Nay, Prosser, defense star in brutalization of Redmen

By JON KLEINKNECHT

Inquirer Sports Editor

sports@galioninquirer.com

The Galion Tiger were hit­ting on all cylin­ders Fri­day night as they bashed the Bucyrus Red­men 41–14 in a North Cen­tral Con­fer­ence foot­ball game at Unck­rich Stadium.

Senior backs David Nay and Austin Prosser starred offen­sively, and the defense pitched a shutout for 3 1/2 quar­ters and the Orange-and-Blue upped their record to 4–1 over­all and 2–0 in the NCC. Bucyrus is 2–3 and 0–2.

Nay racked up 300 all-purpose yards and 4 touch­downs while Prosser — mak­ing his first var­sity start at quar­ter­back — rushed for 142 yards and 2 touch­downs and com­pleted 9-of-15 passes for 121 stripes and a 31-yard six-pointer to Nay.

“He col­lected him­self and didn’t let that bother him,” GHS head coach Chris Haw-kins said of Prosser, who lost a fum­ble that rolled through the end­zone giv­ing the ball to the Red­men on Galion’s first pos­ses­sion of the game. “I’m very pleased with what he did tonight.”

Nay was Mr. Do-it-all when the Tigers had the ball. He rushed for 199 yards and 3 TDs on 28 car­ries, caught 4 passes for 89 yards and a six-pointer, and returned a kick­off for 12 yards.

“That looked like the David Nay of 2011,” said Hawkins. “He ran with power when he had to, but he can also juke and jive.”

Defen­sively, the Orange-and-Blue defense lim­ited the Red-men to 202 total yards on 46 plays — 138 rush­ing via 38 car­ries and 7-of-13 pass­ing for 64. Bucyrus net­ted 89 of those yards on its final two pos­ses­sions of the game. That’s also when the vis­i­tors scored their only points with a pair of short touch­down runs and two extra point kicks.

The game was stopped with 3:50 remain­ing because of light­ning. The Tigers had the 27-point lead and the ball at Bucyrus’ 39 when the offi­cials halted play.

Hawkins was less than happy that his squad gave up the 14 points toward the end.

“The dif­fer­ence was a lack of effort and inten­sity,” he stated. “We go hard until there is triple zeroes on the score­board. If a les­son has been learned, it was worth los­ing the shutout.”

A 9-yard touch­down run by Nay and a Con­nor Kempf extra point kick late in the first quar­ter put the locals up 7–0. They piled on 21 points in the sec­ond period via a 9-yard TD on a keeper by Prosser, a 45-yard pay­dirt jaunt by Nay, and a 31-yard Prosser-to-Nay aer­ial strike with just 15 sec­onds to go in the first half. Prosser added a two-point con­ver­sion run, and Kempf a PAT kick.

Prosser ran for a 5-yard six-pointer in the third quar­ter, and Nay had an 8-yard TD burst in the final frame. Kempf tacked on another PAT fol­low­ing Nay’s score.

The Tigers net­ted 363 yards rush­ing on 46 car­ries, and Prosser added the 121 pass­ing for a total of 484 stripes in offense — 331 in the first half.

Prosser car­ried the ball 14 times, Anto­nio Bur­ket added 17 yards rush­ing on 3 attempts, and Josh Keller had a run for 4 markers.

Terry Hens­ley snagged 2 passes for 24 yards, Austin Chap­lin, 1 for 8; while Nick Flow­ers and Mikey Hol­lis each caught a ball for zero stripes.

Galion lim­ited Bucyrus’ star Micheal Pur­cell to just 33 yards rush­ing on 6 car­ries and 3 recep­tions for 14 stripes. He caught 35 passes for 420 yards in the Redmen’s first 4 games.

TIGER BITES: Nay passed Ben Neu­mann as the GHS career scor­ing leader. … Fresh­man Drake Bar­nett and Chap­lin each picked off a pass. … Prosser had a 94-yard TD run wiped out in the first half because of an ille­gal block. He was cred­ited with 67 yards on the play. … This is the fourth con­sec­u­tive year the Tig-ers have beaten the Red­men. The series started in 1898, and the Orange-and-Blue have a 58–47-7 record in it. … Galion played with­out junior star Dareian Watkins, who had knee surgery on Mon­day and will miss at least one more game.

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Sep 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.