Varsity Football: Knights Mix Historical and Unconventional in Win Over Eastern Tech

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

 

The Middletown High School Knights Varsity Football team is looking to recreate history this year and they have made embracing the history of the program the main point of how they are doing things this year.

From how they play on the field to how things are done off the field Middletown is trying to prove that “imitation is the most sincere form of flattery” by bringing back as much as they can from past years.

But, it hasn’t all been a history lesson for the Knights as at times they’ve done things that are a little bit unconventional such as the two quarterback platoon system that Middletown has employed for the first two games.

From a historical standpoint the Knights have embraced their past by using the same scoreboard graphics and sounds that the state championship teams of old have used. They’ve also embraced the history by using the #team43 signifying where the Knights stand in the history of the storied program.

The mix of historical and unconventional has created only good things for the Knights as they added another win, moving to 2-0 with a 36-0 lightning shortened win over the Eastern Tech Mavericks on Friday September 9^th.

Middletown has mastered the unconventional two quarterback platoon system as senior Adam Bain and junior Matt Evich both provided an essential role in the Middletown win, adapting to the system quite well early in the season.

Evich and Bain have been rotating drives providing teams with different look as Bain fills the traditional role of a pocket passer while Evich is much more of an elusive, scrambling type of quarterback. Even with Evich and Bain holding these roles for most of the time both of them have shown the ability to fulfill the other roles too which forces defense not to cheat to protect for a certain style of play when either quarterback is in.

Both quarterbacks have shown a strong knowledge of the offense and have been executing the systems put in front of them to perfection. It also hasn’t helped that the defense for Middletown has been stingy all year using big stops to give the offense excellent field position during both games so far this season.

Out of the seven drives that Middletown had in the abbreviated game, five of the drives started inside Eastern Tech territory with three of those five starting inside the Mavericks 30 yard line.

Leading the havoc on defense for Middletown was Knights senior defensive linemen Sean Mullican who used his size advantage on the Eastern Tech offensive linemen to penetrate into the backfield. Mullican would record 5.5 tackles with four of those being solo tackles to lead the Knights.

Defensively, Middletown’s penetration of the offensive line of Eastern Tech as a whole was excellent as they held Eastern Tech to -5 yards rushing and -5 yards overall as the Knights would record six tackles for loss and two sacks in the contest.

Middletown would start the game off hot as the Knights would record a touchdown within the first five minutes as junior fullback Chase Ganley would get the ball in a short yardage situation as Ganley would punch it in from a yard out to give the Knights a 7-0 lead.

Middletown would pocket more points shortly thereafter as a quick Mavericks three-and-out and a bad Manchester Valley punt would give the Knights the ball on the Eastern Tech 30 yard line. One play would then do the trick for Middletown as a 30 yard run by Matt Evich, who finished with 50 yards on five attempts, would be all the Knights needed to make it 14-0.

The Knights would find more points again in short order as the defense and a bad Manchester Valley punt would give the ball to Middletown again deep in the Mavericks territory. It would again take only one play for Middletown to do damage, as this time it was Bain’s drive and Bain’s turn to bring the points as he would connect with senior wide receiver Shawn Green for a 23 yard touchdown pass that would give the Knights a 20-0 lead after a two-point conversion failed.

Middletown would end the first quarter with a 20-0 lead and pick right where they left off in the 2^nd quarter as they would record a safety in the end zone to start the second quarter after a punt by Evich pinned the Mavericks on their own three yard line.

It wasn’t done there as both Bain and Evich would be involved in scoring drives in the second quarter with both drives culminating in touchdown runs for Brandon Jones from four and three yards out to give the Knights a 36-0 lead that they would carry into halftime.

Then, the lightning came and after a lengthy delay of almost 45 minutes with only 24 minutes of running clock and a 36 point deficit being on the other side, the Knights and Mavericks decided to close the book and call it final because of the lightning storm.

The Knights will now carry a 2-0 record into a crucial Week #3 match-up against Linganore as a win would get another piece of history on their side. The last time the Knights went 3-0 to start a season, they won a state championship.