On paper, call it even
Tigers have better offense, Dogs have the ‘D
By
STEVE DOERSCHUK
Independent
Sports Editor
You want to play the
Massillon McKinley football game on paper?
Since we have to wait
until 2 p.m. Saturday to see it on the field, why not ?
OK, then.
On paper, Massillon
has a slight edge on offense. McKinley has a clear edge on defense.
Between the lines,
Massillon's edge on offense might be greater and McKinley's advantage on defense
might be slighter since the Tigers have played a tougher schedule.
Massillon's offense
has amassed 2,570 yards in 418 plays for an average of 6.15 yards a play.
McKinley's offense has netted 2,309 yards in 414 plays for a 5.6 average.
The teams have
comparable rushing numbers: Massillon's 1,630 Yards at 5.7 a carry versus McKinley's
1,766 at 5.6 a pop.
Massillon has a
whopping advantage in the passing game. The Tigers have completed 61 of 127
passes for 940 yards, eight touchdowns and six interceptions, while the
Bulldogs have connected on 38 of 95 for 543 yards, two touchdowns and 10
interceptions.
Massillon quarterback
Erik White has completed 60 of 122 passes for 883 yards, seven TDs and six
interceptions. McKinley quarterback Pat Lyon, who has started all but two
games, has completed 26 of 71 for 384 yards, two touchdowns and eight
interceptions.
Six Tiger receivers ‑
Myricks (10 for 228), Wrentie Martin (12 for 223), Mark Kester (11 for 153),
Jason Stafford (9 for 127), Craig York (9 for 87) and Gerald Pope (5 for 64) ‑
have caught at least five passes.
Keith Smith (7 for
177) and Mike Hedrick (7 for 96) are the only Bulldogs with more than five
receptions.
So that's the offense.
What about the
defense?
McKinley's has been
better.
The Tiger defense has
allowed 2,121 yards against its nine opponents. McKinley foes have gained only
1,399 yards.
Massillon's running
defense has surrendered 1,409 yards at 4.3 a carry. McKinley's rushing defense
has yielded 862 yards at under 3.5 a tote.
Opponents have passed
for 712 yards against Massillon and 537 yards against McKinley.
Elsewhere on the
statistical charts, there are some uncanny similarities between the teams.
Both squads have
fumbled 27 times. The Tigers have lost 14 of the bobbles. The Bulldogs have
lost 11.
Both teams have
intercepted 12 passes. McKinley's Mark Hedrick has picked off four errant
throws. Massillon's Mark Kester has made three interceptions.
The Tigers' top ground
gainer is Jerome Myricks with 989 yards in 155 carries at 6.4 a carry. The Bulldogs'
top rusher is Jeff Richardson with 145 carries for 970 yards at 6.7 a pop.
Massillon's No. 2 ground gainer Jason Stafford with 357 yards at 6.6 a carry, has out rushed McKinley’s No. 2 man, Derrick Gordon with 259, yards at 6.8 per attempt.
But Massillon has no
one else over 100 yards, while McKinley has DeVon Torrence with 156 yards in
17 carries, Kevin Campbell with 132 yards in 26 carries, and Lamuel Flowers
with 116 yards in 28 carries.
Other Massillon
rushers have included Shawn Ashcraft (8 for 57), David Ledwell (12 for 56),
John Miller (11 for 55) and Vernon Riley (14 for 47).
Myricks leads the
Tigers in scoring with 108 points. Richardson is McKinley's top dog with 68
points. Richardson is behind the pace of his junior season in rushing yards. He
needs 200 yards on the nose Saturday to match his 1986 total of 1,170 rushing
yards for 10 games.
Those are the numbers.
That’s how it looks on paper.
Add it all up and this
looks like a dead‑even match up.
Pups edge Tigers
Key
play in first half ‘was about
an
inch short of the goal line...
By
STEVE DOERSCHUK
Independent
Sports Editor
It still means
everything to the McKinley Bulldogs to play the Massillon Tigers.
There's some solace in
that for the Massillon team that got beat 18‑15 by McKinley Saturday.
It was true that
McKinley fans were rubbing it in that their Bulldogs had beaten the Tigers four
straight times for the first time since before radio was invented.
It was true that many
Massillon fans were wondering when their beloved men of orange will ever defeat
the crimson‑clad team from Canton again.
