Members of the Highland defense line up against Shelby Friday night when the two schools met in football.
Rob Hamilton | Morrow County Sentinel
A high-powered Shelby offense was able to overcome both the elements and the Highland defense on Friday in picking up a 41-6 win on the Scots’ home field.
With rain pouring down in the first quarter, the Whippets were able to ride the legs of running back Marcus Gumbert and quarterback Brayden Devito to a touchdown on the game’s opening possession. A long run by Gumbert set up a scramble by Devito that staked Shelby to a 6-0 lead after their attempt at a two-point conversion was stopped by the Scots.
Highland would then go three-and-out on their first possession of the night and Shelby would make them pay. Devito was successful on all three of his pass attempts and also ran the ball in for points to make it a 12-0 game with 4:17 left in the opening period. Highland head coach Ty Stover simply felt the Whippets were more ready to compete that night.
“They outplayed our kids, they out-coached our coaches,” he said. “They have a great team. We didn’t really come to compete today like we had to. It’s all on me. I take it all on my shoulders. Hopefully, it doesn’t happen again. They have a heck of a group over there. They dominated us in all phases of the game tonight. It’s on me and the coaches and we have to figure it out.”
The Scots would start to get things going on their next possession, quickly getting a long run by Zach Church. The junior back would add a second strong carry, but a penalty negated it and the drive would stall. However, that turned out to be a positive for the Scots. Starting with the ball on their 20, Shelby was kept in check and had to quickly punt. In the wet conditions, the punter couldn’t handle the snap and Highland was able to gain possession on the Whippet eight.
They would take advantage of that great field position, getting an eight-yard run by Church for points on the second play of that possession. Their attempt at two points wasn’t successful, but at the 11:44 mark of the second quarter, they had cut the Shelby lead in half at 12-6. Stover noted that he felt his team needed to get big special teams plays if they wanted to top the Whippets.
“Our game plan was to throw everything we could at them special teams-wise because we knew what was going to have to happen for us to be competitive in the football game,” he said. “We just didn’t put enough points on the board so we could do it and then we didn’t stop them enough so we could perform the other parts of the job.”
Highland wouldn’t be able to keep the momentum for long, unfortunately. As the second quarter progressed, the rain gradually died down and Devito was able to take advantage of the more favorable conditions to quickly connect with one of his receivers on a long scoring pass. They would convert their two-point attempt and held a lead of 20-6 with 10:25 remaining in the first half.
Highland would have some good plays in the second quarter, getting an interception by Sam Hernandez and also forcing the Whippets to turn the ball over on downs. However, they would only record one first down — on a 19-yard scramble by quarterback Kolton Stover — and did give up another score on a 23-yard quarterback run by Devito to find themselves in a 27-6 hole going into the half.
Opening the third quarter with the ball, the Scots started out moving the ball with success. A short pass from Stover to Kadyn Reichenbach and a run by Stover got one first down, a personal foul on the Whippets netted a second and a 17-yard run by Church picked up a third and moved the ball to the Shelby 29. However, the drive would fizzle out and Shelby then took the ball 75 yards in seven plays in putting seven more points on the board.
After another Highland punt, Shelby would score again to boost their lead to 35 points and cause the remainder of the game to be played under a running clock. While the Scots were able to put together a 14-play drive and move from their 26 to the Shelby 25, they would not be able to turn those yards into points, as Shelby was able to run out the clock on the game, dropping Highland to 2-4, 1-2 in league play.
With his team’s next game being their Homecoming contest against Galion, Stover is hoping his team shows the intensity that they have possessed at times, but not consistently enough for his liking.
“I’m looking for heart,” he said. “I’m looking for passion. I’m looking for a competitive edge that we show every once in a while, but we don’t show consistently enough. If we can be consistent about competing and really wanting to be getting after it every single down, we’ll be able to get the job done at some point, but now, it’s really inconsistent. We played with a lot of passion last week and then we kind of fizzled out this week. I’ll spend the rest of the weekend trying to figure that out and put the boys in the best position that I can to try to be successful and try to make some plays on Friday night.”
Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS
