By Craig Dunn
Logan Daily News

OBETZ — “Nobody’s perfect,” they say.

Well, “they” didn’t see the Logan Chieftain offense Friday night.

Patrick Angle completed a perfect 15-of-15 passes and the Logan offense turned in six-straight perfect scoring drives at the outset of the Chiefs’ 49-7 non-conference rout of host Hamilton Township Friday night.
As far as the Chiefs (3-0) were concerned, they were directly in the eye of a perfect storm against the Hamilton Township (0-3) defense.

Angle and receivers Jordan Rutter, Zach McDaniel and Mason Mays simply picked apart a Ranger defense that sat back in a soft zone, preferring to keep the Chieftains in front of them rather than let them get behind them.

The strategy backfired. Badly.

Angle completed 15 straight passes to start the game — tying the school record for consecutive completions he set last week against Pickerington North — and established a school record that can never be eclipsed: 100 percent accuracy with more than 10 attempts.

“Wow. That’s wild,” said Logan coach Dale Amyx when informed of Angle’s perfect night. “I’ve never seen people so wide open. The offensive line did a great job tonight and Pat had so much time to throw the ball and do whatever he wanted to do.

“I thought they would blitz more,” he said of the Hamilton Township defense, “but they chose to sit back.”

Angle threw four touchdown passes for the third time in his career, again tying a school record he shares with Jim Richardson (four TDs vs. Circleville in 1937), Keith Myers (four vs. Gallipolis in 1983) and Chad Zimmerman (four vs. River Valley in 1994) and rushed for another.

And Mays caught a 4-yard scoring pass that gave him 17 career touchdown receptions, tying D.J. Conrad (1984-85) for the all-time record in that category.

Not bad for a couple guys who got dinged up last week against Pickerington North. Mays missed the final three quarters with ankle problems, but looked strong and healthy Friday night.

The Chiefs came out and simply overwhelmed Hamilton Township not only with their spread offense but by going no-huddle as well. Heck, they never huddled until late in their third touchdown drive… and that was because they had the ball in a short-field situation at the Rangers’ 8-yard line.

Twelve of Angle’s 15 completions were for double-digit yardage, and two of the other three were an 8-yard scoring pass to Rutter and the aforementioned 4-yarder to Mays. Eleven of Angle’s completions resulted in first downs.

Logan built such a huge cushion so quickly — the Chiefs led 42-0 with 6:45 still to play in the second quarter — that Amyx got most of his starters out of the game early. Angle, Mays, McDaniel and Rutter were among those who sat out the rest of the game on both sides of the ball.

“It was a chance to get some guys out of the game,” Amyx said. “We have some people who are still not 100 percent, and it got us a chance to rest them even more for next week.

“There’s a lot of guys we’ve been wanting to look at to build more depth,” he continued. “It gave us a chance to get those next-level guys in before the first half was over. Even though we were ahead by quite a bit, there was still a lot of football left. It means we can now see those guys on film and critique and coach them.”

It basically turned into a junior varsity game midway through the second stanza for the Chieftains. And the reserves more than held their own against Hamilton Township’s starters, who stayed in the game until the final few minutes of the fourth quarter, playing them to a 7-7 draw.

“Other than the win, that was the biggest thing tonight… we were able to get our second-level kids in there in a Friday night game and let get them some exposure and build confidence,” Amyx noted, stressing to them that ” ‘if we need you in a big-play situation against Gallipolis or Ironton, you’re in there. You’ve been in there and you know what you want.’

“A reserve game is a reserve game, but on a Friday night it’s a different atmosphere,” he said, adding with a chuckle “you have the varsity coaches yelling at them on the sideline, too… it’s a little more intense.”

The Chiefs needed just 25 plays to score their first six touchdowns, with the longest drive being their first (61 yards on seven plays) and the shortest coming when McDaniel took a shovel pass from Angle toward the middle of the scrimmage line and cutting down the right sideline to complete a 58-yard touchdown play.

Angle finished with 252 yards passing in just over 17 minutes of game time. If you figure all those numbers out over the course of the game, he would have been 42-for-42 for over 700 yards and the Chiefs would have scored 119 points.

As well as the Chiefs played, the starters realistically could have put up at least 80 points. But there was simply no need to keep the varsity skill-position players in the game against a Ranger defense that just couldn’t keep up.

Angle capped off the opening drive with a 1-yard scoring run after completing passes to Rutter, McDaniel and Mays for huge chunks of yardage.

McDaniel hauled in a 15-yard catch-and-run touchdown on the second drive, followed by an 8-yard touchdown toss to a wide-open Rutter in the end zone, the 58-yard shovel pass to McDaniel, the 4-yarder to Mays — on which the 6-foot-0, 175-pound senior bulled his way through a would-be tackler at the goal line — and a 9-yard scoring run by Mays after Angle had gained 46 yards on a scramble. Angle actually ran more than 60 yards after being chased way behind the line of scrimmage.

“He got some great blocks downfield, especially by (Brandon) Graham,” Amyx said. “I hadn’t seen a block like that since (recent Logan High School Athletic Hall of Fame inductee) Johnny Conrad.”

Backup quarterback Jordan Jurgensmier came in and scored on a 28-yard jaunt up the middle on the opening series of the second half. And speaking of perfect, Derek Montgomery came back from an injury in a soccer match the previous night to go 7-for-7 on extra-point kicks.

Several backup and junior varsity Chiefs came in to post some solid numbers as the Purple & White finished with 551 total yards — eighth-best in LHS history.

Junior Dylan Cavinee wound up leading the Chiefs with 65 yards rushing, with Jurgensmier adding 57 and Mays and Angle 48 apiece. The Chiefs entered the game having gained a grand total of 64 rushing yards in their first two games against Lancaster and Pickerington North combined.

Seven players caught at least one pass, with Jurgensmier going 4-for-9 and Kelly Long completing his only attempt (he was perfect, too). Underclassmen such as Kermit Berry, Rusty Knece, Brian Cook, Isaac Lindsey and Nate Poling all saw significant playing time.

“That was what we needed,” Amyx said. “We needed a game where we could get up (big) after playing those big, strong, physical teams (Lancaster and Pickerington North).

“It was good to get Jurgensmier some reps and confidence and let him work with the first-team line. He did a great job,” Amyx added. “It was in the back of our minds that if we were able to get ahead enough that we had plans who was going to go in and what to look for from some of those guys. We even had some specific plays for those kids to see what they would do in certain situations.”

The Chiefs travel to Gallipolis next Friday for a non-league game. The Blue Devils, like Hamilton Township, are also off to an 0-3 start after dropping their Southeastern Ohio Athletic League opener to Ironton Friday night, 39-6.