LOGAN — “You play the way you practice,” Logan coach Dale Amyx told his Logan Chieftains after they had dismantled visiting Ironton 35-10 in their Southeastern Ohio Athletic League football opener Friday night.

And, brother, have the Purple & White taken that lesson to heart.

“There’s so much truth to that,” observed senior receiver/defensive back Jaushua Huntsberger. “Coach Amyx always has us so well-prepared. I think we practice and prepare harder than any team in the state.”

That being the case, Ironton really didn’t stand a chance Friday night as the undefeated Purple & White scored on all four of their first-half possessions and opened an insurmountable 28-3 halftime lead.

Logan began defense of its SEOAL title with its 24th consecutive conference victory and finished the first half of its regular-season schedule a perfect 5-0. The Chiefs have outscored their first five foes 176-41.

“I thought our kids did a great job all week preparing for this game,” Amyx said. “We worked them hard. Sometimes I think we work them too hard. We run hard on Tuesday and Wednesday, and it’s not until Thursday that we start backing down.

“We do a lot of physical work and then a lot of mental work,” he added. “We try to get the kids to buy into that… the blue-collar work ethic and playing together as a team.”

That work ethic produced four really sweet touchdowns in the first half as the result of long scoring drives of 76, 80, 69 and 72 yards.

That’s because quarterback Patrick Angle tied an LHS school record with four touchdown passes on the night — two each to fellow juniors Jordan Rutter and Mason Mays — and threw for 302 yards, second best on the all-time LHS single-game passing list, behind only the 324 yards he accumulated just three weeks ago at Pickerington North.

Angle completed 11 straight passes at one juncture and was 16-of-18 by halftime, finishing 20-of-25 with one interception. He completed passes to seven different receivers.

And therein lies the rub when opposing defenses line up against the Chieftains: just who do you key on?

Not only can Angle throw the ball lights-out, but senior Clay Morgan also made his first appearance in the Logan offensive backfield since midway through the Pickerington North game and ran for 107 yards on just 11 carries. He’s back from his knee injury.

“That’s the big thing right now… (opposing defenses) can’t say that ‘we have to stop this guy’ because Patrick will hit whoever is open. He has such great vision,” Amyx praised. “I’ve said it before, but what I’m so proud of is how so many kids step up when we need them. Steve Miller goes down (with a first-quarter injury) and Taylor Maguire goes in and plays a great game. When Clay was out, Zach McDaniel (who missed last night’s game due to a shoulder injury) plays well, and Clay comes back tonight and plays a great game.

“We’re happy with the depth we’ve created… now if we could just get through a game without someone getting hurt!” he exclaimed. “I’m proud of these kids (like) the Ryan Siglers, the kids who don’t get a lot of glory who come in and do a good job.”

Another weapon the Chieftains unveiled, as they confused the Ironton defense with their four-receiver spread offense (five on a couple occasions) was Rutter, who caught touchdown passes of eight and 45 yards from Angle in the opening quarter.

“My first two touchdowns in what I think was the most important game of the season so far,” Rutter said afterward. “Our passing was the key. We came out strong and we executed well.”

Did they ever. The Chieftain offense was efficiency personified in the first half.

On the game’s first play from scrimmage, Angle hit Zach Adams with a sideline pass that the senior turned into a 40-yard pickup, setting the tone for a long night for Ironton (3-2 overall, 1-1 SEOAL).

Using his arm (completions to Mays and Huntsberger) and his legs (a couple keepers), Angle steadily drove the Chiefs deep into Ironton territory before hooking up with Rutter with an 8-yard scoring pass over the middle with 8:56 left in the opening period.

“I was surprised that I was in the end zone, because it was only supposed to be a five-yard route,” Rutter said. “The guy in front of me fell down, so I took a couple more steps, caught it and looked down, and I was in the end zone.

“I was highly surprised,” he added with a grin.

More smiles and grins were to follow.

Ironton put together its best drive of the night on its opening series, driving 11 plays from its own 28 to the Logan 14, where the drive stalled and quarterback/placekicker Jon Schweickart booted a 31-yard field goal.

On that initial drive, Ironton apparently wanted to use 5-foot-11, 270-pound lineman Tony Murphy (wearing uniform number 62) as a fullback — a battering ram to soften up the Chieftain defense.

