Saturday's HS football scrimmage report: Dover draws; Phila wins
A number of area high school football programs kicked off their scrimmage season Saturday and that included Dover hosting GlenOak and New Philadelphia traveling to Northwest.
The Crimson Tornadoes and Golden Eagles hooked up in a 60-play scrimmage on the turf at Crater Stadium and each team found the end zone once for a 1-1 draw.
"It was a really good first scrimmage for us," said Ifft. "They had some guys that could wiggle and we were able to adjust to their speed. They have some good tough kids and it was a good physical 60-play scrimmage. Overall, I wasn't displeased at all."
GlenOak scored on its first possession of the contest as it moved the ball downfield from its own 30 on a number of quick-hitting plays, capped by a two-run scoring run.
Dover also scored on its first possession as junior J.J. Barton scored on a 4-yard run to cap a 70-yard touchdown drive.
Senior running back Mitchell Martin was the main man on the drive as he ripped off a couple of big gainers to get the Crimson Tornadoes into scoring position. He went on to add some tough runs to push his rushing yardage well over 100 yards for the game.
"Mitchell is a exceptional runner," said Ifft. "He's tough as nails."
Senior Ben Hamm and junior Sean Baumberger shared quarterbacking duties and threw sparingly.
Ifft said his goal was to work on the run game first against GlenOak.
"We wanted to come in and run the ball," said Ifft. "Maybe, we'll work on passing a little more Thursday (at Ashland). Right now, we wanted to run the football."
Defensively, junior Simon Lorentz, senior David Denney and Hamm shined with their tackling abilities, while sophomore Caden Schie and senior Tyler Stevenson came up with interceptions.
"Our guys that are good players played good and and the guys who are trying to become players made some strides," said Ifft.
New Phila 2, Northwest 0
New Philadelphia went to Canal Fulton and finished with a 2-0 decision over host Northwest.
Senior running back Trevor Bean burst through the line and right past the Indians’ defense on the Quakers’’ first possession for a 66-yard touchdown run.
Senior Konnor Tetzloff intercepted a Northwest pass and returned it 38 yards for New Phila’s other score. Junior Jordy Delacruz also picked off a pass for the Quakers, who never allowed Northwest to get near the end zone.
“We were very eager to see how we would perform on both sides of the ball against some live competition,” said New Philadelphia head coach Mike Johnson. “Overall we are pleased with what we saw and the effort from the kids was outstanding. We’ll now work on areas where we can improve and keep getting better.”
New Philadelphia’s reserves also scored a couple touchdowns on the Northwest second-teamers.
The Quakers head to Green on Friday night for their next scrimmage.
Indian Valley 3, Fairless 1
Sam Carter ran 75 yards for a touchdown, Kolton Thomas added a 30-yard scoring run and Gavin Henry had a 1-yard TD plunge as Indian Valley recorded a win at Fairless.
"It was a good first scrimmage and we were able to get some quality film to evaluate," said Indian Valley head coach Matt Lancaster.
West Holmes 4, Tri-Valley 2
Mason Wolfe threw three touchdown passes, two to Kyle Maltarich, as West Holmes doubled up host Tri-Valley.
Maltarich had TD receptions of 70 and 35 yards and Nate Fair also had another 70 scoring catch, while Elisha Baldridge had a 1-yard scoring run.
"We are very fortunate to have such a great scrimmage partner in Tri Valley," said West Holmes head coach Zach Gardner. "Their program gets it and we both always get better from this practice. We got a lot of things to look at on film to evaluate and get better from."
This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: Saturday's HS football scrimmage report: Dover draws; Phila wins
