Highland opens season with road win

Coming into the season, Highland head football coach Ty Stover was hoping to generate a more balanced offensive attack. After one week, the early returns are promising.

In the team’s 35-0 win at Fredericktown, junior quarterback Kolton Stover completed three touchdown passes in a game where the team both ran and passed for 200-plus yards.

“We’re trying to become more balanced and we talked to the staff through the week that no matter what, we’ve got to try to become more balanced. It’s going to make us a better football team. I think we did a nice job, but we’ve got to clean up the penalties.”

One reason that Stover wants his team’s offense to be more balanced is to ease the burden on workhorse star running back Dane Nauman.

“That’s really the idea,” he said. “That we need a healthy 42 in week nine and 10 and 11 if we’re lucky enough to get there.”

Nauman finished with 162 yards and one score on 16 carries, while also catching one pass for a 60-yard score. Meanwhile, Kolton Stover hit on 13-of-23 passes for 230 yards.

“He’s learning,” the coach said of Kolton Stover. “We brought on Ed Kitchen — he’s doing a great job with our quarterback and learning. It’s a new style and it’s what we’re trying to adapt to right now and get better. Week by week, get better.”

The team got off to a strong start in the first quarter. After forcing a Freddie punt, the team got 28 yards on a pair of Nauman rushes before Stover hit Kadyn Reichenbach for a 39-yard scoring pass to put Highland up 7-0 after Malin Fichtner connected on his first of five successful extra point kicks.

If Ty Stover had any complaints on his team’s performance, it involved offensive penalties killing drives. While the team’s defense prevented Fredericktown from generating any momentum, penalties stalled their next two drives.

“Honestly, we were kind of sloppy,” said the coach. “We shot ourselves in the foot a few series on offense, which we need to clean up, but the kids prepared hard — they prepared all summer. So I’m glad they got a good win and we’re moving on to Triway now.”

Highland would score again on their second possession of the second quarter. Kolton Stover spread the ball around, with Ladon Hayes, Beau Gantz, Hayden Kline and Zach Church all catching short passes to move the ball to midfield. Runs by Nauman and Sam Hernandez took the offense the rest of the way, with Nauman scoring on a one-yard run.

After forcing a quick punt, the Scots then struck quick as Stover connected with Nauman on a short pass the senior was able to take 60 yards to give his team a 21-0 lead they were able to take into the half.

After the teams traded punts to open the third quarter, Highland struck quickly again. Nauman ran for 12 yards to put the ball on the Scot 41 and Hernandez took it the rest of the way on the next play.

Highland would add one more touchdown early in the fourth quarter when Stover connected with Reichenbach again — this time for a 27-yard touchdown on third-and-seven.

That score made the game operate under a running clock for nearly the entire fourth quarter, as both squads played their JVs for most of that period.

One thing that made Ty Stover happy about his team’s performance in the second half was that the penalties that plagued them in the first half weren’t present after the intermission. After the first half saw multiple false starts and an offensive holding call that wiped out a big run by Nauman, the team had no offensive penalties in the second half.

“It’s amazing what a coach’s words can do every once in a while,” quipped Stover. “But you know, we’ve got guys who haven’t played Friday nights still. We’ve got some veterans and we’ve got some rookies as far as Friday Night Lights. We were expecting that, especially with the change of offensive as far as the pace, but still, no excuse for it. We need to clean it up.”

Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS