Wolverines use strong second half to capture CVC win
Sep. 18—ASHTABULA TOWNSHIP — For two quarters of football Friday night, the Edgewood defense was like a dam holding back the floodwaters and keeping the Warriors in the game against West Geauga.
In the second half, though, the dam finally broke.
The Wolverines scored a late touchdown to close out the first half and four more, to go along with a safety, in the third quarter on their way to an a 50-13 win over Edgewood at Corlew Stadium.
The Warriors' offense went backward on the first two plays of the game before punting to give West Geauga starting field position at the Edgewood 27.
It was the first of four drives the Wolverines started in Warrior territory.
The Edgewood defense was able to hold the opposition to just two field goals, though.
"I think the game plan defensively was pretty good," Warriors interim coach Olajuwon Cooper said. "I think it was a battle of attrition in the second half and they just wore us down."
The Warriors took a 7-6 lead on quarterback Tony Hall's 16-yard scoring pass to Izaiah Harris. The play was set up by a quick-hitter to Christian Cunningham, who took the short pass and broke free for a 51-yard pick-up to set up the scoring play.
Harris scored again in the third quarter, this time as he picked off Wolverines quarterback Danny Stewart and raced 55 yards the other way.
The big plays were there for Edgewood, but the problem were so were several negative ones that put them behind the chains throughout the night.
Thirteen times the Warriors had an offensive play go for negative yardage.
With Hall playing in just his second game, Cooper said inexperience is still the biggest thing his team has to overcome.
"A lot of it is inexperience, that's not making excuses, it's just a sophomore with no reps under his belt other than last week," Cooper said. "
Those are called growing pains, we understand we're going to have them. The team understands we're going to have them. We just have to come together, move forward together and things will get better.
"I think right now we're making big plays on first down, but then we'll get behind the sticks on second down and it's hard to call plays when you're behind the sticks, especially with a sophomore quarterback. Once we can stay ahead of our sticks, I think we'll be OK."
Hall completed 12 of 28 passes for 177 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions.
Harris was his favorite target, catching seven passes for 117 yards.
"Tony Hall is a fighter," Cooper said. "We know his best days are ahead of him. Nights like tonight, football is not an individual sport, it's a team sport. We build on the positives and fix the negatives.
One of the negatives was the Warriors' inability to mount a ground attack.
They they finished the game with negative rushing yards.
"That's what we didn't do a good job of," Cooper said. "Once you become one-dimensional, you become pretty easy to defend. They did a great job of stopping the run."
Things do not get easier for Edgewood as it hosts Perry Friday night.
