Skoog stars on senior night, Clear Fork tops Shelby to set up MOAC winner-take-all Week 10
BELLVILLE — If you look through Clear Fork coach Dave Carroll and defensive coordinator Dave Stupka's call history, you would see a lot of late-night conversations between the two football minds.
During the week leading up to the Colts' annual gridiron showdown with Shelby, the two coaches spent a little extra time scheming defensively trying to figure out ways to stop Shelby's high-powered offense. When one would see something on film, a phone call would go out right away to the other, no matter what time of day it was.
All of the extra attention to detail worked in a 61-19 Week 9 victory on Friday night as the Colts set up a winner-take-all Week 10 game at Highland for the outright Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference championship.
It was nearly a perfect performance by the Colts. Aside from a kickoff return for a touchdown by Shelby, there was hardly anything to nit-pick about.
"We gave up a kickoff return so that is a little thorn in my side," Carroll said. "Coach Stupka did a fantastic job against this unbelievable offense. It is incredible to see them reload from last year and bring in a 2,000-yard freshman quarterback (Brayden DeVito) and we knew we had to come up with something that was maybe surprising to them. We had to get heat on him or he will eat you up and lock up a first-team All-Ohio receiver, so we came up with a stack defense and played some man-free with our free safety helping with Ramsey. Coach Stupka did a fantastic job."
The Colts gave up just 241 yards of total offense — 138 passing and 103 rushing — to Shelby, with most of them in the second half when the game was already decided. Clear Fork forced three turnovers, including a pick-six by senior Victor Skoog with 11:35 left in the third quarter that made it 47-12 and set in motion a running clock.
Carroll called Skoog a "little fox" on his defensive score. That defensive adjustment was the result of a late-night phone call between Carroll and Stupka during which the two hatched a plan that if Shelby's Issaiah Ramsey went in motion, odds were a bubble screen was coming. So, Skoog was assigned with jumping the route, blitzing and getting the pick. The play was like deja vu of a play during practice earlier in the week. He knew what was coming.
"Credit him," Carroll said of Skoog. "He has been our rock and our leader and has done everything we have ever asked and then some. He and all of his buddies deserve this. These kids have worked hard, hard in the weight room, and they have just followed us and it is exciting."
Skoog set the tone for the Colts right out of the gate and at the start of the second half. The senior quarterback balled out in his final regular-season game at the Colt Corral with five total touchdowns, including TD runs of 61 and 62 yards on back-to-back plays to start the second half. Those two runs took up a total of 25 game seconds and his final TD of the night made it 54-19. He scored on runs of 1, 11, 61 and 62 yards.
It was the perfect senior night and despite all of his success on Friday, Skoog could only think about the final touchdown, a 1-yard run by Haydn Fidler.
"I think that is the best it could have gone tonight for all of us," Skoog said. "It was a great time, and even Hadyn Fidler got to score after not seeing much time this season, so it was just awesome and we had a great time out there."
Shelby coach Rob Mahaney knew Skoog was a special athlete and was impressed by his ability to make the Whippets pay for their mistakes.
"He played extremely well," Mahaney said. "There were some things we didn't execute very well on those two long runs where he went untouched, and he is too good of a football player to not take advantage and they are coached way too well to not take advantage. He is a very good football player, and showed it tonight with his legs. Credit to him."
The Colts ran for 400 yards and threw for 119 for an outstanding 519 yards of total offense. Skoog was 6-for-11 passing for 119 passing and ran for 193 on 10 attempts. He wasn't the only 100-yard player as senior Pawie Ault, who scored the game's first touchdown on a 2-yard run, ran for 100 yards on 12 carries. Senior Luke Schlosser had 31 yards and two touchdowns on nine carries.
"We felt that we could run the football against these guys," Carroll said. "Last year, we would have never said that because they were physically better than us. But we felt we could run with all of our backs and our offensive line and we wanted to keep Brayden DeVito off the field. It went better than I thought it was going to."
Mahaney was impressed with Clear Fork's interior linemen, especially Kaden Riddle, who disrupted the game on both sides of the ball in the trenches. He had two tackles and a sack and paved the way for 400 rushing yards on offense. He also made things speed up for DeVito.
"They are really good up front on the O-line and D-line both," Mahaney said. "The Riddle kid is as good of a D-lineman as we have seen all year and the guys around him are very good, too. He gave us a bunch of problems when we were on offense. Their D-line was able to win some one-on-one matchups and bring blitzes. But I thought we did a good job of making adjustments to give Brayden some time."
Mahaney said the Whippets (5-4, 3-3) still have plenty to play for. They control their own destiny for a playoff berth, and can clinch one next week at home against Ontario.
"They came out and challenged us and our level of execution was not where we wanted it to be," Mahaney said. "We have a big one next week against Ontario, and for us it is a huge game. We are both 5-4 and the winning team gets to be 6-4 with a winning record and the losing team will finish .500 and, to me, there is a lot on the line with Week 11 stuff. We have to take what we didn't do well tonight and learn from it very fast."
The win for the Colts (8-1, 6-0) wasn't just a simple MOAC win.
Way back in February, Carroll held a seniors-only meeting at which he asked each of them what kind of goals they wanted to set for their senior seasons. Nearly every single player said they wanted to beat Shelby. Carroll was kind of struck by it because it was just a simple Week 9 game, but to the seniors beating Shelby would mean something extra special given they hadn't beaten the Whippets in a varsity sport very much over the course of their careers.
Friday night was a testament to their hard work.
"All of our seniors stepped up tonight," Carroll said. "It is a credit to Shelby and shows how much respect they have for that program. We know what they have, three straight MOAC titles, and they just rebuild. But our seniors were all jacked up for this one."
Skoog agreed.
"It was a little bit more than just a MOAC victory," Skoog said. "It meant a little bit more to us after the regular-season and playoff loss last year in back-to-back weeks. It was awesome to come out here and beat these guys."
Now, the Colts put all of their attention on Week 10 opponent Highland, which remained undefeated in the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference with a 42-21 win over River Valley, setting up the league championship showdown in Marengo for all the marbles.
The Colts are looking for their first league championship since going back-to-back in 2017 and 2018.
"We are ready to go," Skoog said. "We are going to have to try and contain Dane Nauman because no one is stopping him. We will focus on that and make adjustments offensively against what they run."
Nauman, the MOAC's leading rusher, ran for 341 yards and five touchdowns in Week 9 and eclipsed the 2,000-yard mark for the season.
"They have a first-team All-Ohio running back and we have seen what they can do on film and it will be a task," Carroll said. "He is a big man at 215 pounds and runs hard. He looks to me like a Division I football player. I always tell kids that if they are a Division I football player, I'd let them know. I may have to give him a call and let him know to start looking into D1 schools.
"We will enjoy this win, but we will be back to work getting ready for the opportunity."
There will be a lot to game-plan for, and it is a good thing Carroll and Stupka have unlimited-minutes cell phone plans because there might be more late-night calls going on as Week 10 approaches.
jfurr@gannett.com
740-244-9934
Twitter: @JakeFurr11
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Clear Fork tops Shelby in MOAC high school football
