Announcement
SHEFFIELD TWP. — It was another ho-hum night, another second-half running clock and another blowout win for the Buckeye football team. The most recent victim was Clearview, which was dominated 47-7 in a Patriot Athletic Conference cross-division game Friday night. The Bucks (5-0, 2-0) made it look easy again, overwhelming the Clippers (1-4, 0-2) and easily dispatching another opponent on their quest for perfection.
“We’ve just got to take it one game at a time,” Buckeye senior Trevor Thome said. “You can’t go 10-0 without being 5-0.” Thome was at the forefront again for the video-game-like Buckeye offense. It wasn’t quite six touchdowns on seven touches like last week against Fairview, but Thome still found the end zone four times while helping the Bucks build a 34-0 halftime lead. The 5-foot-8, 180-pound slotback took four touches to score his first touchdown, but hit paydirt on touches five, six and eight to make it 27-0 early in the second quarter. His biggest run came on a spectacular 73-yarder in which he was pushed to the edge of the sideline before cutting against the grain and sprinting to the end zone to put the Bucks up 14-0 in the first quarter.
It was another tremendous performance for Thome, who had nine carries for 133 yards before retiring to the bench with the rest of the first-team offense early in the third quarter. That final drive culminated in Nathan Scott’s 4-yard plunge that had Nathan Polidori throwing his hands in the air signaling the touchdown immediately after handing the ball off. “We’re really confident in our offense,” Thome said. “When we get down to the goal line, we know we’re going to punch it in because of our great offensive line.
They are very aggressive and give us big holes to run through.” Thome, Scott (10 carries, 83 yards; 2 receptions, 50 yards) and Polidori (6-for-9, 141 yards, TD; 10 carries, 52 yards) have given opposing defenses fits all season. “The defense can’t just key on one guy because if they do, we have plenty of other guys that can make plays,” Thome said.“
While the offense was playing pinball again, the defense put forth another outstanding effort. Prior to the second-team defense taking the field, the Bucks had limited Iowa recruit Lance Billings to a meager 47 yards with 5:43 left in the third quarter. Clearview finished with 126 total yards and averaged just 1.7 yards per carry. Billings was a major focus of the Buckeye defense and did just about everything but snap the ball to himself. The 6-1, 180-pound wide receiver/defensive back/punter/kicker/kick returner was bottled up all night, finishing with 54 yards on five receptions and one rush for negative-5 yards.
“We watched film on them all week,” Scott said. “We knew what they could do, and our coaching staff got us really prepared. We were just confident in our ability to go out there and perform.”Buckeye used multiple players to shadow the multi-faceted Billings, as Scott, Justin Lowry and Josh England took turns putting in work. “We were just doing our jobs,” Lowry said. “Nothing really changes. We just go out and play defense.” The Clippers’ lone score came against the backups, when reserve quarterback Jacob Collier found Zavier Tatum-Felder for a 24-yard TD. The Buckeye reserves got that score back when Adam Fauver scrambled in from 10 yards.
