CHAMPIONS!!! Tigers top Wynford 15-7; secure at least share of NCC crown

By JON KLEINKNECHT

Inquirer Sports Editor

sports@galioninquirer.com

The thor­ough­breds proved to be cham­pion mudders.

In a game that was played under a steady rain­fall, the Galion Tigers defeated the Wyn­ford Roy­als 15–7 at Unck­rich Sta­dium last night, secur­ing at least a share of the North Cen­tral Con­fer­ence cham­pi­onship in the process.

With the win, the Orange-and-Blue are vic­to­ri­ous for the eighth week in a row, upping their over­all record to 8–1 but, more impor­tantly, their NCC mark to a per­fect 6–0 with one week to go.

The Roy­als — who entered the sea­son hav­ing gar­nered seven con­sec­u­tive NCC titles — won’t make it eight as they go into week 10 with a 4–2 con­fer­ence mark. They are 7–2 overall.

Sixth-year Galion head coach Chris Hawkins won his sec­ond league cham­pi­onship in Tiger­town. The 2009 Orange-and-Blue were out­right North­ern Ohio League champs. This is the sec­ond year the Tigers are com­pet­ing in the NCC.

In 17 years of coach­ing, Hawkins-led teams have won 5 league cham­pi­onships — three in the NCC and two in the NOL. He had coach­ing stops at Wyn­ford and Willard before tak­ing over the Galion program.

“We are a thor­ough­bred team,” said Hawkins after last night’s tri­umph. “We are based on speed. The weather hurt our offense. Our defense was fast, though, and that was the key to the game.”

A year ago, Wyn­ford defeated Galion 22–20 in the ninth game of the sea­son out­side of Bucyrus. That loss kept the Tigers from not only claim­ing at least a share of the NCC crown, it also effec­tively kept them out of the playoffs.

It’s been a long year for Hawkins, his coaches, the play­ers and any­body in Tiger­town who is a fan of the Orange-and-Blue.

“We’ve waited for 365 days,” Hawkins matter-of-factly said. “That was the most gut-wrenching loss I’ve expe­ri­enced in all the years I’ve done this,” the long-time men­tor added in ref­er­ence to last year’s defeat at the hands of the Royals.

Last night … dif­fer­ent story.

The Tigers never trailed the Roy­als. They began the game with a touch­down drive for the ages. Get­ting the ball on their own 31-yard line after the open­ing kick­off, the Orange-and-Blue launched a 15-play, 69-yard series that took 9:10 off the clock and cul­mi­nate with a 1-yard quar­ter­back sneak by Dareian Watkins. A Con­nor Kempf extra kick fol­lowed, mak­ing it 7–0.

Early in the sec­ond period, the Roy­als cap­i­tal­ized on a Galion mis­take. A poor snap resulted in Galion punter Austin Chap­lin falling on the ball for a 16-yard loss. The Roy­als took over at the Galion 22. Three plays later, Brock Williamson bulled his way into the end­zone from a yard out on a QB keeper. Rob­bie Siel­ski tacked on a PAT kick, tying the score at 7–7 with 9:14 left in the first half.

With 7:37 to go in the third quar­ter, the Tigers stopped the Roy­als on downs as a long fourth-down pass fell incom­plete. Wynford’s bench was cited for unsports­man­like con­duct for vehe­mently protest­ing what the vis­i­tors thought should have been a pass inter­fer­ence call against the hosts. After the 15 yards was tacked on, the locals had the ball first-and-10 at their own 46.

The game-deciding scor­ing drive fol­lowed as the Orange-and-Blue marched 54 yards on 11 plays with Watkins again scor­ing on a keeper from a yard out with 2:29 show­ing on the score­board clock. The junior fol­lowed with a 2-point con­ver­sion run for the final points of the battle.

Galion had another long drive in the fourth stanza. It took five min­utes off the clock and entailed 11 plays, end­ing with a 28-yard punt by Watkins that was downed at Wynford’s 10 with only 2:26 to go.

The Tigers forced the vis­i­tors to turn the ball over on downs at the 10 with 1:32 left. A trio of kneel downs by Watkins in vic­tory for­ma­tion fin­ish­ing off the clock and the Royals.

“We used last year’s dis­ap­point­ment as moti­va­tion,” stated Hawkins. “As a team, this is one of the hard­est work­ing off-season teams I’ve ever had. We will enjoy this for about six-and-a-half hours and start prepar­ing for next week,” he added with a laugh.

The remain­der of this story can be viewed in printed edi­tions of the Galion Inquirer. 

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Oct 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.