Spartans use ground and pound to take down Golden Bears
· Yahoo Sports
SARANAC — It wasn’t pretty, but it was honest work.
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Saranac continued its method of just getting the ball in the hand of its playmakers and watched as they led the Spartans to a 28-6 victory over Canton.
“Things are going to happen, mistakes are going to happen, and you know we just got to trust that our guys are, you know, our athletes are going to make a play when it’s due,” Spartans head coach Dylan Everleth said. “And you know hats off with a great ball from Corbin (Duffield). You know Silas (McDevitt) is a playmaker. He’s a big part of our offense, and we just got to get the ball into those guys’ hands and let them get to work. and he did a great job making a guy miss and took off.”
McDevitt’s catch and run was one of many plays the Spartans made that went for over 40 yards. His 62-yard touchdown came in the third quarter after Canton failed on a fourth down attempt.
It was a game that Saranac just chipped away and kept pounding away at Canton. Sticking to the ground with Skyler Walker and McDevitt led to eventual breakout runs of 45 and 85 by Teegan Smith and Ethan Pflanz, respectively, late in the fourth quarter.
“We’ve got to be consistent over four quarters, and you know, it’s not going to work perfectly every time,” Everleth said. “We’ve just got to just keep chipping away, chipping away, chipping away and be the team that’s conditioned, and be the team that can show up and just get it done late in the fourth quarter or the third quarter when it matters.”
But, it wasn’t just the offense that forced the Golden Bears into submission. The defense stayed honest, keeping Canton in check.
“It was preparation the week before,” Corbin Duffield said. “Coach put an amazing game plan for defense. We really shut them down for zero points on offense. Yeah, they got one back on us on a kick return, but we didn’t let their offense get in rhythm.”
Even when Saranac had a miscue — a fumble, interception or turnover — they didn’t let it linger.
As Duffield said, it was simply keeping a next play mentality.
“I mean, obviously that backwards pass for a fumble was tough, but I don’t think any of our players were down or sad about it,” Duffield said. “We knew his next play mentality, so we knew once we got offense, we had to strike first and strike hard.”
That’s exactly what they did, and even when those turnovers happened the Spartans buckled down.
Canton rushed 33 times for 99 yards and threw the ball 10 times for one completion. It could lull a team to sleep but Duffield and Everleth said the defense didn’t waver at any point.
“It’s just discipline on defense,” Everleth said. “You know we’ve got guys that are dedicated to stopping the run. We got guys that are there to take away the pass. and you know when we start trying to do something outside of our own job that’s when mistakes are going to happen, and that’s when we’re going to give up big plays. The guys that were run first, you know they did a great job today, just flying all over the field, and we didn’t miss a lot of tackles today, which was great. It takes all of us to get the job down, all 11 players focused on the task.”
That task now turns to Peru for an early conference showdown of the league’s top two teams. Ethan Pflanz, a linebacker, running back and kicker, said they can’t go in too rigid when they head to the Apple Bowl.
“We’ve got to play loose and play our style of football,” he said. “It’s nothing more than just hitting the field and having fun. If we do that anything can happen. We just need to be confident, and I believe we are.”
Gametime between the Nighthawks and Spartans is set for 7 p.m. on Friday.
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Saranac 28, Canton 6
CHS 0 0 0 6 - 6
SCS 0 7 8 13 - 28
Scoring Summary
2nd Quarter
S- Walker 2 yd run (Pflanz kick good) 7:36
3rd Quarter
S- McDivitt 62 yd pass from Duffield (D’Ambro 2 pt conversion good) 2:54
4th Quarter
S- T.Smith 45 yd run (Pflanz kick good) 3:18
C — Torrelli 82 yd kickoff return (conversion failed) 3:02
S- Pflanz 85 yd run (kick failed) :45
Statistics
PASSING:
S-: Duffield 4-13 95 yds 1 TD 1 INT
C- Clausson 0-8 0 yds 1 INT, Torrelli 1-2 5 yds
RUSHING:
S-: Walker 17-71 1TD, Pflanz 5-87 1TD, T,Smith 3-49 1 TD, McDivitt 2-9, Bingham 1 (-4) TEAM: 3 (-18)
C- O’Brien 16-49, Torrelli 7-31, Clausson 11-27, #27 1-0, TEAM: 3 (-8)
RECEIVING:
S-: McDivitt 3-87 1 TD, Bingham 1-8
C- Giddings 1-5
INTERCEPTIONS:
S- McDivitt
C- Burke