Football: Freshman Chargers can’t keep up with Oilers in loss

by Cory Butzin

The Mount Pleasant freshman football team proved to be as slippery as its mascot, giving Midland Dow defenders fits, and racking up over 300 total yards and five rushing touchdowns along with three through the air in a 48-0 win Wednesday over the Chargers at H.H. Dow High.

“I think we’ve got a team that is still inexperienced,” said Dow coach Jason Watkins. “But give a lot of credit to Mount Pleasant. They’ve got a great football team. They executed and did what they needed to do.”

The Oilers opened up the scoring midway through the first. After Colton Odykirk picked off a Andrew Kaczmarek pass, Mount Pleasant signal caller Ryan Elliott found Zac Kramer on a shallow drag route and Kramer was able to sprint past the Dow defense 55 yards for a touchdown. Nich Partie’s extra point made it 7-0.

“When they got in the open field we had a real hard time,” Watkins said. “How much of that is speed, and how much is a poor angle of pursuit or the first guy holding on so the cavalry can arrive.”

Four minutes later it appeared that the Oilers were going to add to their lead when Dustin Lee plunged in for a 10-yard touchdown, but a holding penalty negated the score. The Chargers weren’t able to take advantage of the flag; however, as Lee took it in two plays later for a seven yard plunge. Dow defenders were able to break through the line on the PAT and get a hand on the kick to hold the deficit to 13-0.

The Chargers seemed to gain a little momentum offensively in the second, when they converted a fake punt and marched down into Mount Pleasant territory. But they could not make a dent on the scoreboard and were forced to punt.

“Their defense was timely,” Watkins continued. “When they needed to get in [and disrupt our offense], they got in.”

The Oilers took advantage of Dow’s misfortune and at 7:10 of the second Elliott found Lee deep behind the secondary and completed a 46-yard strike for the score making it 20-0, following the PAT.

Less than five minutes later, Elliott found Dylan Tree for a 6 yard score to increase their already insurmountable lead with 2:22 remaining in the first half.

The second half began much the same as the first; with Lee following the hog mollies up front and breaking through the Charger defense to sprint 25 yards for a score to make it 34-0.

Watkins readily admitted that the size and execution of the Mount Pleasant offensive line was a huge blow to the defensive effort of the Chargers’ front seven.

A running clock saw the second half come swiftly to a close, but not before Jordan Wilson added scores on the ground for the Oilers from five and one yard, respectively.

“We’re going to keep beating the same drum,” Watkins said. “We focus on effort, on execution, and on enthusiasm. Those are our three E’s. We’ve got to make sure that all of those things continue to take a step forward. I challenged the kids [in the post-game meeting] to have a better day tomorrow than we had today.”

With the loss, Dow drops to 0-2 on the season. They will look to mark a notch in the win column Wednesday, September 17 when the Chargers travel to Heritage to take on the Hawks. Game time is scheduled for 6 p.m.