Lakers knock off Panthers for first win of season

SANDUSKYDifficulty in finding a Week 10 opponent and a desire to gather more information on 8-man football made it an easy decision for Danbury to keep St. Mary Central Catholic on its schedule after the Panthers announced last July that they would play the 2019 season as an 8-man team.It proved to be the right one as well.The Lakers, winless in nine 11-man football games this fall, rushed for 471 yards in their 52-36 victory over the Panthers on Saturday night at Strobel Field."It's nice to get that monkey off our backs," Danbury athletic director and football coach Keith Mora said. "For us, we learned that on a level field, we can be a pretty good football team. When we're not competing against teams with 45-50 guys, or even 35 kids, we give ourselves a chance."And I look at our kids' faces and I love this look."Backup quarterback Tommy Owens led Danbury, rushing for 343 yards and five touchdowns, while Cole Shortridge chipped in 105 yards and one score. The Lakers didn't throw a pass in the game."He hasn't played football since the second grade, so he's raw," Mora said of Owens. "He understands, 'Ball hits my hands, I run with it.' That's really all he knows when it comes to football."We put him in in Week 7 when our starter (Kaden Conrad) went down and we realized that we needed to go back to something that we felt really good about, which was the stuff we did in 2016 with the Wing-T. We started implementing that in Week 8, which kind of prepped us for what we were going to do against St. Mary."With a 25-man roster, finding out more about the possibilities of playing 8-man football going forward was also on Mora's mind. Toledo Christian and Holgate recently announced they were committing to forming an 8-man league and Mora made a presentation on the idea to his administration. The Ohio High School Athletic Association is also monitoring the situation."I'll definitely bring to our board what our experience was here tonight," Mora said. "I presented to them last Wednesday all the things I believe are beneficial about 8-man and the potential pitfalls. I gave them all the information I could."The Panthers also plan to evaluate the results of the 2019 season before deciding whether to return to 11-man football or remain in the 8-man game."We're not making a decision now," said Panthers coach Toby Notestine, who was honored prior to the game for his 45 years of coaching at Sandusky and St. Mary CC. "You can put a deadline out there, but we thought we'd have 32 football players this year. We thought we'd be standing here talking about making a run at the playoffs and a conference championship, but we hit the end of July and we had 10 kids who decide not to play, for whatever reason."There's no question we did the right thing. The fact that our kids were able to continue to learn football instead of losing a year. Our cheerleaders got to cheer, our band got to play, the school year went on and our kids got to learn football and, for me, that was a no-brainer decision."The Panthers did suffer an injury during the game when senior Joe Schaffter went down late in the game and was transported to the hospital as a precautionary measure, according to Notestine.Owens scored on runs of 8, 14, 63, 30 and 10 yards. The junior also added a pair of 2-point conversion runs during the contest. Shortridge had a 2-yard scoring plunge in the first quarter, along with three conversion runs, while Guy Maltese return a kick 77 yards for another score."Initially, we thought we'd try to be a team that throws the ball around the field," Mora said of the 8-man football experiment. "We started trying to find things on that and it really didn't exist. People tend to think 8-man is just 7-on-7 with an extra guy and that's just not the case."When we started looking into what teams in Michigan and Illinois do, we noticed a lot of teams were going double-tights (tight ends). Then we got the St. Mary film and they were going double-tights and most of their opponents were in double-tight and we figured there has to be a reason for this."The Panthers, who ended their first try at the 8-man game with a 2-6 record, were led by Kyle Pelz, who was 3-of-8 passing for 108 yards and one score, while rushing 10 times for 189 yards with touchdowns runs of 44, 27 and 49 yards. Freshman Isaac Aldridge chipped in 125 yards on 24 carries with a 35-yard touchdown run and senior Paige Ackerman booted a 26-yard field goal."We played really well offensively, we just didn't play well defensively, obviously," Notestine said. "You can't miss tackles. The fundamentals are still the fundamentals and we just didn't do those well. We didn't tackle very well."However, Notestine doesn't regret going to the 8-man game when it became apparent the Panthers could not play an 11-man schedule with just 20 players, including three seniors who had never played the game and 12 sophomores and freshmen, on the roster."It was either (play 8-man) or lose a year," Notestine said. "Then, if we play 11-man next year, we've got a group of kids who sat out a year and what's that accomplish?" WLEC radio personality Mark Fogg, who plans to retire in May, was honored at halftime for his 45 yards of broadcasting area football games.Danbury 24 12 8 8 — 52St. Mary CC 12 17 7 0 — 36D—Tommy Owens 8 run (Owens run)SM—Jackson Rutger 54 pass from Kyle Pelz (run failed)D—Cole Shortridge 2 run (Shortridge run)SM—Pelz 44 run (run failed)D—Guy Maltese 77 kickoff return (Owens run)SM—Pelz 27 run (Rutger pass from Pelz)D—Owens 14 run (run failed)SM—Pelz 49 run (run failed)D—Owens 63 run (run failed)SM—Paige Ackerman 26 field goalD—Owens 30 run (Shortridge run)SM—Isaac Aldridge 35 run (Ackerman kick)D—Owens 10 run (Shortridge run)St. Mary Central Catholic's Kyle Pelz reaches to tackle Danbury's Cole Shortridge during a game at Strobel Field in Sandusky on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019.St. Mary Central Catholic's Jackson Rutger comes down with a catch before running for a touchdown during a game against Danbury at Strobel Field in Sandusky on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019.Danbury's Guy Maltese returns a kickoff for a touchdown during a game against St. Mary Central Catholic on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019, at Strobel Field in Sandusky.Danbury's Tommy Owens rushes the ball as St. Mary Central Catholic defenders Mason Kolycheck and Joe Schaffter reach to tackle during a game at Strobel Field on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019.Danbury's Danny Harris runs the ball during a game against St. Mary Central Catholic on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019, at Strobel Field in Sandusky.St. Mary Central Catholic's Jaden Bell competes a catch during a game against Danbury on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019, at Strobel Field in Sandusky.