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Lucas fends off the Crusaders

By ANDREW GRIMM 6 min read

STEUBENVILLE -- After getting into an early hole, Catholic Central showed a lot of fight during Saturday night’s season opener against Lucas. Unfortunately for the youthful Crusaders, however, they made a few too many mistakes to complete the comeback against the more experienced Cubs, who left Harding Stadium with a 29-13 victory.

Lucas jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter and then scored a pair of late touchdowns after Central had gotten back within a point early in the fourth quarter.

“We kept fighting,” Central head coach Greg Bahen, who was making his debut, said. “We had too many mistakes at the end of the day, it was too many to overcome against a good football team. Lucas is probably one of the better teams we will play all year.

“I’m proud of the effort and fight, we just have some things to clean up. There is a lot to build off of -- our toughness and togetherness after getting down 14-0. In that scenario you can fold and quit or keep fighting and we chose to fight. That was good to see and I think if we clean up some of the mistakes we made, we can be a pretty good football team.

“We have a lot of work to do, but a lot of promise and a lot to build on.”

The Crusaders seemed to get better in the second half, controlling the possession for most of the third quarter before finally turning it into points less than a minute into the fourth quarter. The defense, which was stout through the second and third quarters, got Central the ball back with a three-and-out, but the Crusaders turned the ball over on downs and Lucas scored a couple of plays later.

After an interception ended Central’s last-ditch drive, the Cubs scored again to put things away.

Central’s youthful squad did show a lot of signs of promise. Matty Jones connected with Rahim Mitchell on a 79-yard touchdown in the second quarter after a long weather delay, and Jones fired another touchdown to Michael Fabbro, who also made a great catch to convert a forth down earlier on the scoring drive, in the fourth quarter.

After the opening two scoring drives for the Cubs, the Central defense adjusted to the unconventional Lucas offense and started to get stops.

However, 11 penalties (eight being either a false start or illegal motion), five fumbles (one lost) and a couple of key dropped passes that looked like sure touchdowns showed the youth.

“My hat’s off to our defense, they kept fighting all night,” Bahen said. “We put them in a couple of bad spots and they fought. At times on offense we started to put it together, we were running the ball and started to feel like we were taking it to them, then we just had too many mental errors. We had pre-snap penalties, false starts, putting ourselves behind the sticks.

“We dropped a touchdown, it happens, we had plenty of chances. We have to execute when we have those chances.”

In addition to being a match up that was put together less than two weeks ago when Central’s original opening opponent canceled, another curveball was thrown into things when the game was halted for lightning with the Cubs up 8-0 and 3:43 left in the first quarter. The delay lasted an hour and 24 minutes as multiple additional strikes lit up the sky and re-started the 30-minute clock.

“I thought it benefited us,” Bahen said of the delay. “They kind of came out and punched us in the mouth, and the delay gave us a chance to talk to the kids, make some adjustments and refocus them. I thought once we came out of the break we fought tooth and nail.

“It was a crazy game, it kind of felt like five games in one.”

The Cubs had marched eight plays to score on their opening drive of the game, capped by the first of three Brady Guegold touchdown runs, which went for 23 yards.

Guegold capped the next Cubs drive after Central turned the ball over on downs out of the weather break, this time finishing a seven-play march with a 3-yard run in the final minute of the opening quarter, which was more than an hour after his first score. Guegold finished with 173 yards on 20 carries.

Central, however, got a big jolt when Jones and Mitchell connected, Mitchell making a juggling catch and out-racing defenders to cut the deficit in half.

The defense got a stop, but Central muffed the ensuing punt and set the Cubs up inside the 10. The Crusader defense, though, came up with a huge stop to keep the margin at one score going to the second half.

The Crusader defense got a big stop to start the third quarter, and after the offense was not able to move the sticks, got another big change of possession when Daveon Thorn intercepted a Lucas pass, his second pick of the game.

The offense took advantage that time, Jones connecting with Fabbro on a fourth-and-long before the duo connected again early in the fourth quarter to cap the drive with a touchdown. The extra point, however, doinked off the goal post leaving Central down a point.

The defense got a three-and-out, but Central failed to convert a fourth down on the ensuing drive looking to take the lead. Three plays later, Lucas QB Carter Cox kept the ball on a boot leg play and raced 46 yards to score, an extra point making the lead eight points with under four minutes to play.

On the ensuing drive, Jones took off and converted a big third down, but a couple plays later attempted to throw the ball to a teammate on his way to being sacked and it was intercepted.

Two plays later Guegold raced 60 yards for his third score and all but sealed the deal for the Cubs.

Jones finished the night 5 of 17 for 136 yards, while rushing for another 36 yards (58 without a pair of sacks). Ryan Holzworth toted the ball 11 times for 51 yards.

UP NEXT

Central spends the next four weeks on the road, beginning with a trip to Strasburg on Friday night.

Lucas 29, Catholic Central 13

L 14-0-0-15 -- 29

CC 0-7-0-6 -- 13

SCORING PLAYS

First Quarter

L: Guegold 23 run (Guegold run) 5:30

L: Guegold 3 run (run failed) :56

Second Quarter

CC: Mitchell 79 pass from Jones (Vranish kick) 6:45

Third Quarter

None

Fourth Quarter

CC: Fabbro 10 pass from Jones (kick failed) 11:03

L: Cox 46 run (Guegold kick) 3:21

L: Guegold 60 run (Ramsey run) 1:52

INDIVIDUAL STATS

RUSHING: Lucas 42-276-4TD (Guegold 20-173-3TD; Fanello 9-22; Cox 9-65-TD; Anschutz 4-16); Central 35-90 (Holzworth 11-51; Jones 17-36; Thorn 6-13; Busic 1-0)

PASSING: Lucas 2-7-15-2INT (all by Cox); Central 5-17-136-2TD-INT (all by Jones)

RECEIVING: Lucas 2-15 (all by Anschutz); Central 5-136-2TD (Mitchell 2-98-TD; Fabbro 3-38-TD)

TEAM STATS

TOTAL YARDS: Lucas 291; Central 226

FIRST DOWNS: Lucas 9; Central 7

PENALTIES-YARDS: Lucas 10-91; Central 11-65

FUMBLES-LOST: Lucas 0-0; Central 5-1

PUNTS-AVG: Lucas 3-43.7; Central 2-30.5

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