’Cats’ offense stalls in loss to OLSH
Shenango (7) vs. Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (14)
Written: Sep 28, 2013
By Dan Irwin
New Castle News
What looked at first like the brighest two minutes of the night ultimately ended up dimming Shenango’s comeback hopes.
After spotting Our Lady of the Sacred Heart a two-touchdown lead in their Class A Big Seven Conference contest last night, the Wildcats scored with 2:04 left in the first half and had a first down at the Chargers’ 25 with less than a minute remaining.
However, quarterback Brian Tanner was sacked twice, and Curtis Schotsch’s 38-yard field goal try as time expired sailed wide left. The defensive stand preserved a 14-7 Sacred Heart lead that turned out to be the final score at Glenn “Pop” Johnston Stadium.
The interlude, though, did more than squelch the ’Cats’ momentum. It also cost them their quarterback. Tanner went down hard on his shoulder, and missed the second half while being taken to the hospital for X-rays.
“We’ll have to see how long he’s out,” Shenango coach Mike Commesso said. “We had to go with (sophomore) Evan (Kendall) the second half, but really, we just couldn’t find a rhythm on offense no matter who was in.
“Credit their defensive line, they were really taking it to us. We never really got the running game going (eking out just 22 net yards), and that’s kind of our identity. If we can’t run the ball, we’re going to be in trouble.”
The Chargers (2-3) scored on a 3-yard run by quarterback Joey Sebes and a 28-yard pass from Sebes to Nick Metz. However, they failed to capitalize on a couple of other opportunities to break the game open. Metz dropped a sure touchdown pass that would have put Sacred Heart up 21-0 late in the first half, and Sebes fumbled the ball away at the Shenango 12 midway through the final frame.
It was three plays after Metz’s drop that Shenango’s Tyler Welsh hauled in a screen pass from Tanner and took it 66 yards to paydirt, cutting OLSH’s lead in half. Then, after holding the Chargers to a three-and-out series deep in their own territory, Shenango (1-4) looked like it was ready to push across the tying score before Tanner was sacked twice to end the threat.
“We were able to make a couple big defensive plays before the half or that could have been a big swing there,” OLSH coach Bill Daniels said. “Our defense did a hell of a job all night. They controlled the line of scrimmage and I was very proud of that. We went back to our original defense, which we started the year with, and we’re going to stick with that the rest of the year.
“We’re were trying to stop Laurel’s option game two weeks ago, and we were trying to stop Sto-Rox’s passing game, so we were fooling around with our defense. We need to stick with what we do best, and that worked out real well tonight.”
Shenango’s defense also performed well against OLSH’s ground game, limiting the Chargers to just 91 yards net rushing. However, Sacred Heart tallied 162 yards through the air, connecting on seven of 12 attempts.
“They were playing us man to man,” Daniels said. “We have a couple nice receivers and the quarterback did a real nice job getting the ball to them. That made a big difference.”
(Email: d_irwin@ncnewsonline.com)
OLSH SHENANGO
12 First downs 6
111 Yards Rushing 51
20 Yards Lost 29
91 Net Rushing 22
12 Passes Attempted 17
7 Passes Completed 7
0 Passes Intercepted 3
162 Yards Passing 126
253 Total Yards 148
2-1 Fumbles-Lost 2-0
7-33.7 Punts-Average 5-29.8
7-40 Penalties-Yards 4-20
OLSH 7 7 0 0 — 14
SHENANGO 0 7 0 0 — 7
Scoring plays
OLSH — Joey Sebes 3-yard run (Greg Strong kick)
OLSH — Nick Metz 28-yard pass from Sebes (Strong kick)
SHENANGO — Tyler Welsh 66-yard pass from Brian Tanner (Kurtis Schotsch kick).
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