by JOHN HOWLEY / sportingpumpkin.com
HEATH — Putting good use to its size and speed advantage, Heath was able to control just about every aspect of Friday’s game as the Bulldogs handed visiting Circleville a 45-0 loss.
“They were able to do whatever they wanted to offensively,” Circleville coach Steve Evans said. “Defensively, we thought we could have some success from what we saw on film, but we knew coming in how big and strong they were.”
The Bulldogs (3-0) had six possessions in the first half and all finished in the endzone.
Quarterback Brayden Bayles threw TD passes on the first four possessions.
Bayles connected with Reece Huber on a 21-yard score, Keylan Williams on an 83-yard score, Huber on a 26-yard play and Mitchell McClain on a 65-yard play.
The Bulldogs’ final two scores came on runs of four and 11 yards from Ar’moni McCrae.
Circleville was limited to 85 yards in the first half, with 51 coming on a keeper from quarterback Scott Moats.
“Their defensive ends were tall and lanky which made it difficult to get outside on the perimeters then they had 600 pounds between the tackles. It made it very difficult for us,” Evans said.
The Bulldogs ended the night with 470 yards of offense — 304 through the air — while Circleville netted out 63.
“We’ve got to learn from it. We made some mistakes, but we also had a couple bright spots,” Evans said. “I challenged them at halftime, I said guys the easiest thing to do when you haven’t been a successful program is revert back and that’s what we don’t want to have happen. The fighting on the field, the yelling at each other in the locker room, it’s not going to happen, and we’ll never get over that hump if we revert back.
“We’ve worked too hard to this point to get to where we’re at to fall back into that.”
Up next
The Tigers (2-1) start league play next week with a trip to Bloom-Carroll (3-0), which is coming off a 23-3 win over Jonathan Alder (0-3) Friday.
“Bloom-Carroll is going to be just as good as this football team, if not better,” Evans said. “We’ve got to regroup and focus on us and we have to get better. We got some guys banged up tonight, so we’ve got to take care of ourselves and get back to being healthy.”
Heath 45, Circleville 0
Score by Quarters 1 2 3 4 F
Circleville 0 0 0 0 0
Heath 24 21 0 0 45
First Quarter
H – Reese Huber 21 pass from Brayden Bayles (Brayden Bayles run), 7:45.
H – Keylan Williams 83 pass from Brayden Bayles (Mitchell McClain run), 4:40.
H – Reece Huber 26 pass from Brayden Bayles (Reece Huber from Brayden Bayles), 1:39.
Second Quarter
H – Mitchell McClain 65 pass from Brayden Bayles (Conner Toomey kick), 10:40.
H – Ar’moni McCrae 4 run (Conner Toomey kick), 7:06.
H – Ar’moni McCrae 11 run (Conner Toomey kick), 2:39.
TEAM STATISTICS
CV HE
First downs 4 15
Rushing yards 28-50 24-166
Passing yards 13 304
Comp.-Att.-Int 1-6-1 11-19-1
Total yards 63 470
Fumbles-Lost 3-1 0-0
Penalties-Yards 5-35 8-82
Punts-Ave. 5-31 1-32
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING – Circleville — Angelo Travis 9-16, Scott Moats 10-43, Drew Thornsley 1-(-2), Austin Gray 3-(-18) Colin Michael 2-5, Parker Kidwell 3-6. Heath — Ar’moni McCrae 11-89, Brayden Bayles 1-19, Mitchell McClain 2-13, Payton Lees 2-23, Riley Gould 3-19, Jahki Royster 4-(-4), Connor Corbett 1-1.
PASSING – Circleville — Scott Moats 0-5-1-0, Parker Kidwell 1-1-0-13. Heath — Brayden Bayles 8-13-0-247, Kevin Dunlap 3-6-1-57.
RECEIVING – Circleville — Keith Kelly 1-13. Heath — Reece Huber 3-59, Keylan Williams 2-89, Mitchell McClain 2-88, Riley Gould 1-11, Aidan Daniels 1-4, Jadyn Marks 1-14, Josh Jones 1-39.
