By Gary R. Rasberry
grasberry@dailystandard.com OTTAWA -- After getting a much-needed win in the last second last week, Celina was looking to build onto that positive when the buses pulled into Ottawa on Friday night.
It appeared the buses made it to Putnam County, but the gameplan did not.
Ottawa-Glandorf dominated all aspects of the game, handing Celina a 37-0 loss at Titan Stadium on Friday. The win puts the Titans at 4-3 on the season and 4-2 in the Western Buckeye League. The Bulldogs fall to 2-5 and 1-5 in the WBL.
The Titans made a point of getting off to a good start in taking the kickoff to start the game. Just when it appeared that things would stall out for the Titans on fourth-and-four from their 49, coach Ken Schriner pulled out a trick. In punt formation, the snap went to Matt Quinn, who took the corner and ran for 26 yards to set up the first down from the Celina 25. O-G got to the five but an illegal block put the ball at the 18. It was a minor stall as Justin Conn got the ball on the pitch and ran it in on the next play to start the scoring.
Meanwhile, things were not going as well for Celina. The Bulldogs had seven plays on its first drive, but a holding call and a sack helped put Celina at a third-and-24 deficit that saw Erik Chapin get sacked for a nine-yard loss. After O-G punted the ball back, Celina promptly lost the ball when Chapin tried to throw. Eric Lammers made the interception and ran back 21 yards for the second score of the game.
Another stalled drive gave the Titans the ball back, where it took just two plays to cover 70 yards, 65 coming on a Quinn run to make it 21-0 with 7:09 left in the second quarter. Chapin was picked off on the first Bulldog play on the next drive, allowing O-G to go up 28-0 at the break when Lammers caught a Jay Laubenthal pass from 15 yards for a score.
"We did not come to play tonight," said Celina coach Mike Fell. "Ottawa beat us in every phase of the ballgame: off the ball, the turnover game, they played harder. It was a bad ballgame for us."
"We knew we had to control the line of scrimmage, number one," said Schriner. "We had to be physical. We knew we could run the fake punt if we were presented with the right opportunity. I didn't think it would be right off the bat."
The O-G offense totaled up 354 yards of offense on the game, with 282 coming on the ground. Lammers, the team's leading rusher, was held to 64 yards thanks to some early pressure from Celina, but Quinn and Conn made up for the yards. Quinn had 115 yards on just five carries and Conn finished with 56 yards on 10 carries.
The Titans defense harassed the Bulldogs all evening. Chapin, coming off one of his best games of the season last week, rushed for 40 yards but had four negative runs on the evening. Passing was even more hectic as Chapin was 4-of-10 for 29 yards and three interceptions. Chapin also had a lost fumble on the night.
"It was a matter of our defense playing sound," said Schriner. "We knew we had to identify all phases of the option. We talked about that early in the week."
Celina now stays on the road for week eight, traveling further north to play Defiance. Fell thinks that his team can snap out of what happened on Friday and play better next week.
"We'll bounce back," said Fell. "We've played our very best games after we've been embarrassed. This is the third time we've been embarrassed this year, so I'm expecting them to come back real hard and ready to go (this morning)."
Ottawa-Glandorf travels to Shawnee for its next game. |
