckeye’s game plan, knowing that they’re going to run the ball and be physical against us,” Firelands coach Ryan O’Rourke said. “Our kids aren’t ever going to back down from anybody and we’re going to expect a certain level of play and a certain level of intensity. Buckeye showed why they’re the class of the PAC this year. It’s nothing that we’re going to take away from them, they’re certainly an excellent football team. We maybe had some moments here and there, but they just outplayed us.”

The Bucks (7-1, 3-0) made life difficult for sophomore quarterback Jacob Farley and the Firelands offense. Firelands’ first three drives resulted in a pair of three-and-outs and a safety as Buckeye took an early 16-0 lead. The Falcons (4-4, 2-1) were held to minus-3 rushing yards in the first half and failed to pick up a first down.

“We needed to prove what we could do,” Buckeye junior running back Armando Nigh said. “We wanted to come out and end this game early because if you give a team a chance, if you give them hope in your heart, it makes the game a lot tougher.”

Buckeye led 36-0 at halftime, which is exactly what coach Greg Dennison wanted to see. “They have some really, really good young players,” he said of the Falcons. “When you can jump on a team that’s young like that early it makes a big difference.”

The Falcons showed some life in the second half, thanks to senior Blake Ruffner. Ruffner, who started the game at slot receiver and ended it at quarterback, provided a pair of big plays for Firelands — a 33-yard touchdown run in the third quarter and a 65-yard touchdown pass to Alex Angle to close out the scoring in the fourth. He added 14 tackles on defense, three for a loss.

“Bottom line is he’s a scholarship athlete,” O’Rourke said of Ruffner. “I hope people recognize that and I hope he continues playing this game because he does a lot of things that are special. He’s just an extremely talented kid. He can do things on his own that you can’t teach. “You’ve got to let a kid like that run free and appreciate him while you have him.”

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Firelands - Week 8 2018 Gazette Article

Posted by Dave Rea at Oct 12, 2018 5:00PM PDT ( 0 Comments )
Buckeye continues to crush foes in final PAC season
 
10/13/2018 - By MIKE PERRY The Gazette
 

HENRIETTA TWP. — The Buckeye football team is making a statement on its way out the door. Firelands was the latest victim of the Patriot Athletic Conference farewell tour, as the Bucks jumped on the Falcons early and rolled to a 50-12 win.

Buckeye (7-1, 3-0) bullied its way to 23 first-quarter points and had the Stars Division game in hand by halftime. Five Bucks found the end zone in their 26th consecutive division victory. Buckeye, which was voted out of the PAC prior to this season by the other member schools, who will rename the league the Lorain County Conference, has won 39 of its last 41 regular-season games. The Bucks will join the Great Lakes Conference next fall.

“You have to come out with the same mentality every game, knowing you’ve got a big target on your back,” said fullback Armando Nigh, who rushed for 109 yards and two touchdowns. “That’s one of the reasons they wanted us out of our conference. We approach every game the same way, like this is our last chance. They didn’t want us in this conference anymore, so we really want to make a statement on our way out.”

Firelands (4-4, 2-1) struggled on both sides of the ball. The Falcons’ defense allowed 337 rushing yards on 45 attempts (7.4 yards per carry), while their offense managed just 55 rushing yards on 20 attempts. Thirty-three yards came on a Blake Ruffner touchdown. It was a bounce-back game for the Bucks offense. Last week in a 38-6 win over Black River, Buckeye managed just 198 total yards.

“They’ve been doing a good job like that all year,” Buckeye coach Greg Dennison said of his offensive line. “We have good leaders on our offensive line, and we’re just solid all the way across. Last week we kind of took a step back, and this week we got back to where we want to be.”

Anthony Watkins also eclipsed the 100-yard plateau for Buckeye, carrying the ball four times for a game-high 114 yards and a touchdown. His 83-yard score in the second quarter gave the Bucks a 30-0 lead. Dom Monaco added a 7-yard touchdown run in the second quarter, giving Buckeye a 36-0 lead at halftime.

