By Craig Dunn
Logan Daily News Sports Editor
LOGAN — Many accolades have been accorded the Logan Chieftains and their spread offense this season, and deservedly so. The Purple & White were once again diverse and potent in their Senior Night regular-season home finale against visiting Warren Friday night in Logan Chieftain Stadium.

The Chiefs have gained almost 400 yards and scored nearly 35 points per game this season. But it was the Logan defense that particularly impressed both head coaches after the Purple & White blanked the Warriors 42-0 in a Southeastern Ohio Athletic League game.

“We thought we were going to be able to run the ball,” said Warren coach Jim Pifer. “Up front their nose guard just manhandled our center, their defensive end (Jon Neff) hurt us and we couldn’t get outside. Their quickness was too good for us, and plus they were a lot stronger than we thought they were.”
The Chiefs limited Warren to 120 yards of total offense and forced the Warriors to punt on all six of their first-half possessions en route to their eighth-consecutive victory and a school-record 27th-straight SEOAL win. Warren only crossed the 50-yard line three times all night and its wing-T offense was held to just 100 yards on the ground.

“That’s the first time all year we haven’t been able to generate offense on the run,” Pifer said. “I take my hat off to them. They have a nice defensive team.”

The undefeated (8-0) Chiefs, ranked No. 5 in Division II of this week’s Associated Press state football poll, scored two plays into the game on Clay Morgan’s 52-yard run and never looked back.

Morgan ran for two touchdowns and junior quarterback Patrick Angle threw for three touchdowns and ran for another, setting an LHS single-season record with 20 TD passes. His 13 completions (in 22 attempts) went to eight different receivers.

The four-time defending SEOAL champion Chiefs (4-0 SEOAL) also kept pace with conference foe Chillicothe (5-0) and, if the Purple & White win at Jackson next week while the Cavaliers defeat visiting Warren (4-4, 1-3), it will be Logan at Chillicothe in a winner-take-all week-10 championship game.

“I really think they’re a pretty good football team,” Logan coach Dale Amyx said of the Warriors. “If we were running the stuff we used to run, the I-formation (and) just grind it out, it would have been a different game.

“I think they had a lot of trouble with our spread,” he added. “We executed well on both sides of the ball and defensively we played lights-out all night. I thought they really ran the wing-T well. The films we saw on them they moved the ball on people, and that worried me.”

But the Warriors really didn’t move the ball until the second half — they only had 26 yards rushing at the intermission — and by then the Chiefs had the game well in hand. The Chiefs scored 14 points in each the first, second and third quarters and were never really threatened.

“Kelly (offensive coordinator Kelly Wolfe) did a nice job mixing the offense up, and that’s the biggest thing: you don’t know what’s coming from us now,” Amyx noted. “It could be pass, it could be option, Clay on a quick trap… there’s just too much there and we need to keep making sure we’re not our own worst enemy (and make mistakes).

“We need to score and get ahead,” he added. “For us, it’s do it quick and get the ball back and do it quick again. That’s kind of been our forte this year and hopefully we can keep that up. That really puts the other team in a hole… and the way our defense plays, a 21-point lead is big.”

A couple of those Chieftain standouts on offense agreed.

“We can spread everything out,” said Morgan, who had another solid game on both sides of the football. “Every player can do everything — they can run (and) they can catch — and I think that’s why we’ve been so good.”

Morgan finished with a season-high 142 yards rushing on just 11 carries and was one of those eight players on the receiving end of an Angle pass.

“We put in a couple new plays that gets me out into the open field to catch the ball, and I like that,” he said. Opposing defenses “have to cover everybody… they can’t just focus on one or two people, and I think that’s great.”

And no one knows that better than Angle.

“We have receivers who can do something after the catch,” Angle praised. “Jordan Rutter, Jaush Huntsberger, Zach Adams, Mason Mays, Clay Morgan out of the backfield, Jon Neff, Zach McDaniel… a lot of people who, when they get the ball, can do something with it. It’s nice knowing we can throw a short pass and gain five or six yards after the catch.”

Angle threw a touchdown pass for an eighth-consecutive game and his 21-yard scoring pass to Adams with 19 seconds left in the first half broke Keith Myers’ 23-year-old school record of 19 set in 1985.

“Right now I’m just focused on hopefully leading us to an undefeated regular season, a home playoff game and making a run in the playoffs,” said Angle, who is just a little more than 200 yards behind Joey Conrad’s all-time single-season mark of 1,902 yards. “The records are nice, but I couldn’t do it without an offensive line and all those great receivers we have. They all do a great job.”

Angle led the Chiefs on an eight-play, 64-yard scoring drive late in the opening quarter, capped by a 32-yard bomb to the back left-corner of the end zone where Adams out-leaped a Warren defender to bring it down for six points.

Midway in the second period, Neff partially-deflected a Warren punt and Seth Sigler recovered at the Warren 35. On the first play from scrimmage, Angle found a wide-open Huntsberger down the right sideline and the senior spun away from a potential tackler at the 5-yard line for his first touchdown reception of the season.

The 21-yarder to Adams in the waning seconds of the second period was a thing of beauty. Angle scrambled to avoid an almost-certain sack, rolled right and saw Adams coming back toward the right sideline and hit him in stride near the goal line. That made it 28-0 Logan at halftime.

Angle led the Chieftains on a nine-play, 68-yard scoring drive — with all nine plays on the ground — to begin the third quarter. He scored on a 5-yard keeper to cap it off and put the game on ice. Morgan rounded out the scoring later in the stanza with a 21-yard TD run, and Ronnie Burcham was a perfect 6-for-6 on extra-point placements.

“I was pleased with all areas of the game… offense, defense, special teams,” Amyx said. “Pretty much workman-like. The kids knew we had a job to do and everybody got it done. Patrick had another great game, Clay had another great game and our offensive line did a great job blocking.

“Kelly really doesn’t want people looking at us and saying ‘if we stop this guy, or take this receiver away, we’re going to hurt them’… they (opposing defenses) can’t do that,” he added. “We have so many people who can do something with the football. The biggest guy they’re going to have to key on is number seven (Angle)… when they try to gear to stop him, Clay has a big game or we spread the ball around. We’re seeing some different things and we’re kind of evolving.”

Despite the 42-point loss, the Warriors continued their steady improvement under Pifer, now in his second year at the helm of the Warriors.

“We’re in tenth place in our computer rankings (region) and we have to get to eighth (to make the playoffs),” he said. “We know we had to win the Logan game, the Chillicothe game or the Ironton game and then maybe we could sneak in at 5-5. We’re getting better… but we’re not at the Logan level yet.”

After the game, the Logan seniors continued an LHS tradition by making their Senior Walk across the field, which usually signifies the final home game of their careers.

But these Chieftain seniors know that may not be the case this fall.

“I kind of didn’t want to walk tonight,” Morgan admitted, “but then maybe we thought that was being a little cocky (and) saying that we’re going to have (another) home game. That’s probably right… but I’m glad we walked. Hopefully, a couple more weeks and we’ll be back on our home field again (for a playoff game).”

Angle, who won’t stage his Senior Walk for another 12 months or so, agreed.

“Hopefully we’ll be back here (at Logan Chieftain Stadium) for week 11,” he said. “That would be real nice.”

Read More in the Logan Daily News.