Football: Knights use ground game to achieve familiar result

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

 

MANCHESTER-Almost a year ago to the date that the Middletown High School Knights Varsity Football team started their season with a blowout win over the North Carroll High School Cougars by a score of 31-0, Middletown had a chance to repeat that same feat with the only difference being that the kids on North Carroll had changed schools after North Carroll contracted, with the Knights now facing the Manchester Valley High School Mavericks.

In the end, the school change would be the only thing that separated last years’ game from this years’ game as the Knights would roll over the Mavericks this year by a score of 43-0 to put the Knights at 1-0.

From the start it appeared that the Knights would be favored on paper, especially if they used their rushing attack to success, there were multiple variables such as it being the first game with Manchester Valley and North Carroll combined and the fact that the first game of the season is usually a time where teams try and work out their kinks.

Everything went according to plan, as the Knights managed to use a strong rushing attack with some timely passing added in and rode a wave of early scoring in the first half to take an easy win from the Mavericks.

It was a suspicious start for Middletown in the early minutes of the game as the opening kickoff of the 2016-2017 season saw Manchester Valley return it all the way to the Middletown 12 yard line and set up shop inside the Knights’ red zone.

That red zone time would be short lived as on the first play from scrimmage for the Mavericks, Manchester Valley quarterback Cooper Hastings would throw an interception to Knights senior Shawn Green and the Knights would get to work.

Even though, the first drive wouldn’t yield results for the Knights the second drive would as after a Hastings’ fumble gave Middletown their second takeaway of the game, the Knights would take just two plays to go down the field and have Middletown senior running back Brandon Jones punch it in from one yard out.

The Knights running game would do much of the same throughout the evening as the Knights would put up their first three scores of the game on the Jones’ one yard touchdown run and two more touchdown runs, coming from the legs of Knights’ junior quarterback Matt Evich, from 34 and 5 yards out respectively.

The three touchdown runs would give the Knights a 19-0 lead at halftime as the only thing the Knights struggled with in the first quarter was the two-point conversion as they would fail two of them in the first quarter.

For the Knights, they would stick to their bread and butter and play traditional Middletown football to the core, putting it on the ground whenever they had the chance which was a gameplan that played into the Mavericks’ weaknesses with Middletown dominating the line of scrimmage and opening up huge holes for the backfield.

Statistically, the Knights dominated the ground game and almost every other facet of the game as Middletown outgained the Mavericks overall 383-87 and on the ground 283-(-20). The Knights would have three rushers above 50 yards as Jones would go for 113 yards while Middletown running back Aaron Derwin would go for 89 yards and Evich would pick up a cool 62 yards.

After heading into the first quarter with a 19 point lead the Knights were in cool control but would add more early in the second quarter as Knights’ kicker Max Salvadori would put a field goal through from 40 yards out to make it 22-0, with the offense adding more late in the quarter with Knights back-up quarterback Adam Bain finding his place in the offense slinging one touchdown pass within the final 1:30 of the second quarter.

Bain would be the biggest surprise for the Knights as he completed a crisp and clean stint at quarterback going 4-5 for 77 yards with one touchdown pass to junior Kyle Klink from 11 yards out.

Middletown would head into the half up 36-0, and then would tack on another touchdown on a 24 yard touchdown run from Jones to make the score 43-0 which is how it would end up when the clock struck zero.

The Knights (1-0) will now look ahead to their home opener against the Eastern Tech High School Mavericks on Friday September 9^th at 7:00 p.m.

If the Knights can keep running like they did tonight it might take a lot more than a group of Mavericks to catch up with their gameplan.