BW derails Railroaders in 50-6 gridiron victory

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

There was no doubt the Golden Eagles came ready to play … and play hard they did.

Big Wal­nut (2–1) scored five touch­downs the first five times the Golden Eagles han­dled the ball en route to a 50–6 non-conference vic­tory over the Mighty Rail­road­ers of Cleve­land Collinwood (0–3) on Senior Par­ent Night Fri­day at Golden Eagle Stadium.

The Golden Eagles won the toss and took the open­ing kick­off 74 yards in eight plays with junior full­back Grant Burks cap­ping the drive with an 8-yard touch­down run with 10:03 left in the open­ing quar­ter. Sopho­more place­kicker Tyler Sat­ter­field capped the touch­down with the first of his five suc­cess­ful extra points and the Golden Eagle offense was ready to roll.

The Big Wal­nut defense set up the Golden Eagles’ sec­ond score as senior defen­sive back Seth Myers stepped in front of a pass thrown by Rail­roader junior quar­ter­back Jo’Vaughn Scott at the BW 38 and returned it 19 yards to the Collinwood 43. Thee plays later, Golden Eagle senior quar­ter­back Car­son Chat­ter­ton tossed a 20-yard TD pass to senior wide receiver Adam Sha­heen at the 7:09 mark of the quarter.

Forc­ing a three-and-out on the Rail­road­ers’ next series, it took Burks just three plays to put the ball in the end zone for a 21–0 Big Wal­nut lead. Burks opened the series with a 29-yard scam­per to the Collinwood 2-yard line. After an ille­gal sub­sti­tu­tion penalty on the vis­i­tors, Burks pow­ered the ball in for six with 5:26 remain­ing in the quarter.

The Golden Eagle defense got into the busi­ness of scor­ing touch­downs as Myers picked off his sec­ond pass of the young evening and returned it 38 yards for a BW tou­chown and a 28–0 advan­tage with 4:12 still show­ing in the first-quarter clock.

After forc­ing Collinwood into a three-and-out on its next series, the Golden Eagles put together a four-play 43-yard march that con­cluded on senior run­ning back Cody Conley’s 13-yard scor­ing scam­per 12 sec­onds into the sec­ond quar­ter, a score that gave Big Wal­nut a com­mand­ing 35–0 lead with 11:42 still left in the open­ing half.

Big Walnut’s early point explo­sion did not sur­prise head coach Joe Weaver.

“Our play­ers love to play at home on Fri­day night in front of their fans,” Weaver said. “It’s a tra­di­tion for our play­ers and they respond by mak­ing the plays and get­ting the job done … tonight was no different.”

Cleve­land Collinwood, score­less in its first two starts of the sea­son, finally broke through. The Rail­road­ers put together a 12-play 73-yard march fol­low­ing Conley’s score as Scott found junior wide receiver Don­tez Lock­ett on a 19-yard scor­ing strike with 1:55 remain­ing in the first half.

“Coach (Greg) Wheeler’s Rail­road­ers con­tin­ued to work and play hard, even after falling behind by 35 points,” Weaver said. “You never sensed that his play­ers got down on them­selves and quit play­ing … they just con­tin­ued to play harder.”

Weaver’s troops tacked on scores in both the third and fourth quar­ters by sopho­more run­ning backs Bray­den Shep­herd and Tyler Mar­tin. Shep­herd scored on a 15-yard run with 6:14 left in the third quar­ter and Mar­tin capped the game’s scor­ing with a 48-yard run with 2:34 left in the con­test. In between the Golden Eagles counted a safety, tack­ling Scott in the end zone on a third-and-seven call from the Rail­road­ers’ 4-yard line.

Big Wal­nut totaled 411 yards and 21 first downs in 43 plays. The Golden Eagles, led by Mar­tin with 128 yards in 9 car­ries, rushed for 371 yards in 36 plays, aver­ag­ing 10.3 yards per carry. Burks fol­lowed with 62 yards in 5 tries and Shep­herd with 60 yards in 4 attempts. Chat­ter­ton was 3-for-6 pass­ing for 40 yards while rush­ing for 28 yards in 4 car­ries. Sha­heen had two catches for 34 yards.

On the neg­a­tive side for the Golden Eagles, senior wide receiver/defensive back Antony Roberto left the game with a knee injury late in the sec­ond quar­ter. The extent of his injury had not been determined.

Collinwood fin­ished with 88 yards and 6 first downs in 37 plays. Scott threw for 104 yards on 7-for-25 pass­ing with 2 inter­cep­tions. Lock­ett had four catches for 47 yards and the Rail­road­ers’ lone score. On the ground, Collinwood fin­ished in the red with a minus 16 yards in 12 carries.

Big Wal­nut will open defense of its 2011 Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion cham­pi­onship Fri­day night when the Golden Eagles host long­time rival Olen­tangy in the con­fer­ence opener for both teams. Ed Terwilliger’s Braves, 35–21 vic­tors over vis­it­ing Lex­ing­ton Fri­day night, will bring a 3–0 record into the con­test. Kick­off is slated for 7:30 p.m.

Posted by Gary Henery on Sep 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.