The Ross defense waits the for the snap of the ball against Southview. Photo by Tony Zimmerman,
SYLVANIA – With one exception, every time Fremont Ross needed a play from its defense, the Little Giants provided it.
Ross’ defenders limited the Southview Cougars to just five first downs and 51 yards of offense while coming up with three turnovers in leading the Little Giants to a 20-6 win Friday night.
“There is just something about this defense, man, they swarm the ball, they play good and they’re gap-sound,” head coach Chad Long said. “We had a great gameplan and the kids executed it pretty much to a T.”
Part of that gameplan included limiting the Cougars’ ability to get to the perimeter of the field with short passes and sweeps. As a result, Southview completed just 6-of-12 passes for 34 yards. The Little Giants also knocked starting quarterback Brayton Schmidt from the game in the first half due with an injury. The ground game totaled just 33 yards for the Cougars.
Of the 20 plays Southview ran in the first half, 10 of them were stuffed for no gain or loss of yardage. Ross held the Cougars to -23 yards at halftime.
“We were getting in the backfield a lot,” sophomore defensive lineman Dontrez Brown said. “Our secondary was doing real good covering the wide receivers. It felt like in the second half we didn’t do as (well). We felt like we needed to do better but we didn’t carry it out.”
Ross Garrett Schneider hits Southview quarterback Brayton Schmidt, forcing a fumble the Little Giants would recover. Photo by Tony Zimmerman
Despite the success of the defense, Ross never pulled away from the Cougars due to offensive struggles of its own. Ross totaled 216 yards of total offense but 149 of those yards came on two of the Little Giants’ scoring plays.
Junior quarterback Hayden Lehmann connected with senior Roger Burling on a post route for a 77-yard touchdown strike in the second quarter for a 6-0 lead.
In the fourth quarter, junior Noah Hotz took a reverse for 72 yards and a touchdown to ice the game, 20-0, with less than 10 minutes to play.
The rest of the night the offense struggled move the ball and went just 7-for-17 on third- and fourth-down conversions.
“Roger Burling made a great play and Noah Hotz made a great play on that reverse,” Long said. “We have to continue to improve week to week. I feel we had a setback this week with our performance.”
Leading 6-0, Ross’ got the break of the game when a Southview punt snap sailed high over Schmidt’s head. Pressured on his own goalline, Schmidt completed a desperate pass but the play resulted in a 27-yard loss and put the Little Giants on the Cougars’ 3-yard line. Two plays later, junior Ethan Chumley plunged into the end zone from one yard out for a 13-0 lead going into halftime.
Southview’s only touchdown came on a blown coverage play when Zech Miller took a pass from Nathan Taylor for 56 yards with less than five minutes to play.
“We need to do better. Even on defense,” said senior linebacker Ben Rozzell. “We should have shut this team out. This was not a good performance by us.”
Ross improves to 2-0 for the first time since 2013 while Southview’s losing streak reached its 16th game, dating back to October of 2015.
“We came out a little lackadaisical, overlooking them because of that happened last year (beating Southview 35-7) and coming in with a 15-game losing streak,” senior Devyn Jagodzinksi said. “I think we overlooked them and didn’t think it would be as close as it was. We came out flat, weren’t making plays like we should have been, like we did last week against Springfield.”
Ross hosts rival Sandusky next week at Don Paul Stadium. Sandusky (2-0) defeated Huron 35-13 Friday night.
“Defensively we’re playing great but next week we’re going to have the toughest test all year with having Sandusky and that speed and that quarterback,” Long said.
Scoring summary
1st quarter
No scoring
2nd quarter
FR – Roger Burling 77 pass from Hayden Lehmann (kick fail), 7:09
FR – Ethan Chumley 1 run (Mikey Contreras kick), 3:49
3rd quarter
No scoring
4th quarter
FR – Noah Hotz 72 run (Contreras kick), 9:03
SHS – Zach Miller 56 pass from Nathan Taylor (kick fail), 4:54
| Football box score | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Score by quarter | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Tot | ||
| Ross | 0 | 13 | 0 | 7 | 20 | |
| Southview | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 6 | |
| Ross | SHS | |||||
| Total yards | 216 | 51 | ||||
| Rush-yards | 23-74 | 17-33 | ||||
| Pass yards | 142 | 34 | ||||
| Comp.-Att-TD-INT | 11-24-1-0 | 6-12-1-2 | ||||
| Fumbles-lost | 1-Dec | 1-1 | ||||
| Penalties-yards | 7-55 | 5-50 | ||||
| Time of Pos. | 21:12 | 26:26 |