October 17, 2005 Roughrider Retrospective
Roughriders v. Elida Bulldogs, 1981
The defense was the story in 1981, pitching four shutouts and allowing only one team to score more than once (Delphos St. Johns, 14 points) on the way to an undefeated season. Photo courtesy Andrews Photography. |
ROUGHRIDER RETROSPECTIVE - by Buz Howard
This is the 17th installment of a series of reminiscences on the history of St. Marys football. Ridertown will publish two installments each week during the season.
In the season of 1981 the Western Buckeye League championship race involved three dominant teams—Bath, Elida, and St. Marys. Period. No other teams need apply.
So when Elida and Bath battled to 0-0 tie in the first round of league games, the championship door was open to the Roughriders, but they had to get by both of the other contenders. Damon Goodwin, the Rider quarterback in the game, recently recalled that the team felt motivation from two sources. “First of all,” Goodwin pointed out, “they had broken our winning streak the year before.” He was referring to the 1980 loss to Elida, that had broken a 35-game regular-season winning streak, still the longest in Memorial High School history. The second motivational factor was a big letter "E" painted on the field by unknown persons the night before the game. "The guys on the team took offense at that," recalled Goodwin.
Such was the state of affairs when St. Marys hosted the Elida Bulldogs in the sixth game of the season. Elida—led by their two bone-crunching linebackers, Steve Bok and Jim Stoner--went into the contest not only undefeated, but also unscored upon in the first five games.
The Roughriders also boasted a bulwark defense—one that would yield only 47 points for the entire season, with just 23 of those allowed by the first unit.
The early-arriving crowd that packed itself into St. Marys Memorial Stadium that evening had every right to expect an old-fashioned, smashmouth struggle that very well could go to whichever team could squeeze out a touchdown.
As it turned out, each team scored a touchdown.
Midway through the second quarter the scoring ice was broken when Roughrider Tim Schlosser sprinted twenty yards to the end-zone, the first points allowed by Elida all season. Rusty Krugh tacked on the extra-point kick to give the home team an all-important 7-0 lead.
Krugh lines it up...
The ball is on the way...
Krugh celebrates...
and so does holder Damon Goodwin.
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Krugh then added three more points with a field goal with six seconds left in the first half. It was only the second field goal for a St. Marys team since Skip Baughman began his coaching tenure there 23 years before.
The field goal was set up by a 73-yard drive featuring an 18-yard run by Schlosser and two key pass plays from Damon Goodwin, a sixteen-yarder to Dan Clements, and an 8-yarder to Mark Triplett.
The Bulldogs, not intimidated by the 10-0 deficit, emerged from their halftime locker room with a vengeance, seizing momentum with a 66-yard scoring drive. Quarterback Brian Radanovich moved the ball down the field with five consecutive pass completions, three of them to his favorite receiver, Joe Wassink. The touchdown came on a one-yard plunge from Tim Maxwell. It was the first rushing touchdown of the season against the St. Marys defense.
The PAT kick sailed wide left, and the Roughrider lead was cut to 10-6.
The Rider defense, smarting from the Elida touchdown drive, once again assumed control of the game. The Bulldogs’ subsequent attempts to score were thwarted by big plays—interceptions by Dave Hegemann and Sky Shelby, and a fumble recovery by Krugh, and the 10-6 score held up.
When the dust cleared, the St. Marys defense had allowed only 23 rushing yards in 23 carries. Elida had another 105 yards passing, with Radanovich hitting on 10 of 24, but giving up the two crucial interceptions. Once again a favorite adage of Coach Skip Baughman came into play: “You live by the pass, you die by the pass.”
Offensively, the Riders managed 224 total yards against an Elida defense that would shut out eight of its ten opponents. Tim Schlosser, gamely surviving some devastating hits from Bok and Stoner, had 80 hard-earned yards in 20 carries. Fullback Joe Reineke added 56 tough yards of his own on 14 carries. Damon Goodwin made key plays throughout the game, keeping drives alive with quarterback sneaks, keepers on the pass-run option, and a couple of timely passes. Goodwin, later a four-year starter in basketball at the University of Dayton, was also the WBL’s top punter. He maintained strong Roughrider field position by kicking seven times against Elida, his towering punts not allowing a single return.
The Roughriders beat Bath the following week, 14-7, and went on to a 10-0 record and the 198l WBL championship. It turned out to be one of Skip Baughman’s most satisfying seasons in his long St. Marys career. “Those guys were so much fun because they were maximum achievers,” Baughman said recently. “They always did whatever they had to do to win the game.”
Defensive line coach Greg Freewalt also speaks fondly of the ’81 team. “It was a great defense, excellent personnel at almost every position, and the offense was good enough to get us over the top.”
Notes:
Other comments from Damon Goodwin, recalling the 1981 game: “I remember the huge crowd. When the kickers and punters came out early—it must have been around 5:30—the stands were already full.
“And I remember Rusty Krugh’s field goal—I was the holder. It was a new experience for us. I think it was the first one our team had ever tried. But, you know, we were confident about making it because we had practiced it so often. It just goes to show the kind of coach Skip was. Because of his attention to details, he had us ready to execute a play like that, even though we really never expected to use it.
“Skip did the same thing with the passing game. We always devoted practice time to passing, even though we seldom threw the ball. But when the occasion called for it, the pass was there for us because we had practiced for it. We had a lot of big pass plays that season.”
Goodwin, after his stellar basketball career in high school and college, went into collegiate coaching, serving as an assistant to Don Donoher at Dayton and then moving on to assist Dan Hipsher at Wittenberg. He currently is in his 11th year as head coach at Capital University in Columbus.
Jim Dally, who had a close camaraderie with the Roughrider coaching staff in his tenure at Elida from 1968 through 1992, was one of the area’s most respected coaches. Dally was one of the pioneers of the run-and-shoot offense in the Western Buckeye League, a pass-oriented offense that soon became popular among other coaches in the league. Dally, along with his assistant Brian Kerrick, had learned the offense during a high-school coaching stint in Massachusetts.
Dally remembers some details of the 1981 game and still insists that Damon Goodwin got off a punt from near the Roughrider 10-yard line after touching his knee down as he received the snap. “And the official never called it,” said Dally.
Dally also remembers the hard hits delivered by both sets of linebackers. He pointed out that Jim Stoner followed up his high school years with a successful career as a linebacker for Toledo University.
The following season, in 1982, it was Dally’s turn to win the big game against the Roughriders, posting a 7-6 victory the Bulldogs’ home field. It was the only St. Marys loss of the season, and led to Elida’s only WBL championship.
All in all, Dally cites positive memories of his annual bouts with Skip Baughman’s Roughriders. “Those were great days. We sure had a lot of fun.”
At season’s end, 15 Roughriders received all-league honors. Offensive tackle Ken Jacobs was named “Offensive Lineman of the Year.” Joining Jacobs for first-team WBL honors on offense were center Steve Dues, guard Bob Mickey, end Dan Clements, and halfback Tim Schlosser. Defensive WBL first-teamers were linebacker Rusty Krugh, defensive tackle Aaron Silver, and punter Damon Goodwin. Other All-WBL honors went to offensive tackle George Gerstner, fullback Joe Reineke, defensive linemen Don Johnson, Jeff Parker, and Tim McDermitt, as well as linebacker Jeff Perry and guard Tom Veit.
Quarterback Damon Goodwin goes over the top.
Photos courtesy Andrews Photography.
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