PICKERINGTON CENTRAL 34 REYNOLDSBURG 0
No fooling Tigers
Central stops fake punt, turns tide in blowout
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Steve Blackledge
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
</IMG> KYLE ROBERTSON DISPATCH Pickerington Central’s J.D. Cecil tackles Reynoldsburg’s Rusty Edwards in the first quarter.
For the first seven possessions of their fierce rivalry, Pickerington Central and Reynoldsburg engaged in a friendly game of pingpong, repeatedly limiting each other to three plays and a punt.
It sure seemed like the game was headed to a defensive struggle. Then the host Raiders tried to get fancy and the ploy backfired.
Seizing the momentum following a foiled fake punt attempt, Pickerington Central scored twice on big plays and steamrolled Reynoldsburg 34-0 in a nonleague game marred by miscues, penalties and a potentially serious injury to Tigers quarterback Chazz Anderson.
Anderson, a University of Cincinnati recruit, was taken from the field on a stretcher following a helmet-to-helmet hit late in the third quarter. A brace was applied to Anderson’s neck and he was transported to Children’s Hospital.
"Chazz was moving his head and arms, but the paramedics wanted to make sure there wasn’t any serious damage, so they took him to the hospital," Pickerington Central coach Jay Sharrett said. "Hopefully, it’s just a precautionary thing. Chazz is the leader of this team, no doubt, and to see him laying on the field like that took the air right out of us."
The Tigers were already comfortably in command, 24-0, courtesy of a staunch defense, excellent running by tailback Jordan Jarrell and timely passes by Anderson.
But back to the turning point.
Facing fourth-and-3 at its 41-yard line, Reynoldsburg tried a quick snap to up back Austin Wallace, but the run was snuffed out.
"We definitely thought something was fishy there and we brought two linebackers up," Sharrett said. "That was certainly a turning point. We started off real sluggish, but this is the kind of team that can get touchdowns in bunches, and that’s exactly what happened."
It took two plays for Jarrell to put Pickerington Central on the board. He made a cutback move and raced 34 yards for a touchdown just 25 seconds into the second quarter. Jarrell finished with 163 yards on 19 carries and scored twice.
"That fake punt was definitely the big momentum changer," Jarrell said. "All we needed was a little opening to break things open."
On the first play of Pickerington’s next series, Anderson hit Tim Robinson on a rollout pass for a 40-yard touchdown.
Reynoldsburg responded with its best drive of the night, but two Pickerington Central defenders clobbered quarterback Ben Kershaw, and Jordan Thomas recovered the fumble.
"We played solid defense the whole game," Tigers safety Brian Peters said. "We had a good scouting report on these guys and we knew what they liked to do. Once we got ahead, we really had them where we wanted them."
Nine plays and 67 yards later, Anderson scored on a 1-yard sneak, making it 21-0. In the second half, Jarrell scored a second TD and Peters kicked two field goals as Pickerington Central rolled to its fifth straight victory and seventh in eight games against Reynoldsburg. It marked the Tigers’ first shutout of the Raiders since 1992.
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