By Craig Dunn
Logan Daily News

LANCASTER — If the Logan Chieftains can take just one lesson out of Friday night’s season-opening football loss to the Lancaster Golden Gales, it’s a pretty simple one: don’t make mistakes in general… and don’t commit 14 penalties in particular.

The Chiefs were flagged 14 times for 139 yards — one of which gave the Gales a second-chance touchdown to take the lead and another that cost the Purple & White a 58-yard touchdown pass at what would have been a most opportune time — as Lancaster prevailed 35-13 at Fulton Field.

“Way too many mistakes,” Logan coach Kelly Wolfe said afterward. “Fourteen penalties… and we didn’t take advantage of the opportunities we had. We had two or three good drives where we got (deep in Lancaster territory) and got nothing to show for it. You just can’t make mistakes against a team like that.”
The Chiefs controlled the clock (27:53 to 20:07 in offensive possession time), ran 18 more offensive plays (62-44) and collected more first downs (18-14), but Lancaster amassed all 421 of its yards on the ground and gradually wore down the smaller Chiefs, who had a lot of athletes playing on both sides of the line of scrimmage.

“We hung with them and had everybody ready to go tonight,” Wolfe said. “We got a little tired in the second quarter — we had guys in (defensive) position, but we were bouncing off of them (whereas) in the first quarter we weren’t. We had guys (in position) and making the plays.

“We got a little tired in the second quarter and they busted a couple big runs on us,” he added. “We just didn’t capitalize enough when we had chances.”

The Chiefs defense held the Gales on Lancaster’s first two offensive series and Logan sophomore Jack Music — starting at quarterback in place of senior Kelly Long, who was held out of the first series for disciplinary reasons — guided the Chiefs from their own 37 to the Lancaster 15 before the Chiefs relinquished the ball on downs.

Long then came on late in the first quarter to lead a solid six-play, 38-yard scoring drive. Deep in Lancaster territory, Long bobbled a high snap from center then cut to his left to find a wide-open lane to the end zone for an 8-yard scoring run for a 7-0 edge one minute into the second stanza.

Then, the Chiefs seemingly got a huge break when fullback Luke Roberts — bound for Ohio State next season as a linebacker — busted a 28-yard scoring run, only to have it called back due to a penalty.

But the Chiefs shot themselves in their collective feet when a third-down personal foul penalty kept the Lancaster drive alive long enough for Roberts to break another TD run, this one for 32 yards.

On the ensuing extra-point kick, Logan was called for an illegal participation miscue that moved the ball half the distance to the goal. Lancaster then decided to go for two and Roberts easily bowled his way into the end zone for an 8-7 lead, beginning a Gales run of 35 unanswered points.

After Logan was forced to punt on its ensuing drive, a 38-yard run on a quick-hitter by Russ King put the Gales in scoring position inside the Logan 10. King scored two plays later on a one-yard plunge to make it 15-7.

Logan then drove to the Lancaster 27, only to see the advance slowed by a holding penalty (12 yards), a motion penalty (five yards) and a 13-yard loss on a center snap that sailed over Long’s head.

Still, the Chiefs managed a first down. On third-and-45, halfback Cory McCarty rambled 39 yards to set up fourth-and-six, and Long hit receiver Isaac Lindsey with a seven-yard pass for a first down at the Gale 21.

But still another penalty hurt the drive and Logan eventually gave the ball up on downs at the Lancaster 23 in the half’s waning seconds.

The Chiefs drove to the Lancaster 38 on the opening series of the second half, only to be thwarted by a 13-yard holding penalty. Not long afterward, the Gales’ Ethan Bond broke an inside handoff 79 yards to paydirt for a 22-7 Lancaster lead.

One more Logan costly miscue kept the Chiefs from getting closer late in the third period.

A pair of Lancaster penalties resulted in Logan first downs that kept a drive alive long enough for Long to hit Lindsey in stride in the end zone with a beautiful 58-yard scoring pass… only to have it called back on still another holding penalty.

Then, to add insult to injury, another holding infraction and an intentional grounding call forced Logan into a second-and-47 situation. Lancaster’s Ethan Jones picked off a deep pass from Long to end the threat two plays later.

“It was 15-7 at halftime and we came out and had a drive going there, and also had a touchdown called back that could have made it 22-14… so we were right there,” Wolfe said. “You just can’t have that many mistakes. You have to make the most of the opportunities when you are the underdog, and we just didn’t.”

The Gales then broke the game open with fourth-quarter scoring runs by King (two yards) and Andrew Shisler (53 yards) before Logan’s Branson Sheets scored a consolation TD on an 18-yard run with under 50 seconds to play.

“We moved the ball well on offense (308 total yards) and I thought our receivers blocked well because we obviously wanted to dump it out on the edge and use our receivers to block,” Wolfe said. “I thought we did well with that.”

Lancaster coach Rob Carpenter wasn’t unhappy that the Chiefs chose to go with a short aerial offense.

“They did a good job with their passing game,” said Carpenter, a former star running back in the National Football League. “I’m just glad they didn’t throw deep more. That was a concern. As long as they were throwing short, that was okay. (Covering) deep throws may not be something we do real well.

“Logan came out with a really good game plan and executed pretty well,” he added. “They junked it up on the defensive line and were running guys through, and we were missing assignments with things we hadn’t seen before. They got ahead of us and forced us to re-evaluate.”

And it’s not bad when you can turn to an OSU-bound linebacker in such a situation.

“We moved some running backs around and we put Luke (Roberts) back there,” Carpenter revealed. “We didn’t want to over-use him, because he plays a lot of linebacker, but he’s a power guy. Once he got us going, then all of our backs kind of picked up the pace. We have a bunch of good backs we can rotate.”

No argument there. Ten different ballcarriers accounted for Lancaster’s 421 ground yards, with Bond picking up 92, King 85 and Shisler 75. Roberts added 48 yards on just five official carries.

“They wore us down and they adjusted,” Wolfe said. “Give them credit; they figured out some things we were doing defensively with our front five and you could see they were changing their running plays. They weren’t running them in the same lanes and they were making adjustments.

“They hit that fullback quick-hitter up the middle a couple times,” he added. “That’s what they do so well.”

Carpenter agreed.

“I think we wore Logan down,” he said. “I know they play a lot of guys both ways. They got tired at the end, but they played hard and had a great game plan. Our offensive line and our defensive line wore them down.

“It was a typical Logan-Lancaster game… it’s not your typical week-one game,” he added. “This is more of a heated rivalry now, and both sides get deeply emotional about it.”

The Chiefs can take some good things from this defeat as they prepare for next Friday’s home opener against Pickerington North, which routed perennial state power Columbus Watterson 38-3 in its opener Friday night.

“We gave up (too many) big plays again, and we have to eliminate those,” Wolfe said. “But the kids want to keep working. Our kids played with enthusiasm and matched them hit-for-hit out there.

“There are a lot of positives that come from tonight… but defensively we just can’t give up that many points,” he concluded.