Junior quarterback Kadin Chrastina heard the negative comments. Sophomore receiver/defensive back Silas Finley heard them, too. So did head head coach Dave Carroll.
One week after the Clear Fork absorbed a 40-0 loss at Mansfield Senior, the Colts unloaded on the Lexington Minutemen, handing out a 49-21 beating of their own.
Afterward, while his team raced to the sideline to celebrate with the marching band, cheerleaders and fans, Carroll’s smile was as wide as the field.
“Tonight’s game is a testament to our kids,” he said. “Our pride took a lot of damage last week. But I know we have good players and we have a good team. They heard all the negative comments. I told them to ignore all of that stuff and just work hard this week and that’s what we did.”
Chrastina and Finley keyed the victory with lots of big plays in improving Clear Fork’s record to 3-2 overall and 1-1 in the Ohio Cardinal Conference.
Chrastina rushed for 144 yards on 17 carries and two touchdowns, one on a 42-yard run. He also completed 7 of 11 passes for 141 yards and two more scores, one of them an 87-yard strike to Hunter Evans and the other a 20-yard connection to Ridge Winand.
Finley, a 150-pound speedster, had three TDs, two rushing and one on a 90-yard interception return that stopped a first-half drive for Lexington when it looked like the Minutemen were poised to tie the game at 14. It made the score 21-7 and Lexington was never really close again.
Lexington coach Dan Studer, whose team fell to 1-4 overall and 0-2 in the OCC, said his team needs to learn how to deal with adversity.
“When the other team makes a big play or we make a big mistake, we need to learn to settle down and come back and play the kind of football we know how to play,” he said. “We are not doing that right now.”
Clear Fork pounded out 246 yards rushing on 38 carries, including 78 yards by Finley on 10 attempts. Though the Colts are operating from the spread formation, it’s clear running the ball still puts a twinkle in Carroll’s eye.
“You can run the ball out of any formation if you execute,” the veteran coach said. “In the spread, your quarterback has to make the right reads. I won’t know until I see the film, but it looked like our quarterback was making some good reads tonight. He also had some good throws tonight, but we like to pound the football, too.”
Lexington senior quarterback Trent Richwine had been the backbone of the Lexington offense through the first four weeks, running and passing. Against the Colts, he managed just 52 yards on 16 carries and completed just 11 of 23 passes for 158 yards. Richwine did give Lexington an early 7-0 lead on a 2-yard run after Clear Fork mishandled a punt snap and he cut the halftime deficit to 28-14 with a 55-yard TD pass to senior Nick Leasure with just 30 seconds left in the second quarter.
“We were scared of what Richwine could do,” Carroll said. “We had the fastest kids on our team playing scout team quarterback this week. We had some miscommunication in the secondary on that long pass at the end of the half, but I thought our defense did a dandy job. Our No. 1 goal coming in was not to let Trent bust a 50-yard run on us.”
Studer lamented a lack of balance on his offense.
“We have got to be able to establish a better running game and we have the athletes to do it,” he said. “We saw some better efforts last week (in a narrow loss at Orrville). But if we are one dimensional and the defense can focus everything on one kid … you are not going to be able to do too much on offense.”
Lexington continues to play most of its starters on both sides of the ball, but Studer said it’s no excuse.
“You can say it’s a concern. We would like more guys. But to say it’s an issue against teams like Orrville and Clear Fork, who have the same number of kids, it’s no excuse at all. Everyone is playing lots of kids both ways. That is nothing we need to focus on,” he said.
Clear Fork hosts Wooster next Friday in another OCC game. Lexington travels to play Madison, also a conference game.
