By Craig Dunn
Logan Daily News

LOGAN — As the Canal Winchester Indians prepare for Logan’s vaunted spread offense this week, they’re no doubt finding out what 10 other teams already know from first-hand experience: you don’t hold the Chiefs down by stopping or slowing down just one player.

Or two.

Or three.

Or even four.

There are individual receivers state-wide with more receptions than any of the Chieftains… but as a group you’ll be hard-pressed to find a trio of receivers as balanced, or as dangerous, as seniors Mason Mays, Zach McDaniel and Jordan Rutter.

See if you can find one team anywhere else in the Buckeye State with three receivers who have combined to catch 131 passes for 1,923 yards and 21 touchdowns who are all extremely dangerous once they catch the ball.

All three have an uncanny ability to make incredible moves and make potential tacklers miss, oftentimes leaving defenders grasping nothing but thin air.

“What those guys have done, particularly after making the catch, is something else,” marveled Logan coach Dale Amyx. “And that was the whole idea in going to the spread offense (prior to last season). We want to get our athletes out into open space and match our best athletes against (the opponents’) best athletes.

“There’s nothing we’d change now,” he added. “I don’t think anybody would.”

Nor should they.

While Mays has more touchdown receptions (11), the numbers are otherwise eerily similar: McDaniel leads the team with 46 catches for 660 yards, followed closely by Mays (45 for 656) and Rutter (40 for 607). Their yards-per-catch averages (14.3, 14.6 and 15.2, respectively) are also eerily similar. As a trio they make more than 13 catches per game.

But even if a defense somehow does match up mano-a-mano with those athletes, the Chiefs’ next tier of receivers can do some damage as well.

While they don’t have gaudy numbers, fellow seniors Korey Swaim, Ryan Sigler and Michael Snider have caught nine passes apiece and all three have a touchdown catch. Snider is becoming an increasingly viable target coming out of the backfield as the Chiefs’ lone back (when they use one) behind quarterback Patrick Angle.

On target: Angle, who has completed 65.6 percent of his passes for 2,182 yards, ended the regular season throwing 70 straight passes without an interception… and that’s only his second-best streak of the season. He opened the year throwing 82 straight passes without being picked off before Gallipolis intercepted him twice in the first quarter of week four.

Angle last threw an interception late in the first half of the Chiefs’ week-seven 48-3 rout of Marietta. He’s only thrown five in 244 attempts (one interception in roughly every 49 attempts), and as a team the Chiefs have only been picked off five times (one in every 53 throws) in 265 attempts.

Tough competition: The Chiefs and Indians both played three foes who made the playoffs. Logan defeated Lancaster (Division I), Pickerington North (D1) and Ironton (Division IV); Canal Winchester beat Jonathan Alder (D4) and Logan Elm (D3) and lost to Amanda-Clearcreek (D4).

More notes: Tyler Dement and Ralph Robinson, who were hurt in late-season games, both played last week against Chillicothe. “I think we’re in pretty good shape (injury-wise),” Amyx said… the Chiefs are a perfect 7-for-their-last-7 when it comes to fourth-down conversions and are an astounding 69.2 percent for the season compared to just 33.3 for their opponents… the Chiefs didn’t commit a single penalty last week against Chillicothe… even after losing two fumbles last week, the Purple & White have committed only 11 turnovers all season and are a plus-17 in turnover ratio compared to the 28 miscues (21 interceptions, seven fumbles) they’ve taken from their opponents… the Chiefs have picked off multiple passes in each of the last five games, and according to LHS football historian Spencer Waugh, their 21 total thefts this season are second all-time to the 1967 team, which pilfered a school-record 25 passes.