Watkins accounts for 5 TDs in Galion drilling of Keystone

By JON KLEINKNECHT

Inquirer Sports Editor

sports@galioninquirer.com

Galion erupted for 32 points in the first 16 min­utes and never looked back in a 46–28 man­han­dling of Key­stone Fri­day night at Unck­rich Stadium.

In win­ning, the Tigers improve their record to 2–1. The Wild­cats drop to 1–2.

The Orange-and-Blue lim­ited the vis­i­tors to no first down and just 9 yards of total offense in the first quar­ter. Mean­while, the Tigers were scor­ing 20 points via a 1-yard touch­down plunge from David Nay, a 56-yard scor­ing scam­per by Anto­nio Bur­ket, a 28-yards Dareian Watkins-to-Austin Prosser TD pass, and a pair of Con­nor Kempf extra point kicks.

In the early stages of the sec­ond period, the Tigers found the end­zone two more times in a span of two min­utes. Watkins — who accounted for 5 touch­downs on the night — broke loose on a 28-yard quar­ter­back keeper for six points. Moments later, he returned a punt 52 yards to pay­dirt. Extra point tries after both scores were no good.

The Wild­cats scored their first points on a 15-yard Mar­cus Gunter-to-C.J. Con­rad TD throw. The duo fol­lowed by pair­ing up on a 2-point con­ver­sion throw, mak­ing the score 32–8 with 3:45 to play in the first half.

Three min­utes later, Watkins reached the end­zone on a 19-yard keeper and Kempf tacked on a PAT putting the mar­gin at 39–8. That ended up being the score at halftime.

In the sec­ond half, Watkins split out as a wide receiver and Prosser assumed the quar­ter­back­ing duties. The pair worked together in the third stanza on a 53-yard six-point bomb in which Watkins blew past the Key­stone sec­ondary on a fly pat­tern. Kempf tacked on another con­ver­sion kick, mak­ing it 46–8.

Key­stone left its starters in the remain­der of the game, and the Tigers played its reserves in the fourth quar­ter. In the final frame, the Wild­cats had a 20-yard TD run by Bran­don But­tolph, a 53-yard fum­ble recov­ery returned for six points by Mike Paris, and a 2-yard pay­dirt plunge cour­tesy of Greg Howard in the final minute. Two of three extra point kicks were good.

“It’s a win, but we have to play bet­ter than that,” said Galion head coach Chris Hawkins. “We did some very good things in the first half, but for the third week in a row we didn’t score on our first drive in the sec­ond half. We lost focus, and we can’t do that.”

He con­tin­ued, “The good thing is we’re 2–1. But we have some work to do. We took a step for­ward in inten­sity, but a step back in discipline.”

The Tigers com­mit­ted 12 penal­ties, cost­ing them 119 yards.

Team sta­tis­tics showed the win­ners with 225 yards rush­ing on 36 car­ries and 131 mark­ers via 6 com­ple­tions in 12 throws.

Key­stone had 111 yards on the ground in 25 attempts and quar­ter­back Mar­cus Gunter com­pleted 20-of-36 passes for 192 stripes.

Indi­vid­u­ally for the Tigers, Nay ran for 89 yards on 10 car­ries and caught 2 passes for 20 markers.

Watkins rushed for 60 yards and 2 TDs on 8 car­ries, com­pleted 2-of-7 passes for 43 stripes and a score, and caught 2 Prosser throws for 76 mark­ers and a six-pointer. He also returned 2 punts for 68 yards and a TD, giv­ing him 247 total yards.

Round­ing out Galion’s offense were: Prosser com­plet­ing 4-of-5 passes for 88 yards, 1 recep­tion for 28, and minus-27 yards rush­ing on 7 car­ries; Bur­ket, 64 yards rush­ing via 2 car­ries and a pass recep­tion for 7 stripes; Arby Thomp­son, 4 car­ries for 39 yards; Mikey Hol­lis, 6 yards rush­ing on 2 attempts; and Josh Keller, 5 mark­ers on 3 rushes.

Howard led the vis­i­tors in rush­ing, grind­ing out 91 yards on 11 totes of the pigskin. Con­rad was their top receiver with 6 catches for 83 stripes.

TIGER BITES: Fresh­man line­backer Drake Bar­nett had a pair of tack­les for losses. … Nay is just 13 points and 106 yards rush­ing away from becom­ing the GHS career leader in both cat­e­gories. … The Orange-and-Blue begin North Cen­tral Con­fer­ence play next week at Upper Sandusky.

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Sep 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.