Wayne whitewashes Devils, 27-0
By RANDY PAYTON, Special to The News and SentinelArticle Photos
WAYNE - As far as Wayne head coach Tom Harmon is concerned, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The same formula that helped the top-ranked Pioneers eliminate No. 16 Oak Glen one week ago a clock-churning ground game and a stingy defense worked again in a 27-0 win over No. 8 Ravenswood in a Class AA quarterfinal game Saturday afternoon at Pioneer Field.
By virtue of its victory, Wayne (12-0) will host No. 4 Frankfort (11-1) in next weekend's Class AA semifinal round. The day and time of the contest will be determined this morning during a playoff meeting at the WVSSAC office in Parkersburg.
The Pioneers rolled up 416 yards of total offense all but 12 on the ground and ran 17 more plays from scrimmage (75-58) than their guests.
Head coach Tom Harmon's squad also forced a pair of turnovers to stop first half scoring threats by Ravenswood and then limited the No. 8 Red Devils to just one first down and 24 total yards in the second half en route to the shutout win.
"We did not allow them to run the football on us. We did a nice job of getting up in there and taking away their running lanes and we did it all day long," Harmon said. "We made them one-dimensional and, when that happened, it became a matter of sitting down where their route distribution is. We were much better at that in the second half. I thought it was a sterling defensive effort by our football team."
Ravenswood, which lost in the quarterfinal round and finished 9-3 for the second straight season, managed 133 first-half yards 110 of which came on an 8-for-16, 110-yard passing effort by quarterback Cole Starcher.
The second half, however, was all Wayne.
The Red Devils failed to advance beyond their own 43-yard line on any of their six possessions after the break and went three-and-out each of the first three times they had the ball after the intermission.
Starcher, who surpassed the 1,000-yard mark in both rushing and passing coming into the game, was just 2-for-14 for 13 yards in the second half. He also carried just twice in the contest for minus-6 yards.
Luke Corley, another 1,000-yard rusher for the Red Devils, carried 11 times for minus-3 yards. The sophomore tailback did not have a rushing attempt in the second half.
"Our quarterback has been having some leg problems and it took away some of the dimensions of our game," Ravenswood head coach Dick Sturm said, referring to a hamstring injury Starcher suffered in a loss to rival Ripley in the regular season finale. "I think (the injury) even had some effect on him being able to throw the ball, too, because he was missing receivers, throwing the ball high. I think it had a definite effect on him, but we lost to a good Wayne football team. We just didn't play well at times and shot ourselves in the foot at others. We just didn't execute when we had the opportunity."
Wayne took a 7-0 lead on its first possession of the afternoon when Austin Mills capped a 10-play, 69-yard march with a 17-yard touchdown run at the 4:56 mark of the opening quarter.
Ravenswood threatened twice later in the half, but came away empty-handed both times thanks to turnovers deep in Pioneer territory.
Wayne recovered a Jeremy Lawrence fumble at the 27-yard to end one threat, while Mills intercepted a Starcher pass at the Wayne 5-yard line on the Red Devils' next possession to turn the visitors away again.
A penalty against the Pioneers on Mills interception return forced Wayne to start at its own 4-yard line, but the Pioneers still managed to churn out a six-play, 96-yard scoring march that included runs of 37 and 55 yards by fullback Clyde Ferrell and tailback Corey Damron, respectively.
Senior quarterback Adam Frazier finished off the drive with a 2-yard TD run with 2:59 remaining in the second quarter to give the Pioneers a 14-0 lead at the intermission.
Wayne failed to take advantage of a number of chances to extend its lead in the second half, with its first three drives of the third quarter all ending in Ravenswood territory twice on downs inside the Red Devil 30 and another on a failed 34-yard field goal attempt by Allen Bryant.
"We were a little miss here or a little miss there from scoring a few more points than we did," Harmon said. "We need to be able to break that one tackle and make that one extra block to get into the secondary. When we did that, they didn't have anybody back there. We did enough today to put ourselves in a position to put some points on the board and win, but we need to brush up some stuff offensively
The Pioneers did add a pair of fourth quarter touchdowns, both coming after the Red Devils failed to convert fourth downs in their own end of the field.
Jake Barr scored on a 10-yard run with 9:11 left to play and Frazier connected with Seth Merritt on a 12-yard scoring strike with 6:08 remaining.
Damron finished with 140 yards on 18 carries to lead Wayne, while Ferrell had 88 yards on 13 totes.
Chad Small was Ravenswood's leading ground-gainer with 22 yards on four attempts. The Red Devils finished with just 27 yards on 20 carries as a team.
"Again it goes back to our running game was affected tremendously by our quarterback not being able to run because of his leg problem," Sturm said. "I'm not making any excuses but we could not execute when we needed to."
Despite the loss, Sturm also has a gameplan toward the 2010 campaign
"Get in the weight room and keep working," he said. "We're a junior-dominated team. We need to just keep on keeping on."
