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SKIP BAUGHMAN STADIUM The senior-rich Titans of Ottawa-Glandorf put on a football clinic in St. Marys tonight, outplaying the Roughriders to the tune of 33-7.
O-G's 20 senior starters proved to be too fast and too strong for the younger home team.
"We got beat by the better team tonight," Rider Head Coach Doug Frye admitted. "This game was the flip side of what we did to them last year." (CLICK HERE to read about last year's game.)
The game started on a very promising note for the Riders. Adam Chiles received Troy Kaufman's opening kickoff at the St. Marys five yard line, found some blockers up the middle, broke a tackle and raced 95 yards for a touchdown 15 seconds into the game. Nick Pfeffenberger's PAT kick was good to give the Riders a quick 7-0 lead. Chiles' runback was one yard shy of Ron Jones' 38-year-old record of 96, set against Sidney in 1964.
But the lead only lasted 15 seconds. Pfeffenberger's squibb kickoff was returned to the O-G 42 yard line, and QB Craig Imm threw a bomb that receiver Nick Ruhe caught on his fingertips for a 58-yard touchdown on the Titans' first play from scrimmage. Kaufman's PAT kick was on the mark and the score was tied 7-7 just like that, only 30 seconds into the game.
The teams traded possessions -- St. Marys gaining 21 yards on 10 plays, O-G gaining 34 yards on 6 plays, St. Marys gaining 45 yards on 12 plays -- and the first quarter ended still tied 7-7.
After the Rider drive stalled out at the O-G 16, the Titans reeled off an 84-yard 8-play drive. The big play was another Imm-Ruhe pass completion for 56 yards down the middle of the field. The drive was capped by Dustin Ellerbrock's 2-yard touchdown dive. Kaufman's PAT made the score O-G 14-7 with 5:34 remaining in the half.
"We expected them to put the ball in the air a lot," Frye said. "But we thought we could stop their running game better than we did." O-G piled up 229 yards passing on top of 179 yards rushing for 408 yards of total offense, to St. Marys' total of 129 yards.
The Titans took only 35 seconds to put the ball in the end zone again. After recovering a squibb kick on the St. Marys 46, Imm threw a 39-yard pass to a well-covered Josh Fortman, who made an acrobatic catch at the 7 yard line. On the next play Derek Patrick walked into the endzone on a quick pitch right and the score stood at 20-7.
In the third quarter O-G started right where they had left off. Nick Ruhe returned the kickoff 37 yards to the S. Marys 48. Eight plays later, Imm hit Ruhe in the back of the end zone on a 4th-and-18 play for a 25-yard touchdown. The 2-point conversion attempt was no good, leaving the score 26-7 halfway through the third quarter.
"Ruhe may be the best athlete in the league," Frye said, "and this is easily the best Ottawa-Glandorf team I've seen. At the same time, we had a lack of consistency on the field tonight and as a result didn't play our best game. That's a tough combination to overcome."
The final score of the game came late in the third quarter. Taking over on their own 9 yard line following an O-G fumble, the Riders offense couldn't get untracked and went 3-and-out. Matt Helmstetter got a good punt off from 7 yards deep in the end zone, but Nick Ruhe received it cleanly and streaked down the sideline for a 44-yard touchdown return with less than a minute to go in the quarter. Kaufman's PAT kick put a lid on the scoring.
The Riders hope to change their luck on Friday the 13th with a change of scenery next week, taking on the Cougars in Van Wert.
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