Legendary football coach John McKay, who won four national championships with the University of Southern California in the 1960s and 1970s and was the first coach of Tampa Buccaneers, is often credited with saying football is won and lost in the trenches.
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Legendary football coach John McKay, who won four national championships with the University of Southern California in the 1960s and 1970s and was the first coach of Tampa Buccaneers, is often credited with saying football is won and lost in the trenches.
These battles in the trenches take place at the line of scrimmage between the offensive and defensive lineman.
In the Battle of 306 between the West Geauga Wolverines and the Chagrin Falls Tigers on Sept. 5 at the newly renovated Howell Field, the Wolverines offensive and defensive lines certainly dominated the trenches.
And as a result, the Wolverines defeated the Tigers, 42-14.
With dominant performances by their offensive and defensive lines, the Wolverines gained 489 yards on the ground, and rushed for six touchdowns.
Not only was the Wolverines offensive line phenomenal, their defense held the Tigers to 92 yards rushing, and 58 passing as they outgained their opponent by 339 yards.
After the game, senior offensive and defensive lineman, Maveric Milnar, talked about the Wolverines’ excellent effort on both sides of the ball.
He said that a key to success was to concentrate on specific goals. In fact, the Wolverines offensive linemen focused on limiting mistakes by utilizing effective technique and blocking the opposing lineman for five seconds on every play. They also centered their attention on pancakes, which is when the offensive lineman tries to put the player they are blocking flat on their back and on to the turf.
“Its always great to go against our rivals and today we performed our best,” Milnar said. “We limited our mistakes, (and) we were very focused mentally. We brought it all game long. We accomplished our goals. We blocked for five seconds every play.”
Milnar said that the lineman are focused on keeping their hands inside their opposing lineman’s shoulders when blocking so that they limit the amount of holding penalties called against them.
In addition to the yards gained on the ground, another indicator of success was the Wolverines efficiency on converting third and fourth down situations. For the game, the Wolverines were 10 of 13 (77%) on third down conversions and were 2-2 on fourth down.
Running effectively behind the Wolverines dominant offensive line against the Tigers was Miles Baker who rushed for 234 yards on 26 carries (9 yard average) and 3 touchdowns.
When running the football, Baker said that he tried to follow his blocks, find the hole, make cuts when he could, and continue to drive his legs throughout the play.
“I want to give a huge shout out to the offensive line,” Baker said. “Those guys always block out for me. They give it their all every single play, and the upbacks, Cooper Vosicky, Anthony Dzurilla, and Daegan Katz, they always block so hard for me. They block for five seconds and they give it their all on every play, so I want to thank those guys.”
In addition to excellent blocking that helped Baker and the Wolverines offense gain a tremendous amount of rushing yards, they also ran a unique offensive formation in which three running backs line up behind the quarterback who is under center.
With the utilization of this stacked i-formation, first year Wolverines Head Coach Rossi Santo won multiple OHSAA state championships as an assistant coach with the Kirtland Hornets.
Baker said that the stacked i-formation is difficult for opposing defenses to defend.
“It’s really hard for defenses to read where we’re going because we send a lot of misdirection,” Baker said. “We’ll have the upback run to the left and we’ll run to the right and it’s just hard for the defenses to read because there is so much happening in the backfield and they just can’t keep their eyes on the ball the whole time.”
With great blocking and utilization of the stacked-i formation, the Wolverines took a 22-7 first half lead on two touchdown runs by Baker (2-yard TD run, 7-yard TD run) and another touchdown run by Matthew Osters (10-yard TD run).
The Tigers scored when Brady Kaas returned a Wolverines kickoff for a touchdown.
In the second half, the Wolverines added touchdown runs of 89 yards (Osters), 29 yards (Baker), and 1 yard ( Finn Keenan). The Tigers scored late in the fourth quarter on a 17-yard touchdown pass from senior quarterback Jacob Kay to senior wide receiver Jack Gellin to make the final score 42-14.
Leading the Wolverines offensively for the game were Baker (234 yards, 3 TDs), Osters (162 yards, 2 TDs), and Keenan (31 yards rushing, 52 yards passing, 1 TD),
The Tigers were led offensively by Kay (89 yards rushing, 58 yards passing, 1 touchdown pass).
With the win, Coach Santo earned his first career victory as a head coach.
“It feels great, I’m super excited for our seniors,” Coach Santo said.
The Wolverines will next host the Conneaut Spartans on Sept. 12 while the Tigers travel to Independence to take on the Blue Devils, also on Sept. 12.