The second half was played with a running clock. “You win these kinds of games in practice, and we had a really good week of practice,” Nigh said. “Coming off our last game, we did kind of get embarrassed on offense, so that was a big part of our mindset coming into this one. “We needed to prove what we could do. We wanted to come out and end this game early because if you give a team a chance, if you give them hope in your heart, it makes the game a lot tougher.”

Dennison agreed. “They have some really, really good young players,” he said of the Falcons. “When you can jump on a team that’s young like that early, it makes a big difference.”

Ruffner did everything he could for Firelands. He led the defense with 14 tackles (3 for loss), scored on a 33-yard run and threw a 65-yard touchdown to Alex Angle late in the game. “Bottom line is he’s a scholarship athlete,” Falcons coach Ryan O’Rourke said. “I hope people recognize that and I hope he continues playing this game because he does a lot of things that are special. He’s just an extremely talented kid. He can do things on his own that you can’t teach. You’ve got to let a kid like that run free and appreciate him while you have him.”

Contact Mike Perry at sports@medina-gazette.com.

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Wellington - Week 6 2018

Posted by Dave Rea at Sep 28, 2018 5:00PM PDT ( 0 Comments )
Buckeye shuts Wellington down early
 
9/29/2018 - By CHRIS FREEMAN The Gazette
 
WELLINGTON — In five plays that covered 70 seconds Friday night, Buckeye’s football team put its Patriot Athletic Conference Stars Division game against Wellington out of reach early. The Bucks scored four times in that 1:10 span of the first quarter en route to a 51-7 win.
 
“We came out a little flat, and then kept things rolling from there,” senior tight end/defensive end Logan Schultz said.
 
The stretch began with a 5-yard TD run from Dom Monaco (6 carries, 50 yards, 2 TDs) that capped a nine-play, 67-yard drive and tied the score at 7. After the kickoff, Schultz sacked Jayden Skinner at the 5-yard line and forced a fumble. Skinner recovered in the end zone and was tackled for a safety as the Bucks (5-1) went up 9-7.

“The big thing for us, coming out of last week, was not to take a step back,” Buckeye coach Greg Dennison said. “Our seniors did a good job of getting it done.”
 
On Buckeye’s second play after the free kick, quarterback Jacob Doerge (7 carries, 107 yards) took a power sweep left, got two great blocks downfield and breezed in for a 44-yard score and 16-7 lead.
 
“It shifts the momentum when all these things happen,” junior fullback Armando Nigh said. “Football is a game with a lot of emotion, so things can piggyback on each other like they did for us.” Wellington fumbled on the next kickoff and Nigh recovered at the Dukes 20. “It’s all reaction, heat-of-the-momentum plays,” Nigh said.
 
On the first play after the recovery, Doerge executed a perfect play-action pass and Schultz was all alone near the end zone for a 23-7 lead. “That’s how that play is designed,” Schultz said. “When we’re running the ball, it fits us great.”
 
With his two touchdowns, Monaco moved into fourth place on the all-time scoring list at Buckeye, passing Michael Doerge and Ryan McCormick. Nigh had the biggest night on the ground, carrying 15 times for 159 yards and a pair of scores.
 
“The offensive line was everything,” said Nigh, who fumbled the first two times he carried the ball. “They really made things possible.” Said Dennison: “He ran well, especially after fumbling early. When he gets going, he really doesn’t need much space. He hits (the hole) at full speed and with a lot of force.”

Wellington (1-5) took advantage of Nigh’s first fumble and scored first on a 32-yard pass to Jon Brasee. The jump ball was caught by Brasee and the Bucks’ Zack Weber, with Weber ripping the ball away as the pair fell to the ground, but the officials ruled it shared possession and awarded the Dukes the score.
 
Buckeye scored the final 51 points and had a running clock in the second half. “It was really nice to go up big and see some of the young guys get in,” Nigh said.
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