Tallmadge junior Brenden Conley celebrates on the field after the Blue Devils defeated Kent Roosevelt.
Paisley Nader/Portage Sports

By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

There were a variety of game-winning plays made by Angelo Gotto on Friday night.

The ones that stood out the most were the ones that totaled out to 156 yards rushing and a touchdown, along with 36 yards receiving and another touchdown.

Angelo Gotto bursts through the line of scrimmage during Friday’s first half.
Paisley Nader/Portage Sports

However, a play that maybe got lost in the shuffle and one that actually led to him losing yardage, may have been his biggest play of the entire night.

With the Blue Devils trailing 21-17 and driving late in the third quarter deep in Kent Roosevelt’s territory, a bad snap on a second-down play left the ball suddenly on the ground just behind the offensive line.

Gotto may not have reacted to anything quicker on Friday than he did to jolt from his tailback position to fall on the ground and secure the fumble recovery.

It saved the third quarter from ending the way it started when a similar botched snap was picked up by Rough Riders defensive lineman Oliver Walter and returned 53 yards for a touchdown on the first play of the second half.

No, this time, the Blue Devils were safe.

“You know, thinking back to Angelo falling on that fumble, that was huge,” Tallmadge head coach Mike Hay said. “It just shows his situational awareness. He saw the ball and just selflessly threw himself on top of it. We needed it, and he made a play.”

Twenty seven seconds into the fourth quarter, the rescued possession turned into the go-ahead touchdown when Tallmadge sophomore quarterback Chase Waller delivered a 12-yard pass to Gotto.

Waller had been pushed out of the pocket to his left before delivering a quick dart-like toss to Gotto, who quickly bubbled out into space along the left side and across the goal line to give the Devils their first lead of the game, 24-21, at 11:33 in the fourth quarter.

Sophomore quarterback Chase Waller rolls out to look for an open receiver.
Paisley Nader/Portage Sports

On its succeeding possession, Roosevelt tried to find a spark in an offense that had some game-breaking moments in the first half, but had found more struggles than success.

A couple of first downs through the air, on connections from quarterback Kingston Bryant and receivers Tyler Ellington and Chace Dennison, respectively, got the Riders moving with positive momentum.

However, the Riders suddenly faced a fourth-and-10 on their own 46 with 2:43 to play.

On the play, Tallmadge junior safety Syd Schiavone closed in on a route in the center of the field by a Roosevelt receiver and broke up the pass with his right hand on a perfectly timed effort.

A little more than a minute later, at 1:41, Brenden Conley scored the insurance touchdown for the Devils on a jet-sweep run of 17 yards to lift his team’s lead to 31-21.

Despite dominating time of possession in the game, running 60 plays to only 25 for Roosevelt, and holding the Rough Riders without a first down for 28 game minutes, the Devils only held the lead in the game for 11-and-a-half minutes.

It is the kind of perseverance that Hay said fit perfectly into the pregame message that was delivered to the team.

“Our ‘Pregame Chapel’ them was perseverance, and we talked about it again during our postgame, so it is pretty fitting that we had to work through things tonight to get to the win,” Hay said. “The great thing, though, was that nobody ever panicked, even when things were not going our way, we stayed focused and never changed our demeanor or body language.”

Kent Roosevelt’s Tyler Ellington pulls in a pass that he turned into a 90-yard touchdown in the first quarter.
Paisley Nader/Portage Sports

The unfavorable plays Hay was referencing all led to scores for the Rough Riders (2-2, 0-1 MAC).

The first two were offensive explosions in the first half.

Ellington opened the scoring on the night, turning a play that very nearly looked like it could be a safety in the end zone into a 90-yard touchdown. On the play, Bryant was chased out of the pocket to his right, running across the goal line as he released a pass while in the grasp of a Devils defender. The throw went into an area where two Roosevelt receivers overlapped, but it was Ellington who plucked the ball out of the air on the right hash, then worked his way all the way across to the other side of the field, juking, then sprinting up the left sideline before breaking a pair of tackles and angling back to the middle of the field before turning up and easily scoring to give Roosevelt a 7-0 lead at 6:14 following Isan Roberts’ point-after kick.

Tallmadge answered back, tying the score at 7-7 on a 15-yard pass from Waller to Caden Almond.

Roosevelt’s next big play came on a 53-yard touchdown run by Makhi Jones on a run over the left tackle that he pushed to the sideline before tip-toeing to stay in bounds, then emerged from a crowd to race into the end zone for a 14-7 Roosevelt lead. It was the last first down the Rough Riders’ offense would get until 5:41 in the fourth quarter — a span of 28 game minutes.

Tallmadge cut the lead to 14-10, with 43.6 seconds on the clock before halftime, on a 30-yard field goal by Ben Bucur that very easily had the necessary distance.

The Blue Devils (3-1, 2-0 MAC) opened with possession to start the third quarter, but disaster struck on the very first play from scrimmage. A bad snap was scooped up by Roosevelt defensive lineman Oliver Walter, who appeared to be one of the only players not confused. He scooped up the ball before anyone realized what happened, pulled out of one arm tackle and ran 43 yards for the score. It was one of two fumble recoveries for Walter, who also had a sack and was disruptive all night in a strong performance.

Makhi Jones races toward the end zone for a 59-yard touchdown run in the second quarter.
Paisley Nader/Portage Sports

Walter’s score pushed Roosevelt ahead 21-10, but it was the last time the Riders scored.

Tallmadge cut its deficit to 21-17 less than 3 minutes later on a 28-yard run by Gotto, which set the stage for the Devils to complete the comeback in the fourth quarter.

“We knew we needed to stay patient and stick with it,” Hay said.

In addition to Gotto’s 156 yards rushing, the Devils also got important runs throughout the game from Grady Jolliff, who finished with 52 yards on the ground.

In the air, Waller completed 13-of-21 passes for 123 yards, and he connected with eight different receivers.

For Roosevelt Jones ran for 59 yards, while Ellington finished with 108 yards. The duo’s gamebreaking touchdown plays accounted for 64 percent of the team’s total offense for the game.