It was also true that
the McKinley coach, Thom McDaniels, had cried with his team after what had been
a brutal slugfest was over.
You don't look like
McDaniels looked ‑ like a man whose emotions had spent a week in a ringer
washer unless the game means everything.
That is what
Saturday's game meant to him. As such, it meant that Massillon still has
McKinley's complete respect, if not its number.
''We experienced a lot
of things this year," said McDaniels, talking about the tumultuous things
that accompany a less‑than‑perfect season in either the Canton or
Massillon football communities.
McDaniels has been
McKinley's head coach since 1982, the year after Terry Forbes steered the
Bulldogs to the only big‑school state championship a Stark County team
has ever won since the advent of the playoff era.
Such was the tumult of
1987 that his status at McKinley for 1988 is clouded.
McDaniels' team
finished '87 with a 7‑3 record and missed the playoffs for the first time
since his '84 team went 7‑3.
Saturday's setback
gave Massillon a 1987 record of 6‑4, A pattern that has haunted John
Maronto in his three years as Massillon's head coach ‑ playing tough, but
failing just short against the elite teams ‑ held true again.
Both Maronto and
McDaniels are saying their futures at their respective schools are up in the
air.
The Tigers stunned McKinley on the ground. After the Bulldogs stalled in three plays following the opening kickoff, Massillon set up at midfield.
From time to time under Maronto, the Tigers' first play has been a bomb. McKinley knows that and may have been sucked in when Tiger quarterback Erik White dropped back for an apparent pass. However, the was a sprint draw, with Myricks taking a handoff and going through a gaping hole up the middle.
“We wanted to get
Jerome one‑on‑one with a defensive back on that play," Maronto
said. "It was very well blocked by our players."
Myricks is a hard man to catch in the open field. This time,
nobody caught him. He shifted smoothly to the left sideline and out ran
McKinley's defense into the end zone for a 50‑yard touchdown run.
"We ran that play
successfully the whole game," Maronto said. "Most of our blocking
schemes were effective, especially behind John Woodlock and John Schilling.
There were a lot of exciting plays and Jerome came very close to breaking the
long one on several others.”
But while the Tigers
were coming close to the big play, McKinley was making it. The Bulldogs used a
running attack that netted 283 yards to score the game's next three touchdowns.
A 93‑yard drive
capped by Bulldog quarterback Pat Lyon's 8‑yard pass to a wide‑open
tight end, 6‑1 senior Dan Roshong, cut Massillon's lead to 7‑6 with
34 seconds left in the first quarter. The extra‑point kick was wide left.
McKinley got great
field position on its next possession following a 19‑yard loss on which
Tiger fullback Jason Stafford was caught on a reverse. A short punt enabled the
Bulldogs to set up on the Tiger 38, and they scored three plays later when
tailback Jeff Richardson took a pitch left and motored 24 yards for a
touchdown.
McKinley pulled out to
an 18‑7 lead by driving 63 yards for a TD on its first possession of the
second half. Richardson went over the right side to score from four yards out.
The Tigers turned it
into a thriller when White got hot late in the third quarter, launching a
mostly passing, 72‑yard drive capped by Myricks' 6‑yard blast up
the middle with 8:36 left in the game.
Since McKinley had
failed on all three of its extra point tries, the Tigers had a chance to pull
within a field goal of a tie by making a two‑point conversion. Jerome got
the job done by running over Schilling and Woodlock on the right side, and it
was 18‑15.
The Tigers, however,
got the ball only once more, setting up on their own 18 after a punt and moving
to the 30 on a diving 12‑yard reception by senior split end Craig York.
Bulldog linebacker Scott Herrington sacked White for an 11‑yard loss to
set up a punt, and the Bulldogs ran out the clock.
Save for a few inches,
perhaps less, the game might have been drastically different.
The Tigers came up
just short of the end zone when fullback John Miller, a secret weapon who had
played the season primarily at inside linebacker, was stopped on fourth and
goal from the 3 with 1:38 left in the first half.
Miller was so close to
the goal line that White, the quarterback, signaled a touchdown.
"I was about an
inch, maybe two, short of the goal line," Miller said.
"The films show
it couldn't have been more than a couple inches," Maronto said. "The
play was blocked successfully at the point of attack. (Defensive tackle) Robert
Copenny came from nowhere to get just enough of John's legs to slow him
down."
