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NORWALK – The New London Wildcats had a plan, and it kept them in it about as long as it could in its Saturday night Firelands Conference game at Warren Whitney Field against the St. Paul Flyers. Faced with a St. Paul offense that was averaging 52.5 points per game, the Wildcats elected to chew off as much time as possible in a 34-6 loss to the Flyers. With the win, St. Paul remains unbeaten at 9-0 overall and 6-0 in the Firelands Conference to clinch a share of the school’s 16th conference championship while New London fell to 5-4 overall and 2-4 in the FC. “You don’t want to be a defeatist in running the clock, but you want to certainly make the game shorter against these guys,” New London coach Brent Besancon said of the game plan. “I would have loved to have run the football the entire time if I could of, but that’s just not our forte’. “We’ll try and take what we can get, move the chains and run the clock. Our boys played hard enough to only allow 34 points and that is only the second time all year that’s happened to these guys.” The goal was evident after the opening kickoff, as New London put together a 10-play drive that stalled at the St. Paul 40, but it took 6:45 off the clock and the first quarter was still a scoreless tie as both teams combined to run just 23 offensive plays. “New London had a good game plan in being able to run as much time off as they could in between plays,” St. Paul head coach John Livengood said. “They were able to convert some first downs and did a good job trying to keep our offense off the field.” St. Paul opened the scoring with a lengthy drive of its own, marching 95 yards in 13 plays that took 5:04 and was culminated on a 13-yard touchdown run by Matt Wilde and Eric Schwieterman’s extra point made it 7-0 with 8:42 left in the half. After a three-and-out by the New London offense, the Flyers then went back to the quick strike offense many are accustomed to seeing as Schwieterman found Wilde on a screen pass and the senior running back zipped right through the middle of the field for a 53-yard touchdown catch and the PAT made it 14-0 with 7:19 left in the half. New London answered with its lone score of the night as Dalton Hall opened the drive with a 27-yard run and on a third-and-10 at the St. Paul 28, quarterback Seth Howard threw a perfect pass that the area’s leading receiver Andrew Davis jumped up to catch while falling back into the end zone over a defender for the score with 5:09 left in the half. The run attempt for two points failed to make it 14-6, but just two plays later on the ensuing series Schwieterman made a pair of moves and found the right sideline for a 63-yard touchdown run but the try for two failed to make it 20-6 heading into halftime. In the third quarter, a pair of touchdowns by the Flyers closed out the scoring as Wilde had a one-yard touchdown run at the 9:32 mark of the quarter to cap a quick seven-play, 60-yard drive while Schwieterman again got loose in the New London defense for a 44-yard touchdown run at the 1:36 mark of the quarter to make it 34-6. “I thought we moved the ball well but we can’t turn the ball over like we did,” Livengood said of three Flyer turnovers. “Overall there were some good efforts, but it’s not so much I’m displeased with us but give credit where credit is due, New London did a good job keeping our offense off the field.” Besancon came away more than impressed with the Flyers after his team played them the closest of any of the previous five FC opponents had. “You come up here weekly to scout these guys, but you never know what to think until you get down here on the sidelines and see them up close,” he said. “And it’s still the same opinion I had of them before the game, which is it’s a very fundamental football team that is fast at all the positions. “We dropped a couple passes and had a few mishaps here or there, but overall we tackled better than a week ago and this is a team with some darn good running backs.” Schwieterman led the Flyers with 143 yards rushing and two scores on just four attempts while completing 12 of 18 passes for 191 yards passing. Jared Fries caught five passes for 49 yards while Daniel Tracht hauled in three for 28 yards. Matt Wilde added 89 yards on 13 attempts while Adam Pugh had 60 yards on 11 attempts. For New London, Hall ran for 74 yards on 15 attempts while Howard completed 4 of 9 passes for 55 yards. The Flyers held a 516-138 edge in total offense. St. Paul is at Monroeville (2-7) Friday while New London is at South Central (4-5). “We’re real excited about the conference title, it’s our first goal at the start of the season,” Livengood said. “But it’s Monroeville week now, and we need to play a lot better than we did tonight.” New London
0 6 0 0 - 6 Scoring STP – Matt Wilde 13 run,
(Eric Schwieterman kick) |
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