By Phil Keren

Correspondent

It’s one of the oldest adages in football: Controlling the line of scrimmage is the key to winning.

After his team lost to Norton 23-13 Friday, Streetsboro head coach Pete Thompson said the Panthers were victorious because they won the battle in the trenches in the second half.

“They beat us physically from the line of scrimmage,” Thompson said. “They won the line of scrimmage in the second half. I don’t know if we had a first down in the second half. Their front seven controlled that line against our offense.”

Reflecting on the game, Thompson said he felt Norton outworked his team in the second half.

“I thought they kind of played harder than we did here in the second half,” he said “That’s disappointing, but we have to try to understand why that happened. As coaches that’s part of our job is to get into the whys of that.”

The early stages of the game looked good for the Rockets, with both the defense and offense making big plays. On its first drive, Norton mixed running and passing plays to march 57 yards in eight plays to the Streetsboro 5-yard line. Facing second down and goal, Norton junior quarterback Trey Kersten rolled out to his right and threw a pass that was picked off in the end zone by Streetsboro sophomore defensive back Dallas Morris.

Four plays later, Rockets junior running back Marcus Council started a run in the middle of the field, bounced to the outside, broke a tackle and sped down the sideline for a 70-yard touchdown. That breakaway run gave Streetsboro their only lead of the game, 7-0, at the 4:44 mark of the first quarter.

A short time later, Norton answered when Kersten connected with senior wide receiver Buddy Willig on a 9-yard touchdown pass to tie the game early in the second period. The touchdown capped a 9-play, 68-yard drive that was anchored by Kersten’s draws and scrambles. He tallied 31 rushing yards on five attempts on that drive alone.

Streetsboro had two opportunities in the first half to take the lead but came up short both times.

On the Rockets’ next possession, senior running back Janiere Cook picked up 36 yards on a jet sweep to the short side of the field. That big play moved the ball to the Norton 22-yard line, but the drive stalled at the 9-yard line and the Rockets missed a 26-yard field goal attempt at 5:40 of the second quarter.

Streetsboro again moved into scoring position just before halftime thanks to its third chunk play of the first half. This time, senior running back Manny Gibson took a handoff on a reverse, then sprinted around left end and down the sideline for a 53-yard gain to the Norton 18-yard line. A 35-yard field goal attempt was blocked on the final play of the first half.

“It was a tied football game at halftime,” Thompson said. “I thought we kind of outplayed them (in the first half),” Thompson said. “We had opportunities to have a lead at halftime and (we had) the personal fouls, two missed field goals.”

In the second half, Norton seemed to embody the concept of complementary football as the offense, defense and special teams all made big plays to propel the Panthers to a decisive victory.

At the midway point of the third quarter, Norton senior Jack Terzic blocked a Streetsboro punt.

Panther and Rocket players scrambled for the loose ball that was knocked out of the back of the end zone for a safety. Norton had its first lead of the game, 9-7.

That special teams’ score gave the Panthers a newfound momentum that they channeled into an 8-play, 81-yard touchdown drive to take a 16-7 lead with four minutes to go in the third quarter. Senior Marcus Brown scored on a 8-yard scamper through the middle of the Streetsboro defense. Key plays on the drive were a 17-yard pass from Kersten to junior Alex Meinen and a 24-yard run by junior Jason Beverly on a sweep play.

It was then the Norton defense’s turn to make its mark on the game. On fourth down and 4 from the Streetsboro 35-yard line, Rockets quarterback Colton Cox tried to scramble for a first down, but was brought down for a one-yard loss by Norton sophomore linebacker Deban Johnson.

Seven plays later, Beverly hit paydirt from four yards out on the first play of the fourth quarter to give his team a 23-7 lead.

In the second half, Norton’s running backs broke tackles multiple times and even reversed field on a few occasions to pick up chunks of yards. Thompson was impressed with the running backs’ fortitude and praised the work of Norton’s strength and conditioning staff.

“The work that they did in the off-season paid tremendous dividends for them tonight in breaking some of those tackles,” Thompson said. “A lot of third and 4s became first downs in the second half and they just kind of wore us out… “Our pursuit angles were not very good on a couple of those (runs). Disappointing, but we’ll dig into the film and certainly there’s a lot to learn from this game.”

With both the offense and the defense struggling, the Rockets’ special teams provided a spark.

After nearly blocking a punt in the first half, the Rockets got one in the second half: Streetsboro junior Noah Hodge burst through the middle of the Norton protection and knocked down the ball, which was scooped up and run into the end zone by Cook.

“We worked on that block,” Thompson said, “It was something we put in specially for this week. We almost got (a block) in the first half … (it was a) big moment, we had a sophomore kid block it, Noah Hodge. (He’s a) heck of a sprinter for our track team…Janiere (Cook) had the scoop and score. A little momentum for us there and then (Norton) got the penalties on the onside kick. They were backed up but they were able to kill clock and drive the ball.”

Streetsboro also had some costly penalties that Thompson said that his teams need to avoid going forward.

“We continue to make some errors that at this point in the season, we probably shouldn’t,” he said. “We were sloppy, obviously penalties in the first half. There were some senior leaders there that got some of those penalties. That has been something that has been going on all year and just puts us at a disadvantage.”