Lessons to learn in Wolverines’ loss
Youthful errors, players in different positions, and a skilled, athletic opponent from Stanton led to a 36-0 season-opening defeat for the East Mills football team Friday in Malvern.
Despite the loss, the Wolverines – without a senior on the roster – began to hold their own physically as the game wore on.
“I thought the kids did the best they could,” co-head coach Kevin Shaefer said. “We have some kids playing positions that maybe they haven’t played before. We’re young. We knew we’d have physical mistakes, mental mistakes. We’re small. Some of our kids maybe didn’t put the time in the weight room they should have this summer, so they got a little lesson in what it’s going to take play at the varsity level. But there was improvement from beginning to end, and we talked about it with them, that we want to see improvement not just during the game, but from game to game.”
East Mills had trouble sustaining drives throughout the first half.
Chris Darnold had 34 yards on 11 carries for the Wolverines. Trevor Glockel had seven yards on three attempts. Quarterback Michael Schafer had -17 yards running on 11 attempts, with the lost yardage coming mostly on three quarterback sacks by Stanton’s 6-8, 211-pound defensive lineman, Dillion Rocha.
“When our pass blocking was better, our passing game was better,” Schafer said. “We really struggled pass blocking early. The Rocha kid is going to give lots of people trouble. We knew that coming in. We were planning on running away from him, and they put in at nose guard, and the way he flows and can run, really makes it tough, because our plan was to go to the opposite side of him.”
Schafer was 8-17 passing for 127 yards. Nic Duysen had three catches for 49 yards, Glockel had two catches for 59 yards, including a 43-yarder that set up a third quarter scoring threat. Darnold caught two for 11 yards and Kendel McNew had one for eight yards.
Stanton pushed its lead to 36-0 and began a running clock with 5:25 left in the first half. Big plays provided the points, occasionally set up by a Wolverine mistake.
The game was scoreless after each team’s first possession. East Mills held Stanton to a fourth-and-11 at midfield on the next possession, but the Wolverines jumped offside, and Stanton decided to go for a first down rather than punt. On the next play, Keygan Day connected on a 35-yard scoring pass to Drake Johnson, and it was 6-0 Vikings instead of East Mills having the ball after a punt.
On Stanton’s next possession, the Wolverines forced a couple of Stanton errors and the Vikings had first and 20 from their own 10 yard line, but Day faked a screen to the left, then came back to the right and found Johnson on a short pass. He took it the distance and a conversion made it 14-0.
Day scored on a 56-yard quarterback draw play with 3:19 left in the first quarter. Stanton scored with 9:48 left in the first half on a high-arcing 33-yard pass from Day to Rocha.
“I thought our defensive backs, for the most part, did a pretty good job considering they were guarding kids that are as athletic as theirs,” Schafer said.
For Stanton, Day was 10-for-20 passing for 220 yards and four TDs. He had 74 yards rushing. Overall, the Vikings had 131 yards rushing on 21 attempts, with 56 coming on Day’s TD run and another 30-plus coming on the last drive of the night.