Announcement
Buckeye Rolls Past Wellington
10/1/2016 - WELLINGTON — Isaiah Williams was the next man up for the Buckeye football team, while Michael Doerge continued to be the man.
Put them together and Buckeye’s football team opened Patriot Athletic Conference Stars Division play with a 35-21 win over Wellington on Friday.
With Dominic Monaco suffering a broken femur on the 13th play of the game, Williams stepped in, stared down All-Ohio quarterback Max Carevic and all but led the Bucks (5-1, 1-0) to victory.
While the stat sheet says Carevic was 15-for-36 for 278 yards and three touchdowns, the senior threw three picks, with Williams getting two of them and returning one for a touchdown in the fourth quarter.
“I hope that motivates him to buy in, because he’s a good young man that works hard,” Buckeye coach Mark Pinzone said. “Now, he’s going to have to work harder because his level of play just increased instantaneously. He showed that tonight. I’m very proud of him.”
As much as the 278 yards passing by Carevic and 297 yards total by Wellington might look like a blemish, they really weren’t, as Carevic connected on catch-and-run touchdowns for 69 and 85 yards to account for more than half of the offense.
The fact Wellington (3-3, 0-1) rushed for 17 yards shows just how strong the Buckeye defense was when the game was in question.
“I’m very proud of our defense,” Pinzone said. “Our defense always does a great job. Hats off to Wellington. They don’t quit. Coach (Sean Arno) has them believing in themselves, but Coach (Joe) Yarwood had our defense working hard tonight.”
With Monaco out and Justin Canedy (13 carries, 35 yards) dealing with cramps, the jet sweep wasn’t a big part of Buckeye’s repertoire.
That meant Doerge needed to answer the bell and the 5-foot-10, 195-pound senior played 10 feet tall. He carried the ball a school-record 41 times for 149 yards and was part of the scoring equation on the first four touchdowns.
His team trailing 7-0 after the first quarter, Doerge went in from 2 yards out midway through the second, hooked up with Richard Van Boxel on a 52-yard score 86 seconds after that and closed the period with a 10-yard touchdown on third-and 5.
Doerge had 219 of Buckeye’s 268 yards of offense.
“I’m very tired,” a smiling Doerge said. “We’ve been doing this since August. You just keep going and don’t think about it. The defense took the pressure off me. To see them scoring without us on the field was really nice.”
The score right before halftime might not have put the final nail in the coffin, but it was one Pinzone and Co. were looking for to put away a pesky opponent.
“That was huge,” Pinzone said. “I wanted to get that two-possession advantage going into halftime. I wanted to push to that point and finish the half on a positive note. The kids worked hard to get to that point and it worked out.”
Contact Brad Bournival at bournival929@gmail.com.
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