Lexington celebrated 50 years of football on Friday night, but the Madison Rams ruined the party.
Juwan Howrad ran for 229 yards and two first half touchdowns as the Rams defeated the Minutemen 21-8 in Ohio Cardinal Conference (OCC) action.
Starting the season with solid wins over Shelby (34-0), and Galion (37-3), the Rams were feeling pretty good about their fortunes. In the next three games, however, Madison dropped three straight to Mt. Vernon (27-21), West Holmes (34-21) and Wooster (21-14) to slip to 2-3.
Madison coach Sean Conway says that winning cures a lot of ills. “Anytime you can win it you feel good, you feel better, but we still have a lot of improvements we can make. I tell you I give Lexington a lot of credit. They are a young football team. One day they are going to be a dominant football team,” he said.
Even thought they are a run-based offense, Madison can make big plays. Howard got the scoring started when he bolted for a 73 yard touchdown run with 3:39 to play in the first quarter. After a missed extra point, the Rams held a (6-0) lead.
Then, with just 2:04 to play before halftime, Howard would score again on a 54 yard run, this time the Rams covered a two-point conversion to take a (14-0) lead into halftime.
Sometimes Conway has seemed to allergic to the forward pass, but this season they have thrown over 70 passes through five games. Last night’s weather, however, presented rain and wet field conditions. The Rams ran the ball 51 times and didn’t throw a single pass. Conway says with wet conditions he didn’t want to take any chances.
“Tonight, because of the weather we kind of went back to our tradition of the I-formation and ran the ball right at them and it worked out well for us,” he said.
Being physical has always been part of Madison football. Friday was reflective of that. They ran for 251 yards on Friday night and Conway says they were able to control the point of attack.
“I really think anytime you win a football game you were the more physical team. Very rarely are you going to see a game where the team that hit the hardest lost. I think we were the most physical team on the field tonight,” said Conway.
Madison (3-3,1-2) would take a (21-0) lead when Logan Pack scored on a 17-yard run with just two minutes to play in the third quarter.
Lexington got on the scoreboard with a little over eight minutes to play when Madison snapped a punt through the end zone for a safety.
The Minutemen offense didn’t cross the Madison goal until TJ Gerhardt scored on a one yard run with 2:58 to play in the game.
Conway says again their defense was the best part of their game against Big Lex. “Our defense played very well. I think I made some decisions that put them in bad sports, so they bailed me out a little bit tonight. I think our offense held the ball a lot better this week,” he said.
Lexington (0-6,0-3) had over 220 yards of total offense in the game. Quarterback Joey Vore completed 15 of 29 passes for 119 yards on the night, but two interceptions.
Coach Taylor Gerhardt says mistakes at the wrong time have been killing time all season. “The bane of our season right now is making mistakes at inopportune times,” he said.
Madison hosts Clear Fork (3-3,1-2) at Ram Field at STARTEK Stadium next week in league play. Lexington plays at Wooster (3-3,2-1). The Generals buried the Colts (42-7) on Friday night.
