Big Walnut scores early, holds off host Chillicothe, 22-19

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

CHILLICOTHE — What a dif­fer­ence a week makes.

Big Wal­nut shook off last week’s 27–0 season-opening loss to West­er­ville Cen­tral with a solid all-around per­for­mance in a 22–19 non-conference road vic­tory over the Cav­a­liers Fri­day night in Chillicothe.

“Chill­i­cothe is a tough place to play,” Golden Eagle head coach Joe Weaver said. “Tonight our play­ers responded to the chal­lenge and came away with the win … it was a win we needed com­ing off a loss ”

Big Wal­nut (1–1), which defeated the Cav­a­liers 38–22 last sea­son at Chill­i­cothe, never trailed in the con­test, open­ing up a 22–7 lead with 10 points in the third quar­ter and with­stood two sec­ond half Cav­a­lier touch­downs in the 3-point mar­gin of victory.

With the Golden Eagles cling­ing to a slim 12–7 advan­tage, Big Wal­nut went back to work in the third quar­ter behind senior quar­ter­back Car­son Chat­ter­ton. Chat­ter­ton and senior wide receiver Seth Myers hooked up on a 21-yard touch­down pass with 6:37 left in the third period for a 19–7 lead as fresh­man kicker Tommy Slesser con­verted the extra point. Later in the period Slesser would split the uprights with his first var­sity field goal from 26 yards out to put Big Wal­nut up 22–7 with 4:46 to play.

Chill­i­cothe bat­tled back behind the play of quar­ter­back Ryan Mathis and run­ning back Timmy Beard. Beard put the fin­ish­ing touches on a late third quar­ter 64-yard march with a 13-yard scam­per into the end zone. Get­ting the ball back on downs, quar­ter­back Ryan Mathis con­nected with Isa­iah John­son on a 22-yard com­ple­tion to set up his sec­ond touch­down run of the day to pull the Cav­a­liers to within a field goal of the lead at 22–19. But the Golden Eagle offense rose to the occa­sion, run­ning the final 4:46 off the clock to spoil the Cav­a­liers’ hopes of a come­back victory.

In an open­ing half dom­i­nated by fum­bles and punts, Big Wal­nut finally broke through and scored twice in a 15-minute span to take 12–0 lead. Chris­t­ian John­son, the Golden Eagles’ 5-foot-6, 150-pound senior back, scored from 11 yards out with 1:34 left in the open­ing period to give the Golden Eagles a lead they never sur­ren­dered. Big Wal­nut made it 12–0 as junior back Alec Eisnnicher scored on a 1-yard run with 10:19 remain­ing in the first half for a 12–0 Big Wal­nut advantage.

The Cav­a­liers finally mounted the score­board with time run­ning out in the open­ing half. Quar­ter­back Ryan Mathis dove into the end zone from a yard out to cut the Big Wal­nut advan­tage to 12–7 as the clock ticked down 0:00.

Big Walnut’s defense, which gave up 503 yards, 344 on the ground, and 25 first downs in last week’s loss to West­er­ville Cen­tral made the lead stand up. Chill­i­cothe (0–2), com­ing off a 52–33 loss to Hamil­ton Town­ship in its sea­son opener, man­aged only 185 yards in total offense against the Golden Eagle defend­ers, 72 on the ground and 113 through the air. The Cavs totals 11 first downs.

By com­par­i­son, Big Wal­nut fin­ished with 319 yards in total offense, 201 com­ing on the ground and 118 through the air. The Golden Eagles totaled 17 first downs. Big Walnut’s time of pos­ses­sion was 23 min­utes and 37 sec­onds com­pared to the Cav­a­liers’ 24:23.

John­son led Big Wal­nut on the ground with 127 yards in 18 car­ries. Chat­ter­ton, who rushed for 37 yards in 12 car­ries, com­pleted 12 of 18 passes (66.7 per­cent) for 118 yards. Senior wide receiver Adam Sha­heen had four recep­tions while senior Gabe Kitchen and Myers had three apiece. Kitchen aver­aged 11.7 yards and Myers 11.0 yards per catch.

“Our defense responded to the chal­lenge and our offense made the plays it needed to make for us to be suc­cess­ful,” Weaver said. “We’re look­ing for this win to give us the momen­tum we need head­ing towards are Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence schedule.”

Big Wal­nut returns home to enter­tain Cleve­land Collinwood in non-league action on Senior Par­ents Night Fri­day. Game time is 6:30 p.m.

The Golden Eagles open their OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion slate the fol­low­ing Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 14, host­ing rival Olen­tangy at Golden Eagle Sta­dium. Kick­off time is set for 7:30 p.m.

Posted by Gary Henery on Sep 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.