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Was Wayne lucky? Did Northmont choke?
QB BRAXTON MILLER’S NON-SLIDE
DRAWS LATE PENALTY IN WAYNE’S
VICTORY OVER CANTON McKINLEY
I’ve been asked those two question numerous times over the Labor Day Weekend, and the answers are “No” and “No.”
Two of the Greater Wester Ohio Conference’s finest teams traveled to Northeast Ohio on Saturday, Sept. 5, and only one came away with a victory.
The Wayne Warriors forced four turnovers and KO’d Canton McKinley, 27-14, at Canton’s Fawcett Stadium while Northmont couldn’t hold a three-touchdown lead and lost to Cleveland St. Ignatius, 27-20, at Byers Field in Parma.
Two of McKinley’s fumbles came in the shadow of Wayne’s goal line. If you’re a McKinley fan, you’ll say the Bulldogs gave it away. If you’re a Wayne fan, you’ll say the Warriors took it away.
The color analyst on Canton radio station WHBC blasted Wayne quarterback Braxton Miller for free-lancing on the Warriors’ final clock-killing drive.
Wayne has a designed play where it lines up in the “Victory” formation and Miller takes the snap, bolts around end and slides. On Saturday night, he didn’t slide. The refs threw a flag on the Warriors for unsportsmanlike conduct, and head coach Jay Minton took Miller out of the game.
“Braxton usually knows what he can do and can’t do,” Minton said. “He has to learn to keep his composure down the stretch a little bit. A little extra-curricular stuff. and he didn’t handle it very well. But that’s all right. He’s healthy. He didn’t get hurt. So we’re fortunate.”
Northmont, meanwhile, built a 20-0 lead only to have St. Ignatius score the game’s final 27 points. The Thunderbolts did not choke. They simply fell victim to St. Ignatius’ mighty momentum swing.
Here are the game re-caps:
WAYNE 27, CANTON McKINLEY 14
The Wayne Warriors are known for their explosive, quick-strike offense and rugged, take-no-prisoners defense.
Four big plays — including one on defense — catapulted the Warriors to a 27-14 victory over Canton McKinley in front of 10,000 spectators at Fawcett Stadium in the shadow of the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday night, Sept. 5.
Junior quarterback Braxton Miller threw two touchdown passes and ran for another, and Wayne’s defense unleashed a “trifecta” — sack, fumble and TD — as the Warriors forced four turnovers and improved to 2-0 heading into Friday’s showdown against visiting Cleveland Glenville. McKinley falls to 1-1.
“Braxton’s like that,” Wayne coach Jay Minton told Canton radio station WHBC. “When we need a big play, we go to him.”
Trailing 7-0, Miller bought time with a scramble, then rifled a 53-yard TD pass to Armani Miller with 48 seconds remaining in the first half. The PAT failed and Wayne trailed 7-6 at intermission.
McKinley QB Kyle Ohradzansky picked the wrong time to go to the sidelines with an equipment issue. The Warriors blitzed sophomore backup Tyler Foster, stripped the ball away and recovered the fumble in the end zone for a 13-7 lead.
The Bulldogs jumped ahead, 14-13, when Taron Montgomery took a middle screen and dashed 64 yards at the 3:34 mark of the third quarter. But it was all Wayne the remainder of the game.
Miller rolled to his left and flicked a 31-yard TD pass to Seth Stuart at 0:47 of the third, then Miller supplied the exclamation point with a 22-yard scoring burst with 2:07 remaining.
Miller’s TD was made possible by a roughing-the-punter penalty against McKinley with 4:27 to go.
Miller accounted for 267 of Wayne’s 313 yards. He completed 17 of 33 passes for 212 yards and rushed for 55 yards. Stuart had six receptions for 82 yards.
CLEVELAND ST. IGNATIUS 27, NORTHMONT 20
Now the Northmont Thunderbolts know why Cleveland St. Ignatius is a 10-time Division I state football champion.
The Wildcats came all the way back from a three-touchdown deficit to shock Northmont, 27-20, at Byers Field in Parma on Saturday night, Sept. 5.
The Thunderbolts used some trickery and were opportunistic in the first half, building a 20-0 lead. But St. Ignatius scored just before halftime and rode the momentum to a dominating performance in the second half.
St. Ignatius improved to 2-0, while Northmont dropped to 1-1.
Junior quarterback Robert Sakosky threw TD passes of 63 yards to Paul Winkler and 27 yards to Josh McClain in the first half. Xavior Johnson’s 27-yard run on a fake punt — coach Lance Schneider’s gamble on fourth-and-11 at the T-Bolts’ 34-yard line — set up McClain’s TD.
The lead swelled to 20-0 at 5:08 of the second quarter when Quintin Cooper dashed 11 yards on the first play from scrimmage after St. Ignatius fumbled the kickoff following McClain’s TD.
St. Ignatius finally got on the scoreboard with 18 seconds remaining in the first half, thanks to Mark Myers’ 13-yard TD pass to Tucker Sorrell.
The second half was all Wildcats. Sakosky coughed up the ball on a sack and St. Ignatius made the recovery in the end zone for a TD. Then the Wildcats ran the ball down Northmont’s throat with two rushing TDs. Robert Grebenc erupted for 173 yards on 24 carries.
Schneider called the matchup “a good measuring stick for our program. Last year, we weren’t quite good enough (a 23-3 loss). We hope we’re a little better than we were. We’ve just got to go up there and see where we’re at.”
The T-Bolts discovered a strong start isn’t as good as a fast finish.
St. Ignatius played without Ohio State-bound senior linebacker Scott McVey, who suffered a shoulder injury in a 14-13 season-opening win over Cleveland Glenville. McVey’s grandfather is Larry McVey, the former wrestling coach at Fairmont East High School in Kettering.
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