Mohawk outguns Ellwood City
Ellwood City (37) vs. Mohawk (60)
Written: Oct 04, 2008
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
The final would have looked better on the scoreboard in the Mohawk High School gym.
But there it was on the football stadium board.
Mohawk won its Class AA Midwestern Athletic Conference contest, 60-37, last night against Ellwood City Lincoln, much to the delight of a homecoming crowd. And while no one was sure if the 97 combined points was a single-game record for Mohawk and an opponent, no one could remember the last time the Warriors were involved in such a high-scoring affair.
And while the final looks relatively close, don’t be fooled. The Warriors had a 52-6 lead midway through the third quarter.
Mohawk had a 46-6 advantage at the half and that put the mercy rule in effect with the clock running continuously the second half. The clock does stop for scores, however, and there were more touchdowns scored the final two quarters than expected in a game that was decided by the half.
At one point early in the fourth quarter, Ellwood pulled to within 52-29 following a 45-yard touchdown run by starting quarterback Joe Galmarini against the Mohawk reserves. That cause Warriors coach Jason Long to put his first-team offense back on the field and Mohawk moved 64 yards in six plays with quarterback Seth Powell, who also threw for a touchdown, skirting right end for the score with 7:24 left to play.
“I thought we got caught in a bad spot,” Long said. “What do you do? I thought we had the game in hand. But we had a lot of ninth-graders out there and I have a responsibility to them and their parents and I didn’t want them to get hurt.”
He was referring to the fact that Ellwood still had a number of its regulars on the field. So Long put his starters back in when he didn’t want to.
The player who benefited most by that move was junior running back Justin Upham. He got two more carries, one for 45 yards to the Ellwood 16, and finished the game with 244 yards rushing on 18 carries. Upham scored on runs of 1, 38 and 49 yards.
“That’s the best game I’ve had,” Upham said. “I knew I had a few good runs (in the first half), but I didn’t know how many yards I had.”
At the half, he had 136 yards on 13 carries. Mohawk rushed for 198 yards the first two quarters and finished with 385 yards on the ground and 435 yards total offense.
Travis Schubert, who had rushed for 521 yards the first five games, was on the Mohawk sideline in street clothes. He is out with injured ribs. That made Upham, who is 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds, the workhorse.
What made his effort even more remarkable is that he has a hairline fracture in his right tibia.
“I’m going to play as long as it doesn’t hurt,” he said of the injury. “It did bother me when we were loosening up to go back in after sitting out for a while. But once we got out there I didn’t feel it.”
“As I’ve said before, Justin is a tough kid,” Long said. “He’s someone we can hang our hat on.”
Mohawk also got strong efforts from Colin Bredl, who scored when he recovered a blocked punt by Jordan Saeger in the end zone and on a 53-yard run, and from Matt Vogel, who blocked another punt to set up a touchdown and caught a 36-yard pass from Powell for a score.
Mohawk is now 4-2 overall and in the MAC. “Nobody expected us to have that record at this point except us,” Long said.
For Ellwood City (0-6), it was the 21st consecutive loss. There were a couple positives, however.
The 37 points were the most the Wolverines have scored in a game since beating Quaker Valley, 39-7, Sept. 23, 2005. And Galmarini, a senior, rushed for 92 yards on 11 carries, although most of that came in the second half and against Mohawk’s reserves.
ELLWOOD CITY MOHAWK
8 First downs 18
184 Yards Rushing 390
25 Yards Lost 5
159 Net Rushing 385
5 Passes Attempted 7
2 Passes Completed 3
1 Passes Intercepted 1
45 Yards Passing 50
204 Total Yards 435
1-0 Fumbles-Lost 1-0
2-30 Punts-Average 0-0
8-77 Penalties-Yards 7-70
ELLWOOD CITY 0 6 15 16 — 37
MOHAWK 24 22 6 8 — 60
Scoring plays
MOHAWK — Justin Upham 1-yard run (Seth Powell run).
MOHAWK — Colin Bredl, recovered blocked punt in end zone (Jim French run).
MOHAWK — Upham 38-yard run (French run).
MOHAWK — Matt Vogel 36-yard pass from Powell (Vogel pass from Powell).
ELLWOOD — Jared Feit, 5-yard run (run failed).
MOHAWK — Bredl, 53-yard run (Johnny Beatty run).
MOHAWK — Chuck Trott, 2-yard run (pass failed).
MOHAWK — Upham, 49-yard run (pass failed).
ELLWOOD — Garrett Thomas, 58-yard run (Joe Galmarini run).
ELLWOOD — Galmarini, 18-yard run (John Rufer kick).
ELLWOOD — Galmarini, 45-yard run (Galmarini run).
MOHAWK — Powell, 3-yard run (Trott run).
ELLWOOD — Logan DiMase, 82-yard kick return (Gino Ceriani pass from Galmarini).
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