The drive had begun at
the McKinley 31 on the kickoff
following McKinley's go‑ahead touchdown. In fact, is was one of
the more dramatic marches of the season.
McKINLEY 18
MASSILLON 15
MAS
McK
First downs rushing 7
12
First downs passing 7
5
First downs by penalty 0
1
Totals first downs 14 18
Yards gained rushing 190
306
Yards lost rushing 52
23
Net yards rushing 138
283
Net yards passing 90
67
Total yards gained 228 350
Passes attempted 14
8
Passes completed 9
5
Passes int. by 0 0
Times kicked off 3
4
Kickoff average 49.0
41.8
Kickoff return yards 63
46
Punts 5 3
Punting average 26.4
32.3
Punt return yards 0
13
Fumbles 0 2
Fumbles lost 0 0
Penalties 3 5
Yards penalized 26
25
Number of plays 60
51
Time of possession 22:54
25:06
Attendance 17,500
MASSILLON 7 0 0
8 15
McKINLEY 6 6 6
0 18
Grid
war lives up to reputation
Tigers
fall short against Bulldogs
By
STEVE DOERSCHUK
Independent
Sports Editor
The good fight has
been fought. And now the war between the cities is over.
“I did a lot of
thinking about the game today," Massillon Tiger co-captain John Miller
said Sunday night, more than 24 hours after his football team fell 18‑15
to the McKinley Bulldogs. "Now I'll just try to forget about it. It's time
to move on."
The Tigers scored on
their first play from scrimmage Saturday when Jerome Myricks cut loose for a 50‑yard
touchdown run. McKinley, however, used a ground assault that netted 283 yards
to score a touchdown in each of the first three periods on their way to the
win.
"It's a very
tough loss for our football team and our program," Tiger head coach John
Maronto said. "A lot of energy was expended to come up a couple of inches
short. But the thing you have to understand is that our young men gave
everything they had ... and a little bit more. It was one of the best high
school football games I've ever been involved in ... certainly one of the
hardest hitting."
Maronto, who has been
under fire since last year's 23‑6 loss to McKinley, has a 20‑10
record in his three years at the Massillon helm. He has been haunted by a series
of close defeats against powerful teams. The coach's three‑year contract
expires at the end of this school year, and there has been speculation he will
not be offered a new pact.
As to his future in
Massillon, Maronto said, "That remains to be seen." He said his
thoughts are focused on other areas right now. "I'm more concerned with
looking out for the best interests of the graduating seniors," he said.
"I want to make sure everyone has things in the right perspective in terms
of next season. I'm most concerned with dealing with the team.
"This is the most
successful 6‑4 team you could ever be involved with,'' Maronto added.
"People have to agree that these players played the toughest Massillon
schedule possible ever. They weren't more than an inch here or an inch there
from being 9‑1. I'm pretty proud of the way this team played, the class
they showed and the adversity it fought to overcome."
Miller, a surprise
starter at fullback Saturday, and fellow co-captain Erik Moledor wound down
Sunday by going to the movie "Hellraiser" at Lincoln Theater.
"It was kind of
dumb," Miller admitted. Saturday's game had been kind of sensational. But
in the Tigers' eyes, it had a "dumb ending," what with McKinley on
top.
"There was some
serious hitting going on," said Miller, who played inside linebacker in
addition to fullback. "I mean serious. I've never seen anything quite
like it. I'm a little sore today, but nothing major."
The Tigers finished their 1987 grid campaign with a 6‑4 record. It was only the sixth time since Paul Brown left town in 1940 that the team has endured as many as four losses in a season.
It also was the fourth
straight setback to McKinley, marking the second longest losing streak in the
history of the series, which Massillon still leads 50‑38‑5. The
Canton team won the first 11 games in the series, which began in 1894.
"We didn't have
as good a season as we thought we would," Miller said. "We expected
to go pretty far. I'm still glad I played on this team. I liked everybody on the
squad. It was a great bunch."
Moledor, a senior
defensive back, was keeping a stiff upper lip Sunday but remained in obvious
disappointment.
"I thought we
gave it everything we had," said Moledor. "McKinley was pretty tough.
Give 'em credit.”
"We really worked
hard together this year. I think that's the best thing we did ... worked hard.
Saturday was tough. But I don't think there are any regrets."