FeedsChief gridders defuse Rockets, 42-3
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Canton’s Deshon McClendon (1) crosses the goal line for his first of two scores in the Chiefs’ 42-3 victory against John Glenn last Thursday.Thursday was a night for stars to shine and none burned brighter than Canton’s Steve Paye.
The senior backup quarterback and linebacker led the Chiefs to a 42-3 victory against the John Glenn Rockets in Westland on Thursday night.
Paye, in his first year playing high school football, was stellar on both sides of the ball. He forced a fumble and recovered another on defense and stepped into the quarterback position—after senior starter Ben Vaughn left the game with an injury—and directed five scoring drives.
For a team that relies heavily on its run attack, the performance undoubtedly sparked a (gasp) quarterback controversy.
“It’s amazing for a kid to come out his senior year, learn our offense and play the position that well and to start at linebacker and play that position,” said Canton Coach Tim Baechler. “I don’t get it, but man is he good.
“We have a quarterback controversy on our hands,” he said. “We’re going to have to decide what is best for our team. Here’s the thing: you want to go for the future, too, but, you know what, if you have player…you have to spend him while you got him. The kid has me in a tough situation.”
After an offensively stagnant first quarter, Paye turned things in favor of Canton when he sacked Glenn quarterback Justin Reid, causing a fumble. Senior linebacker Chris Hasse scooped up the loose ball and trucked 53 yards for the score. Colin O’Shaugnessy’s kick was good to give Canton a 7-0 lead at the 11:39 mark of the second quarter.
The Chiefs upped their advantage, 14-0, when Nicholas Dunleavy recovered a fumbled punt on John Glenn’s 27-yard line. Paye stepped in to the starting quarterback role and took the team the distance on six plays, ending with Deshon McClendon’s 1-yard run to the end zone. Both teams retired to the locker rooms 49 seconds later.
At the top of the third, Canton fumbled and Glenn recovered the ball on the Chiefs’ 19. Four plays later Andrew Hein split the uprights with a 32-yard field goal to put the Rockets on the board, 14-3.
Dalton Walser scored on a 36-yard scramble, giving his Chiefs a 21-3 lead. Canton then scored on its next two drives after recovering Glenn fumbles. Paye recovered the first fumble then connected with Walser for a 38-yard pass and a score. Then McClendon dragged tacklers for 10 yards to score from 25 yards out. That earned the Chiefs a 35-3 cushion.
Nick Moores finished off the scoring with a 1-yard plunge with 3:34 left in the game.
It was a tale of two halves for the Canton offense. Glenn did a remarkable job holding the Chiefs to less than 50 yards in the first half. With some adjustments at halftime, Canton broke open for more than 140 yards rushing in the second half. Their defense remained unbreakable.
“We made a couple slight tweaks on defense; they played great tonight, again—knock on wood,” Baechler said.
“Offensively, we’re getting a lot of information to process. Certainly we hate having to wait to halftime to get that information processed. We’d like to get it done as soon as possible. But once they got it down and saw what they were doing it was a simple adjustment in the blocking scheme and than…BANG.”
McClendon led the Canton ground attack with 72 yards and his two TDs.
Glenn Coach Todd DeLuca admits the miscues hurt his team’s chances.
“The mistakes did us in tonight,” he said. “We played with them, I thought, but you can’t turn the ball over that many times against a team like Canton. I give them all of the credit. They’re a very, very good football team. If it wasn’t for the turnovers the score would have been a lot closer and we would have been leaving with our heads up. But the bottom line is Canton is a good football team. We won’t be the only team they do this to.
“If I know my players, they are going to want to have another crack at these guys,” he added, “and in order to do that we will have to win our division so that’s what we’re aiming at.”
Glenn hosts Stevenson at 7 p.m. on Friday.
Canton will be considered the away team when they play Plymouth at 7 p.m. on Friday.
Other scores
Belleville 14, (at) Southgate Anderson 6
The Belleville Tigers redeemed themselves from their opening week loss to John Glenn in week two when they defeated host Southgate Anderson, 14-6, on Friday.
Waseem El Awadi and Ken Jones each scored rushing touchdowns for Belleville, improving the team’s record to 1-1.
