DARRELL HASKINS
Star Beacon
October 11, 2008 03:55 am
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PAINESVILLE TOWNSHIP — The Riverside Beavers hosted the Hilltoppers from Chardon and came away with an important 45-7 non-conference victory.
Both teams offenses struggled at the start, but Riverside got rolling first after a coffin-corner punt by Chardon’s Sam Marcotte had them pinned deep in their own territory.
Riverside quarterback Kyle Shaffer found a streaking Robert Raines down the sideline for a 95-yard touchdown pass. The Hilltoppers brought the kickoff out to the 28-yard line and on the first play from scrimmage, fumbled. The Beavers’ Taylor Johnson scooped it up and raced 28 yards to paydirt, Riverside’s second score in a 12-second span.
“We can’t keep making mistakes like that and give good teams a 14-point lead,” Chardon coach Jim DiPofi said. “That’s tough to come back from. It’s not like we don’t practice ballhandling every day in practice, we do but we’re young and when we make mistakes like that, we just are not a very good football team. Add to that our troubles in the red zone and you get a final score like tonight.”
Riverside (5-3, 2-1) then turned to senior running back Josh Denner in the second quarter two more more scores — a 5-yard run followed by a 46-yard screen pass from Shaffer. Shaffer also hit tight end Ryan Teknipp on a 50 yard scoring pass off of a flea-flicker.
The Beavers led, 35-0, at the half.
“Chardon showed us some things that were not part of their tendencies, but we made some adjustments and our d-line played a great game,” Riverside coach Ryan Wolf said. “It was also nice to see us use the run to set up our passing game.”
Riverside then came out in the third period and got 10 more points — a 20-yard field goal by Garrett Biese and another touchdown run from Denner.
The lone score for the Hilltoppers (3-5, 1-2) came in the third on a 9-yard scamper by quarterback Kevin Taylor.
“The mistakes and fumbles are just not typical of what we do.” DiPofi said.
Haskins is a freelance writer from Willoughby.
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