LEXINGTON — Brayden DeVito isn’t old enough to drive himself home after a Shelby football practice.
But the 15-year-old freshman quarterback has already learned to drive opposing defenses crazy.
All the 5-foot-9, 150-pound DeVito did Friday night in his first varsity start was complete 19 of 29 passes for 401 yards and four TDs in a 53-21 non-league win at Lexington.
Afterward, he had no easy answer for the roots of a poise that belies his age and experience.
“I just feel confident in our team and the linemen in front of me to protect me. It’s easy to stay calm with lots of time,” he said.
“(Shelby receivers) know that once I am working out of the pocket to roll me with so we have a chance to keep a play alive.”
The performance, one week after he came off the bench to lead the Whippets (2-0) to a season-opening win against Madison, had even veteran coach Rob Mahaney searching for comparables.
“He made some throws out there tonight that were unbelievably good,” Mahaney said. “Rolling out of the pocket, finding guys … he has natural ability, but he also has like a presence on the football field.
Time after time, DeVito found receivers open downfield, including 6-3 junior Issaiah Ramsey, who finished with nine catches for 215 yards and two TDs.
“He made a throw tonight I haven’t seen a lot of kids make. I have coached some good quarterbacks … he’s doing it at a young age,” Mahaney said. “Brayden made plays with his feet. He made plays with his arm. He was everything we needed tonight.
“I thought our offensive line did a great job, too. I thought he had a clean pocket all night. That’s an area where we wanted to grow a lot and I thought our offensive line played phenomenal,” the coach said.
“Obviously we went to the well a lot, but they kept giving us single coverage on Issaiah Ramsey and we kept going to it. If they’re not gonna take it away, we’re gonna get the ball to our best receiver. And Brayden did a good job of executing that game plan.”
First-year Lexington coach Andrew Saris, whose team dropped a 21-17 opener at Ontario last week, praised DeVito’s play.
“He had a great game tonight. Kudos to him. We would have times we could bottle him up and I felt comfortable. He did a nice job of putting that ball on the money and they did a great job finding it and catching it,” Saris said.
Saris, however, pointed to his own team’s spirit, especially in the third quarter when the Minutemen put two TDs on the board to cut a 34-6 deficit back to 34-21 early in the fourth quarter.
Junior running back Carter Newman keyed the rally with scoring runs of 77 and 34 yards, finishing with 174 yards on 14 carries.
“I loved that third quarter,” Saris said. “We came out, we got excited, we had a lot of energy. We just gotta find a way to make sure we start (a game) with that.
“Our team team fought … I am super proud of the guys … working hard. We just gotta find the way to turn those Ws,” Saris said.
UP NEXT: Shelby christens its new stadium next Friday night with a non-league game against rival Bellevue (1-1), which dropped a 28-12 decision at home to Canfield in week two.
Lexington is at Clear Fork (1-1) in another non-league game. The Colts fell to Granville in week two.