“That’s his first time in the backfield,” Amyx said. “I was getting a little worried with that first drive. We brought a couple bigger guys in (to combat the larger Tigers) and then Miller got hurt. We had to makeshift… once the kids (got accustomed) they knew we could stop them. We jumped into some short-yardage defenses.

“We’re not big up front, but we’re aggressive and we’re quick,” he added. “To hold them and to stop them with the size of their running backs, that was a good test for us.”

The Chieftains certainly passed this “major, major test,” as Amyx said earlier in the week.

It took the Chiefs just five plays to cover 80 yards on their next possession, with Rutter again doing the scoring honors when he flew past the Ironton secondary and found himself all alone.

But he later admitted this 45-yard touchdown reception wasn’t as easy as it looked.

“I thought (Angle) overthrew me — and I lost it in the lights — but I just kept running and put my hands out and caught it,” Rutter revealed. “The (Ironton) corners were dropping off to the sides and it leaves you wide open up the middle.”

And it showed how the Chiefs took full advantage of their pre-game preparations.

“I thought the line did great,” Huntsberger said. Offensive coordinator Kelly “Wolfe did a great job. We came into the week knowing what we could do against their defense… and everything we wanted to do, we (found out we) could do.”

“In the game films we saw some things we thought we could take advantage of,” Amyx revealed. “We didn’t put anything special in… we just knew we could run our own passing game against them. We knew there would be a lot of open areas in the zone and in the seams. Kelly did a great job calling plays and exploiting that.

“Kelly’s done a great job getting the offense ready and calling the plays… and all I have to do is sit back and worry about defense,” he said with a chuckle.

And, oh, that defense. Logan has outscored its opponents 112-6 in the first half and has yet to allow a touchdown in the first or second quarters. Ironically, both Lancaster and Ironton kicked field goals on the first possession of their respective games against the Chiefs… and both went on to lose by identical 35-10 scores.

“I’m very proud of the defense. This was pretty much a smash-mouth game, and maybe we needed something like that,” Amyx said. “The kids got some confidence. Now they know they can stop a good, hard running back or running attack.”

Logan went 69 yards on 11 plays with its first possession of the second period, another efficient, workman-like drive that wound up with Mays doing what he does so well… catching a short pass, making defenders miss and outrunning them to the end zone. This time, it was a pass he caught in the right flat and took 16 yards to paydirt.

Angle showed more of his great athleticism on Logan’s final touchdown of the first half. With under a minute to play, he scrambled to his left — opposite his throwing (right) hand — and heaved a bomb down the left sideline that Jon Neff hauled in for a 56-yard gain to the Ironton 3. Morgan scored on a 2-yard run with 32.8 seconds left to cap off a nearly-perfect half of Logan football.

Logan turned the ball over a couple times in the second half — once on the Ironton 1-yard line — and the I-Tigers got their only touchdown when Lukas Morris took a pass in the left flat, cut back against the grain, and took 74 yards for six points to pull Ironton within 28-10 with 8:29 remaining.

Not to worry. Angle simply led the Chieftains on one last scoring drive, which included a 20-yard pass to Rutter and a nice, twisting 13-yard run by Morgan, before hitting a wide-open Mays on a post pattern with an 11-yard scoring play with 5:55 remaining.

“That was the most physical team we’ve played — other than Pickerington North, physically — from beginning to end,” Amyx said. “And that might be the case again next week. Zanesville always has a big line and we’re going to see some teams down the road with big lines.

“It was our first league game and you want to start off with a win,” he added. Ironton “is one of the top teams in the league. I know Chillicothe’s tough and Jackson (was) undefeated… but Ironton is Ironton.”

After the game, Huntsberger, the son of a veteran coach (longtime freshman football coach and varsity softball coach Jim Huntsberger), spoke of how proud he was of his team and starting out the Logan Chieftain Stadium era with three consecutive wins.

How about five home wins, Jaush… or maybe six with a playoff game?

“That would be great,” he said, before stopping and collecting his thoughts. “But Zanesville’s next week and that’s a really big game. I know coach Amyx and coach Wolfe will have us prepared, and I know we’ll come out and play hard.”

Spoken just like the son of a coach. And spoken just like a player who believes in his team, his coaches and the system. You truly play the way you practice.

Read More in the Logan Daily News.