Preble Shawnee’s Nolan Earles intercepts a National Trail pass during the first quarter of the Arrows 39-6 win on Friday, Sept. 6.
Eddie Mowen Jr. | The Register-Herald
CAMDEN — After somewhat of a slow start, Preble Shawnee gradually pulled away from visiting National Trail for a 39-6 win in a Western Ohio Athletic Conference football game on Friday, Sept. 6 to remain unbeaten on the season.
The Arrows defense set the tone early with an interception on Trail’s second possession and dominated the remainder of the game, limiting the Blazers to just five first downs and 157 total yards, 86 of which came on Trail’s final two drives of the game.
While Shawnee’s defense was making things difficult for the Blazers, the Arrows offense scored 19 second quarter points to build a 25-0 halftime lead.
Quarterback Brody Morton completed 14-of-19 passes for 251 yards and two touchdowns. He also rushed for another score.
Lane Lovely had nine carries for 82 yards and a touchdown.
Isaac Blankenship had six receptions for 82 yards. He also scored two rushing touchdowns.
Reece Smith caught four passes for 125 yards and two touchdowns and Caleb Blankenship had four catches for 57 yards.
“Teams seem to struggle with the athletes that we’ve got on the edges, and that’s a lot to try to defend,” Shawnee coach Dave Maddox said. “A little slow start but once we got moving, though, it seemed like we picked up a little more steam each time we got the ball.”
As good as the offense was, Maddox said the defense set the tone.
“All phases of game I feel like right now, defense, offense, special teams, is playing real well,” Maddox said. “Defensively, our guys up front are doing a great job, and we’ve got those same athletes in the secondary. That’s hard because they can cover a lot of ground. Brody Lynch is just playing unbelievable. He’s hard block. He’s all over the place, but the defense really is playing good as a unit. Brody’s a standout, but everybody’s doing their job and doing it very well.”
After the two teams traded punts on their opening possession, Shawnee’s Nolan Earles picked off a Trail pass and returned it to the Blazers 15-yard line.
Isaac Blankenship put the Arrows ahead with a 5-yard TD run for a 6-0 lead.
Smith made it a 12-0 game when he caught a 35-yard TD pass from Morton with just over 7 minutes left in the second quarter.
On the Arrows next possession, Lovely raced 46-yards for a TD and an 18-0 lead. Isaac Blankenship capped off the first half scoring with a 4-yard TD with 51.5 second left.
Shawnee put the game out of reach scoring on its first two possessions of the third quarter for a 39-0 lead.
Morton scored on a 3-yard run and Smith caught a 74-TD pass from Morton.
For Trail, first year coach Erik Wolfe was looking for a better outcome.
“It wasn’t what we expected, obviously,” he said. “We came out and got punched in the mouth. We traded punches for a little bit there. But ultimately, they won the physical battle. We got to just tackle better. We’ve got to communicate better and just hit the drawing board again next week and get better at blocking and tackling. That’s the name of the game.”
Wolfe said a bright spot is the fact his team fought until the very end.
“They fought, and that’s something we can say about them. They didn’t give in. They didn’t hang their heads,” he said. “It was just, let’s fight till the clock’s up. That’s biggest thing I tried to push through them all summer, is play four quarters. So, we could take a positive from that.”
Gavin Vance caught a 36-yard TD pass from Cooper Smith on the final play of the game.
Shawnee (3-0, 2-0 WOAC) is scheduled to play at Twin Valley South on Thursday, Sept. 12.
Trail (1-2, 1-1 WOAC) will host Bradford on Friday, Sept. 13.
Reach Eddie Mowen Jr. at 937-683-4061 and follow on X @emowenjr.
