CHRIS LARICK
Star Beacon
October 11, 2008 04:06 am
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MADISON TOWNSHIP — Last year, Jordan Sandidge, then the starting Lakeside running back, suffered with his Dragon teammates when Madison beat them, 35-7.
Friday night, Sandidge looked across the line of scrimmage at his Lakeside opponents in Madison’s even more impressive, 55-22, victory.
The difference in circumstances wasn’t lost on Sandidge, who ran the ball for 156 yards on 22 carries and three touchdowns.
“It means a lot to me beating them, but I could have been with them,” Sandidge, a 5-foot-11, 190-pound senior, said. “I love all those guys.”
Sandidge emphasized that he didn’t transfer from Lakeside to Madison for his senior year out of bitterness or spite.
“I just felt like I needed a change. This year, I moved in with my father. It was a good move. Today proved it.”
Despite his performance, which followed a four-touchdown, 100-yard-plus night against Chardon last week, Sandidge didn’t think he had done all that much.
“It felt pretty good, but I didn’t do anything extraordinary,” he said. “I just did what I could and tried to help my teammates.”
In a sense, Sandidge had a point. Though he is the focal point of the Blue Streak running game, backup tailback Steven Isabella added 113 yards and a touchdown on just four carries and quarterback Mitch Krotz contributed 114 on 13 tries, though 47 of Krotz’s yards came on a fake punt good for a touchdown. Lakeside proved as vulnerable to Madison’s running game as it did to South’s aerial show last week, allowing more than 400 yards on the ground.
But one of Sandidge’s runs was exceptional. After finding huge holes for earlier scoring sprints of 26 and 19 yards, the senior tailback appeared to be bottled up at the Dragons’ 32 on the first play from scrimmage after the Blue Streaks recovered a Lakeside fumble at that point.
Somehow, he’s not sure quite how, Sandidge stepped out of the tackle, squirted through a tiny hole and turned on the burners. Lickety-split he was in the end zone, building the Madison lead to 41-7. It was his last carry of the night.
Sandidge also was part of a defensive backfield that held the Dragons without a completion, though he credits the line and linebackers with a huge contribution in that regard.
“Our front line gives us 100 percent ... 150 percent on every play,” he said. “Our front line is the key. I do a lot, but I can’t do too much. (Defense) is what we were focusing on this week. We knew they could pass the ball pretty well.”
Madison coach Tim Willis said Sandidge had more than defense to focus on, playing his old teammates.
“He transferred from Lakeside,” Willis said. “We knew they’d be coming after him. We told him, ‘Don’t focus on them, focus on what we’re going to do. Don’t get overexcited; just play the game.’”
On most of Sandidge’s carries, with the three touchdowns the obvious exception, the Dragons did a decent job of stopping him. But their concentration on him might have helped lead to Isabella’s 69-yard touchdown run on Madison’s very first play from scrimmage and on Krotz getting loose a few times.
For the most part, Lakeside showed good sportsmanship toward their old teammate, Willis said.
“Lakeside showed a lot of class toward him. They were helping him up.”
Sandidge may be happy that he’s now a Blue Streak, but Willis is also very happy to have him.
“He’s become our main workhorse,” the coach said. “The good thing is we’ve been taking care of the ball, no turnovers.”
In preparing for the game, the Madison coaching staff scrapped their previous blocking schemes, Willis said.
“They were not our normal blocking schemes,” he said. “We knew what they were going to do. They’ve got a lot of good players, but they play a lot of suicide defense. They bring a lot of guys to the line. If you break the first wave, sometimes you’re gone. Our offensive line played well. You have to give those guys credit.”
Madison’s defense played so well Lakeside had just one first down until late in the game. The Dragons scored on a long punt return by James Christian, after a fumble at the Madison 14 and on a 65-yard run by Christian with the Blue Streak substitutes in the game.
“I thought we swarmed real well,” Willis said. “Numbers 1 (Christian) and 13 (Derell McCaleb), we shut out with the regular defense in. No big plays. We controlled them from doing anything.
“Coach (Mike) Gilligan does a great job. We knew what they were going to run when they ran it. It was true to form. I’m proud of our guys, shutting out Christian and McCaleb.”
Willis and the Blue Streaks want to close strong against North (at Madison’s homecoming Thursday night) and Riverside.
Victories in those games would go a long way to atone for the Blue Streaks’ 28-17 loss to South two weeks ago after holding a 17-0 half-time lead.
Larick is a freelance writer from Geneva.
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CHRIS LARICK Star Beacon