Wyatt Denney provided two touchdowns and a pair of two-point conversions for his team in their Friday contest against Fredericktown.
Rob Hamilton | Morrow County Sentinel
After struggling for much of the first half, the Cardington football team was able to rally against visiting Fredericktown on Friday to turn a 25-0 deficit into a 25-16 score midway through the third quarter.
While the team wasn’t able to complete the comeback in what wound up a 38-16 loss, head coach Ryan Goetzman liked the spark his team showed in battling back behind the running of sophomore back Wyatt Denney.
“That was the thing,” he said. “We had to get one more stop, we had to get one more score. We found something that worked. We went into our I formation and we did a really nice job with it. Wyatt Denney put the team on his back to bring us back into swinging distance there. Unfortunately, time wasn’t on our side. We found something that worked. We felt we could have done that had we had enough time. When you get into the situation where you have to throw the football…we had to do that and we struggled with that tonight.”
For much of the first half, things weren’t looking good for the Pirates. The team went three-and-out on each of its first four possessions and Fredericktown was able to take advantage, as the Freddies put the ball in the end zone on each of their ensuing possessions. Quarterback Blake Sipes hit Trevor Bellman and Gavin Toombs with scoring passes and also reached the end zone himself on a 65-yard run. Elijah Roush also added six points on a short touchdown run as Fredericktown opened up a 25-0 lead with 4:32 left in the first half.
Cardington would wake up offensively to make a game of it, though. After Fredericktown’s fourth touchdown, they took over the ball on their own 18-yard line, but Denney would take over the game for the Pirates.
He opened the drive with runs of 23 and 10 yards to move the ball to the Freddie 49. Fredericktown stopped him for no gain on the next play, but committed a face mask that brought the ball to the 34. Denney would then get the ball six more times in a row, with the last of those carries being a six-yard touchdown. Denney would add a two-point conversion run to allow his team to go into the locker room down 25-8.
The Pirates would then open the second half with a big defensive play. After Fredericktown moved the ball from their 39 to the Cardington 40, a Sipes pass was picked off by Isaiah Ward, who returned it to the Freddie 40. Two plays later, Denney scored on a 37-yard run. He would add another two-point conversion to make it 25-16 with 7:14 to go in the third.
Unfortunately, the team would not be able to get that one additional stop they needed to really put pressure on their opponents. Sipes would record runs of 15 and nine yards and also connected with receiver Grant Hartley for completions of 20 and 19 yards — the latter of which resulted in a touchdown to make it a 31-16 contest with 3:02 left in the period.
The Pirates would then have to punt on their next possession and Fredericktown was able to move the ball 85 yards in 10 plays. Bellman had the big play of the drive with a 40-yard run and also did the scoring honors on a five-yard run.
Trailing 38-16, Cardington’s final three possessions resulted in two turnovers and a turnover on downs, allowing their opponents to maintain their lead.
Goetzman noted that consistency in the trenches is a key for his team. While they were playing well, they were able to open holes for Denney while also slowing down the Fredericktown ground game. However, in the early going, it was the opposite, with the Freddies picking up big gains and the Pirates struggling to move the ball. With the big rivalry game with Mount Gilead coming up this Friday, the coach is looking to his front line to set the pace.
“We go as we go up front,” he said. “We’ve just got to continue to work at it and get better up front this week. That’s the drive all week — we’ve got to beat Purple. And our kids are going to be ready to roll for that. Their three guys up front are studs and we have to be prepared for that.”
Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS
