Tag: <span>Ryne Moore</span>

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2011: Massillon 49, Maumee 14

TIGERS ROMP
Dominate to bounce back from loss to GlenOak

Chris Easterling
Chris.Easterling@IndeOnline.com

MASSILLON The memory hung in the pit of the Massillon Tigers’ stomach for a whole week. A day longer than that, actually.

On Friday night, the Tigers got a chance to rid themselves of that sickening feeling left over from a game that got away last week against GlenOak. Unfortunately for Maumee, they were the team on the receiving end of Massillon’s fury.

The result for the Tigers was a cathartic 49-14 rout of the Panthers in front of 7,021 at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

“I think our kids understand that we played hard last week, but we didn’t execute fully,” Tiger coach Jason Hall said after his team improved to 2-1. “I thought for the most part, we executed. … They’re starting to mature. It’s definitely a nice sign.”

Since the previous Thursday, Massillon was left to dwell on its 22-21 come-from-ahead loss to the Golden Eagles. Many fans have dwelt mostly on the controversial call late that cost the Tigers a potential fumble recovery and a chance to possibly win the game.

The Tigers, though, dwelt mostly on the missed opportunities that slipped through their fingers in the first half. They thought of the three possessions that reached the GlenOak 15, but never brought points.

Against Maumee, they didn’t let such opportunities get away from them. Not by a long shot.

After being forced to punt on the game’s first possession, Massillon scored the next seven times it had the football to turn what some thought would be a tight game into an early rout. The Tigers led 28-0 at halftime, and 42-7 after three quarters.

“If you don’t score consistently in the red zone, you lose games,” Hall said. “We learned that last week. We were the better team last week, and we didn’t execute and let them back in the game. Our kids definitely at least showed signs of learning and getting better.”

The Tigers would take their lead to as large as 49-7 early in the fourth quarter. And they did so by doing just about anything they wanted.

Big runs by their tailbacks? Sure thing, as Ryne Moore ripped off a pair of scoring runs — including a 72-yarder in the third quarter — and Kentrell Taylor added a 27-yard TD run of his own, while reserve tailback Jason Boykins added a 1-yard plunge early in the fourth.

Big pass plays? Yep, as Kyle Kempt connected with Garrett Kreiger for scoring tosses of 30 and 47 yards.

Even backup quarterback Brody Tonn got into the action early. After Maumee fumbled a punt snap at its own 11 in the first quarter, Tonn took a designed quarterback keeper into the end zone on the subsequent play for a touchdown.

By the time halftime arrived, Massillon had racked up 237 yards. The Tigers finished with 457 yards, with Moore rushing for 116 yards on just five carries while Kempt completed 11 of 12 passes for 144 yards.

KEEPING SCHNEIDER DOWN
Most of all, the Tigers did it by doing the one thing Hall stressed all week they needed to do. Massillon’s defense kept Maumee’s elusive and dangerous quarterback Jake Schneider under wraps.

Schneider, who rushed for more than 100 yards in each of the Panthers’ first two games this season after gaining 1,200 yards on the ground a year ago, was hounded on virtually every play. He finished with 51 yards on 18 carries, including a 1-yard touchdown plunge midway through the third quarter to cut it to 28-7.

The Panther quarterback’s passing was equally harassed by the Tigers, who sacked Schneider twice. Schneider finished with 179 yards passing, 55 of those coming on a fourth-quarter scoring pass to Dominique King that made it 49-14. He also threw an interception.

“We’re a pretty athletic defense, so we forced him to run around,” Hall said. “We made him earn his stuff. … All in all, we didn’t let them control the sprint-out and the scramble out and throwing deep down field. That kid’s a good football player, he really is.”

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2011: Massillon 21, Canton Glenoak 22

Inadvertent whistle costs Massillon chance at late, go-ahead score

Chris Easterling
The Independent

For the better part of three quarters Thursday night, it was the opposite story from a year ago for the Massillon Tigers with regard to handling GlenOak star tailback Bri’onte Dunn. Instead of letting the Golden Eagle back run wild, the Tiger defense was able to keep Dunn relatively in check.

However, when the fourth quarter came around, Dunn began to run wild, scoring two touchdowns in the final 7:10 of the game to lift the Golden Eagles to a 22-21 win over Massillon inside Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

While Dunn’s fourth-quarter outburst may have ultimately cost Massillon, many may look at an apparent fumble by the Golden Eagles at midfield that was nullified by an inadvertent whistle with 1:33 remaining. The ball was given back to GlenOak, which ran out the rest of the clock.

“Ultimately, what they did was take the game out of letting the kids decide,” said Tiger coach Jason Hall after his team fell to 1-1 on the season, “whether we win or GlenOak wins.”

Dunn, who had 297 yards in three quarters a year ago on his way to 320 yards in a 28-27 Tiger win, had 115 rushing yards on 23 carries through three quarters. In the fourth quarter, he exploded for 134 yards on 16 carries with a pair of scores to help GlenOak erase a 21-10 Tiger lead.

“Coach (Scott Garcia) said we had to work hard,” Dunn said. “We were down two touchdowns. We worked hard and we weren’t quitting for this one.”

The GlenOak senior finished with 249 yards on 39 carries. He also threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Lunden Butler on a halfback pass to give the Golden Eagles a 7-0 lead with 49 seconds left in the first quarter.

For Massillon, though, Thursday night was as much about missed opportunities as it was about Dunn’s fourth-quarter heroics. Massillon basically spent the entire first half in GlenOak territory. In fact, the only play out of their five first-half drives that was snapped on the Tiger side of the 50 was the first play of the game — a 48-yard strike from Kyle Kempt to Justin Blake to the GlenOak 27.

However, for all of that great field position, the Tigers only mustered one score on a 28-yard game-tying touchdown from Kempt to Montel Harrison with 11:15 left until halftime.

Two sacks and a penalty self-destructed the first drive at the GlenOak 15-yard line. Another drive, which started after Massillon recovered an onside kick, ended when it was stopped on downs at the GlenOak 4.

Still another, which reached the GlenOak 6, was thwarted when a pass off a field-goal try was picked off in the end zone.

“We missed opportunities,” Hall said. “We missed a field goal. We bobbled the snap; it happens. We got stopped on fourth down. … As hard knocks as we thought the end of the game was, we missed on opportunities where that situation could’ve been avoided.”

That missed chance cost the Tigers a chance for the halftime lead. GlenOak, given the opening, didn’t miss on its chance to take the edge into the intermission.

The Golden Eagles drained the final 4:15 off the first-half clock and took a 10-7 when Stephen Semple wrapped up the half with a 23-yard field goal.

GlenOak’s final first-half drive featured the two longest runs of the first half for Dunn, who was bottled up for much of the half to the tune of 75 yards on 16 carries. Thirty-one of those yards came on consecutive runs of 13 and 18 runs to take the ball down to the Tiger 7.

The Tigers’ fortune with regards to field position didn’t change with the change in halves. However, they found their luck in finishing drives did, as they took their first third-quarter possession from the GlenOak 43 into the end zone on Ryne Moore’s 17-yard scoring run for a 14-10 lead with 7:20 left in the third quarter.

They recovered a GlenOak fumble on the Eagles 47. Three plays later, Kempt hit Tre Hendricks for a 46-yard scoring pass to take a 21-10 lead with 5:24 left in the third.

A second GlenOak turnover — this one an interception by Brody Tonn — forced the Tigers to take just their second snap of the game in their own territory, this time at their own 27.

Massillon would not run another play in GlenOak territory the rest of the game.

GAME STATS

Massillon Tigers Black Letter Logo History

2011: Massillon 31, Akron Buchtel 6

Massillon rolls past Buchtel, 31-6, in opener

Chris Easterling
Chris.Easterling@IndeOnline.com

The Massillon Tigers may be, for all intents and purposes, still a relatively inexperienced team. After all, one game doesn’t make for a season’s worth of experience.
However, the Tigers woke up this morning a team with a 1-0 record this season, after picking up a 31-6 season-opening win over the Buchtel Griffins on Thursday night in front of 8,353 at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

And that, ultimately, can mean a lot to a team trying to get a lot of guys a lot of experience on the run.
“It’s massive,” Tiger junior quarterback Kyle Kempt said. “It’s a big confidence boost. Going into next week, we feel good about ourselves.”

Granted, next week could — and likely will — bring with it a whole new list of questions. It will also bring with it a
Thursday night matchup against a GlenOak team that also beat an Akron City Series team (Firestone) in its opener.

But all of that, for now, is a point to be dealt with at a later time. Right now, the Tigers are simply enjoying the rewards of a mostly successful season opener.

“Anytime you get a win, you want to enjoy it,” Tiger coach Jason Hall said. “We want our kids to enjoy it tonight and enjoy it in school tomorrow. Once we get to lifting and watching film, it’s going to be about us correcting those mistakes.”

That may be the ultimate payout from Thursday’s win for Massillon. The Tigers get the win, while the coaches get a film’s worth of teaching points to go over.

On the positive, though, Massillon can look at the way it went up 21-0 in the first half as reason to be pleased. After a three-and-out on it’s first possession — followed by a Buchtel drive down to the Tiger 20 that ended with a blocked field goal — Massillon grabbed a 6-0 lead on its second possession.

The catalyst for the first Tiger scoring drive was senior running back Alex Winters, who gained 56 of 89 yards on the drive. Winters capped it off with a 2-yard scoring plunge at the 3:28 mark of the first quarter, although the extra point was missed.

Winters was one of two Tiger running backs to carry the ball more than 10 times on the night, as Massillon rushed for 166 yards on 37 carries for the game. Ryne Moore added a 19-yard fourth-quarter run for the Tigers, while gaining a team-high 102 yards on 16 carries.

“I think a lot of people don’t know that Ryne Moore’s pretty good,” Hall said. “He made a move in the open field that’s as good as any. … It’s nice to get them going.”

The Tigers also, eventually, got Kempt going late in the first half. He was 3-for-3 for 101 yards on Massillon’s last two possessions, both of which ended with long touchdown passes to Montel Harrison.

Harrison caught a 57-yard touchdown pass down the left sideline to give the Tigers a 14-0 lead — following the two-point conversion — with 2:02 left in the half. He then caught a wide open 32-yard scoring strike with four seconds remaining before the band show to make it 21-0.

“That was big for me,” said Kempt, who finished the game 8-of-13 for 134 yards with a touchdown and an interception that Buchtel returned 50 yards for a score to cut it to 21-6 early in the third quarter.

“Him being able to do that for me was just a big confidence boost,” he added. “It was a boost for the entire team as well.”

Buchtel’s Darren McGinnis led all rushers with 121 yards on 22 carries. However, outside of the Griffins’ initial drive of the game, they never were able to mount a serious offensive threat.

Not too bad for a team looking to gain its varsity experience on the run. Of course, the Tigers also know there will still be questions to answer in seven days.

“I don’t think anything will quiet people down,” Kempt said with a laugh. “It’s Massillon. That’s the fun part about it.”

GAME STATS