GALION (Crawford County Now) — Rob Mahaney’s message at halftime to his Shelby Whippets was a simple one.
“Trust the guys in our locker room,” he said.
Trailing longtime rival Galion by four, Shelby proceeded to score 21-unanswered and shut out the Tigers in the second half to open Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference play with a 31-14 win to remain undefeated. And the Whippets did it again without QB1 Michael Shepherd (mononucleosis) and WR2 Kayden Paz (broken rib).
“We could’ve made excuses last week and we could’ve made more excuses tonight with the guys out, but we found guys in our locker room to make plays when we needed it,” Mahaney said. “Brady Bowman left an imprint on this game, Gavin Baker’s been running with his hair on fire.
“We talked about it in the preseason and throughout the season, we have five seniors up front and those guys gotta pave the way for us. I thought they did in the second half for us tonight.”
Bowman logged another standout performance with five receptions for 93 yards and two touchdowns with an interception on defense, Baker rushed 13 times for 95 yards. But it was guys like Hayden Duval, Branson Reed, Luke Blevins, Trent Rodman, Lucas Mohn, and Everett Harris (4-of-4 XP, 22-yard FG) who stepped up when called upon.
“We talked about really needing everyone in our locker room,” Mahaney said. “And you saw it in the second half, I’m extremely proud of guys that stepped up.”
Duval started at quarterback in place of Shepherd and was 5-of-10 for 120 yards and a touchdown before getting injured in the second half. Reed took over the reins and finished 5-of-10 for 73 yards and two touchdowns with an additional 28 yards on the ground and the final score.
Blevins had a relatively quiet night offensively with one reception for 10 yards and eight carries for 18 yards, but it was his 35-yard completion to Mohn on a fake punt midway through the third that took the last bit of wind out of Galion’s sails; he also averaged 51 yards on three punts, all of which landed inside-the-20.
“These kids never quit, there’s so much resilience and I’m really proud of these guys,” Mahaney said. “We have 23 seniors and it has to be those guys that lead the way, Branson’s one of those guys that stepped up and made plays for us … and guys like Luke who maybe didn’t have the best game on offense, but man he played his butt off on defense and was a difference-maker on special teams flipping the field with punts, threw the fake punt, he just did a great job.”
Rodman was targeted once by Duval and that’s all he needed for the go-ahead 57-yard touchdown early in the third quarter on a drive that was extended by an unsportsmanlike penalty called against Galion. Instead of the Tigers backing the Whippets up to a 3rd-and-22 from their own 28, it was a 2nd-and-7 from their 43 that led to the touchdown two plays later.
“I didn’t see it, it was a young kid trying to make a play and got upset because his hand got pinched or something like that,” Galion coach Matt Dick said. “But sometimes it’s just one or two plays that all of a sudden (shift) momentum and we got behind the momentum there, and the fake punt. Both of them were coverage breakdowns … Shelby does a great job mixing their formations and plays, they make you guard a lot of guys and sometimes that weighs on kids’ brains making them play a little slower and opens some things up.”
After tying the game early in the second quarter on a Kane Hay to Jamesen Glew 17-yard connection and taking the lead on a Hay to Dominic Capretta 15-yard strike with under a minute to go, Galion’s offense sputtered in the second half. The Tigers had five possessions that ended in a turnover on downs, back-to-back punts with a combined net of 52 yards, an interception, and four consecutive incompletions for a turnover on downs.
“Anytime our offense (is scoreless) in the second half, I’d say it starts with the offensive line and quarterback,” Dick said. “We’re gonna go back and watch and see if the quarterback had time and made the wrong reads, or was the line missing some guys and the pressure was too much? I think the truth is that there was a mix of both tonight, and I think it has been a mix of both all season, but I hope our line is missing guys because they beat us (and not) because we don’t know.
“(And) we just felt like we beat ourselves over and over again in the second half. In the first three weeks we beat ourselves in the first half, so we just switched halves. Putting together a full game of (making them) stop us, I’ll take a one-yard run over the holding penalties or false starts, it just seems like there’s way too many of those. Some of it is just that we’re young, some of it is things Shelby did … but we gotta clean that up.”
The Tigers mustered just 65 yards of offense and three first downs in the second half after accumulating 193 yards in the first half with eight first downs.
“I thought we wore them down with the constant pressure,” Mahaney said. “The Hay kid is an unbelievable quarterback; he finds way to keep plays alive … we just had to finish plays defensively and get the guy on the ground. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, we gotta get him on the ground. We didn’t do that and he made some good throws to receivers.
“But at the end of the day we trusted the guys around us to make plays … our defensive line applied pressure on him all night that eventually wore them down.”
Hay finished 18-of-36 for 254 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions; Capretta had four catches for 80 yards and a touchdown with an interception, Glew four catches for 79 yards and a touchdown, Kurt Hay eight catches for 78 yards.
“We knew this season we’d have some room to grow; we just haven’t put it together for four quarters,” Dick said. “We’re going to Ontario next week and if we play four quarters, we’re gonna be in every game. If we don’t, momentum gets the best of you and you’re going to be fighting in the fourth quarter to not lose by 20.”