By Craig Dunn
Logan Daily News

LOGAN — For the Logan Chieftains, several positive points surrounded last week’s 47-minute weather delay at Lancaster.

Those positives included registering a safety right before the delay, scoring a game-breaking touchdown two plays after the game resumed and, of course, going on to register a 33-14 season-opening victory over the Golden Gales at Fulton Field.

However, what was happening on the northern end of Fairfield County at around the same time proved beneficial to the Chiefs as well.
The weather was a little worse in Pickerington, where the Pickerington North Panthers’ season opener against Dublin Scioto wound up being suspended and completed Saturday night.

That gave the Logan varsity coaching staff the opportunity to scout the Panthers’ eventual 12-7 victory in person and helped them prepare for this Friday’s home opener (7:30 p.m. kickoff) against Pickerington North in Logan Chieftain Stadium.

Some say the 2009 Panthers bear a striking resemblance to most Logan teams prior to last season’s switch to the spread offense.

“I’d say that’s a good assessment,” said Logan coach Dale Amyx, who coached his 200th game (and earned his 130th victory) on the Chieftain sidelines last Friday. “I was very impressed with them. They have some pretty good runners who run the ball hard, and they have some huge size.

“They run a power offense but can jump into a spread offense — and will do just that,” he added.

Indeed, it sounds a lot like those Chieftain teams of the not-so-distant past.

As big as the Golden Gales were last week, the Panthers are even bigger. They average 267 pounds per man on the offensive line, including a pair of Grove City transfers who weigh more than 300.

Lancaster rushed for 273 yards last week — including 182 yards and a pair of touchdowns by Nathan Carpenter, possibly the best running back the Chiefs will see the entire regular season — but for the most part a rebuilt Logan defensive line held its own.

“We gave up too many (rushing) yards, but then again (the Gales) are a wing-T, running team,” Amyx said, “and the Carpenter kid is a great runner.

“Our defense was good and bad,” he added. “When we did what we wanted to do we were great… but then we’d take a play or two off and that’s when they would break one.”

Carpenter had a 53-yard scoring run, a 31-yard jaunt, a 21-yarder and four other runs for between 10 and 19 yards, and fellow running back Connor Smith had a couple 18-yard runs… but those accounted for just nine of the Gales’ 51 total rushing attempts.

Plus, the Gales were either unable (or unwilling) to throw the ball. They attempted just six passes and completed as many to Chieftain defenders (a late Jordan Rutter 21-yard interception return) as to their own receivers (one 13-yard reception).

“Lancaster was a tough offense (for the new Logan defense) to start off against, with two rookie outside linebackers and three rookie defensive linemen,” Amyx pointed out, but all in all the defense “played a pretty good game in that situation.”

Expect another stern test along the defensive front once again this Friday.

“We’ve got to prove we can stop them,” Amyx noted. “We can’t just sit back in a basic defense. We’re getting better and are starting to understand what we need to do. We just need to be consistent.”

The Chiefs gave several varied defensive looks last week, including the first play from scrimmage when they forced the Gales to fumble deep in their own territory. Logan recovered and scored soon afterward.

Logan is committed to being a spread team on offense — with a talented quarterback like Patrick Angle (16-of-31 for 252 yards last week) and exceptional receivers like Mason Mays (six receptions for 129 yards and three touchdowns), Zach McDaniel (5-65), Rutter (3-32), Ryan Sigler and Korey Swaim, that’s a given — but Amyx does want to see a little better offensive balance. The Chiefs ran the ball 21 times but only gained 48 yards (35 by Angle, 25 coming on one play) against the Gales.

“Obviously we’ve got to improve the running game,” Amyx said, “but Lancaster did a lot to take that away from us. Their game plan was to stop the run, which they pretty much did, but I would think when playing us it would be more about (stopping) the pass.

“Our kids did a pretty good job picking up (Lancaster’s blitzes),” he added. “They were blitzing a lot of people on almost every play.”

A season opener can sometimes be sloppy, with both teams prone to mistakes and first-game jitters. That was the case for one team last Friday.

The Gales were whistled for nine penalties for 95 yards, committed three costly turnovers and sometimes lost their poise on the field; meanwhile, the Chiefs had zero miscues, six penalties (none for more than five yards, and only one in the first half) and played with both poise and discipline.

“I was really pleased with that,” Amyx said. “I think we showed very good poise and discipline. We had a couple procedure penalties, but no holding (or major) penalties, and no turnovers. It was a good, clean game for us.”

Amyx credited having played Sheridan the previous Friday in the inaugural Ohio High School Athletic Association “Jamboree” scrimmage game, which other than not utilizing kickoffs was played under regular game conditions.

“I really do think that scrimmage was great for us,” Amyx said. “I would do that again every year. It helped (the coaches and) the kids get ready. We were as prepared for our first game as we’ve ever been.”

Defense stands tall: As mentioned, it was a busy night for Logan’s defense. Linebackers Mays, Michael Snider and Brandon Graham had three solo tackles apiece and combined for 30 assists, with Mays and Snider both aiding on 11 tackles. Junior nose guard Tyler Dement was involved in 12 tackles (11 assists) and senior tackle T.J. McCray (three solos) and senior end Ryan Sigler eight apiece. Angle, who played both linebacker and in the defensive backfield, had a team-best five solo tackles as well as four assists.

Chieftain notes: Senior guard/defensive end Ralph Robinson went down with a sprain in the fourth quarter and hopes to play against Pickerington North, but the coaching staff will make a game-time decision on his status… you’ll recall that last season’s week two Logan at Pickerington North game was delayed two hours by intense storms, meaning the Panthers’ last two home openers and the Chiefs’ last two road lidlifters have been affected by weather… Southeastern Ohio Athletic League teams got off to a great start last week, winning seven of eight openers and outscoring their opponents 219-93. Only Gallipolis, which lost 21-0 to former SEOAL member Athens, was on the losing end of a non-conference game… for those who don’t want to park at the stadium, shuttle buses begin leaving the Logan-Hocking Middle School parking lot for Logan Chieftain Stadium at 6 p.m. Friday.