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Blue Lions hosting long-time rival McClain

Thursday, 25 September 2008

The Washington Blue Lions are about to renew one of the oldest high school football rivalries in Ohio when they host the McClain Tigers Friday night.

The two schools first played each other in football in 1904, a year that saw them play twice.

Washington has a slightly older rival in the Hillsboro Indians. Washington and Hillsboro first played high school football in 1902. They played last week with Washington notching its first win of the season, a 7-6 decision at Gardner Park.

Last week the Tigers fell to 1-4 on the year, 0-2 in the SCOL, suffering a 28-0 homecoming loss to the Madison Plains Golden Eagles.

Washington is now 1-4 on the year, 1-1 in the SCOL.

The win provided something of an uplift to the Blue Lions, a lift they will need as they face the next game without their leading rusher, sophomore Ben Parks.

“The attitude of the team is good,” Washington head coach John Enochs said. “It feels good after a win. It helps your confidence. We’ve been telling the kids, we can’t take anyone lightly and we certainly are not looking at anything but playing Greenfield this week.

“We won last week, but I don’t think we played very well,” Enochs said. “I think we can definitiely play better, if we come out and take care of our assignments. We had a lot of missed assignments last week. But we did have some breaks and we caused a lot of breaks that went our way.

“Some guys made big plays last week and that’s what we needed to get that win,” Enochs said.

Perhaps no single play was bigger than Matt Meriweather’s block of a Hillsboro extra-point kick that left Washington with what proved to be the winning margin, 7-6.

Enochs also mentioned that Tim Keller, who does the holding on field goal and extra-point attempts, did an outstanding job of handling a potential bad snap and setting it down for Tyler Kimmet to make Washington’s lone extra-point.

Bryce Bryan had two interceptions for the Blue Lions last week and also caused a fumble to help Washington’s winning cause.

Enochs likes McClain’s senior quarterback, Brian Pitzer.

“They have a nice quarterback,” Enochs said. “They like to run the spread offense, like most people are doing right now. They show a lot of different formations. They like to spread you out; they’ll run the ball, too.”

“They won the game in the trenches and coach (Sean) Adams has done a great job with getting their program (heading) in the right direction,” McClain head coach Randy Closson said following the Tigers’ shutout at the hands of Madison Plains. “We didn’t get our offense clicking and our defense was on the field quite a bit.”

Pitzer passed for 204 yards (15 of 33) last week. However, McClain’s leading rusher, Luke Kingsolver, had just 27 yards.

“I am concerned with our play up front,” Closson said. “We are not improving and we will run the ball well one week and not the next week. Our offense just can’t get into a groove. Our routes broke down and we (had) some overthrows. It’s just completely out of whack. (Against Plains) we couldn’t establish the run or pass. It’s extremly frustrating and the kids are frustrated, too.

“If we keep fighting and work hard, things will go our way,” Closson said.

“Pitzer’s a good runner and a good passer,” Enochs said. “They run a little bit of option; they run (Pitzer) on some quarterback, off-tackle. They’ll run some traps up the middle. They’ll do some pocket passes and some sprint passes. He’s got some nice receivers, too.”

Keys to posting a win against McClain?

“We’re going to have to get some pressure on the quarterback,” Enochs said. “We have to pressure the quarterback and try and stop their trapping game. Then, also, we have to be able to move the ball consistently on offense. Not just a series here and there; we’ve got to be able to move the ball and keep it out of Pitzer’s hands. And we need to put the ball in the endzone a few more times, too.”