LEXINGTON – Taylor Gerhardt had a tough love message for his winless Lexington Minutemen on Friday night after a 30-14 loss to Orrville in an Ohio Cardinal Conference football game.
“We are making too many mistakes. We are making too many of the same mistakes. We have too many missed assignments,” the first-year head coach said.
“I believe in these boys. We just have to step up to our areas of responsibility. And that goes from the head coach down to the youngest freshman,” he said.
The young Minutemen (0-4, 0-1) have a roster dominated by sophomores and freshmen. But Gerhardt clearly doesn’t see youth as an excuse. And he doesn’t expect his team to accept it, either.
“We have six games left. There is a lot of football still to be played. There is no quit in this team and there is no quit in this coaching staff. We will be here. We just have to keep mistakes to a minimum and we have to do a better job of tackling,” he said.
“When all 11 men do their job, we can be a pretty good football team, on offense and defense,” Gerhardt said. “We just have to become more consistent in having all 11 men do their jobs.”
Aerial Assault: Orrville (2-2, 1-0) junior quarterback Luke Smith provided the bulk of the frustration for the Minutemen, having a hand in all four Red Rider touchdowns. He completed 20 of 39 passes for 267 yards and three TDs and ran for a 1-yard score as well.
It was a 77-yard scoring pass to senior wide receiver Keontae Owens that proved to be the backbreaker. Lexington had scored with 17 seconds left in the third quarter to narrow the Orrville lead to 16-14. But on the first play from scrimmage after the kickoff, Smith fired a perfect bomb to Owens who raced in to give the Red Riders a 23-14 lead as the third quarter ended.
Lexington’s momentum was gone and the Minutemen never recovered.
“It was a missed assignment,” Gerhardt said. “We talk about playing the next play, about having a short-term memory. You can’t go back to the play before. You have to go on to the next one. That is a hard lesson to learn and unfortunately we are learning it the hard way.”
No Room to Run: Neither team had success on the ground. Orrville rushed for just 49 yards on 21 carries, averaging 2.1 per attempt. Lexington gained 45 yards on 33 attempts, averaging 1.4 per try. Sophomore Jacob Hershberger led Orrville with 32 yards on four carries. He also scored the game’s first TD on a 37-yard pass from Smith. Senior Ryan Cooper led the Minutemen with 19 yards on nine carries.
Second Time Around: After a first quarter that saw zero first downs, the two teams combined for 21 points in the second quarter. Orrville built a 14-0 lead on the TD pass to Hershberger and a 16-yard strike to Owens. Lexington scored on an 8-yard run by junior QB Joey Vore after sophomore Tony Gerrell returned a Red Rider kickoff inside the Orrville 10.
Ball Hawk: Lexington sophomore linebacker Biddle Hunter picked off two Orrville passes. He returned the first to the Red Rider 9-yard line, but the Minutemen were unable to score, being stopped on fourth-and-goal at the 2-yard line late in the second quarter. The second came late in the third quarter. Hunter returned it to the Red Rider 44-yard line, setting up a 7-play drive that ended with a one-yard TD run by sophomore Colin Christman.
Busy Man: Vore remained a busy man for Lexington. He completed 10 of 24 passes for 95 yards. He rushed for one TD. He also punted, kicked off and added two PAT kicks.
Next Up: Lexington travels to OCC foe Clear Fork (2-2, 0-1) next Friday night. The Colts dropped a 62-41 league game to Mansfield Senior last night, snapping a two-game winning streak. Orrville hosts Mansfield Senior (2-2, 1-0) next Friday night.
“I believe in these boys. We just have to step up to our areas of responsibility. And that goes from the head coach down to the youngest freshman,” he said.
