June Turner streaks past the defense and scores, as London’s run game dominated the night. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Brian Bayless)
Propelled by TD runs of 70 and 90 yards on the first two plays from scrimmage, London amassed 480 yards on the ground in a 49-0 shutout of US 42 rival Jonathan Alder. The Red Raiders have now outscored their opposition 368-27.
Plain City, OH – London 11th-year football coach Kyle Cutler doesn’t offer juicy quotes quite as frequently as his running backs break into the secondary for big plays.
Cutler uses words such as discipline, character, belief, effort and teamwork and the phrase “London football” like he means it, and, obviously, the talented Red Raiders have bought in to what he is selling hook, line and sinker.
Asked to assess his team’s 49-0 smackdown of long-time rival Jonathan Alder on Friday in a Central Buckeye Conference Kenton Trail Division showdown at Volunteer Field at Performance Stadium, Cutler offered a wry grin and said, “let me watch the film tomorrow.”
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What he’ll see is total domination on the part of London. But that is nothing new. One of seven Central District teams still unbeaten entering the night, the Red Raiders now have outscored their opposition by a whopping 368 points to 27. And, granted, while three of those teams were winless and two had just one victory, London (7-0, 2-0) now has body-slammed two decent teams in Bellefontaine, which is led by five-star Ohio State-bound quarterback Tavien St. Clair, and perennial power Alder (4-3, 1-1) in back-to-back weeks.
“I don’t think we put any more weight on this game than any other game,” senior running back June Turner said. “I’d say we played alright, but coach will surely find plenty of things we can improve on. All it’s about for us is winning, getting better every week and playing our brand of football.”
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On this night, London’s brand featured shock and awe.
On the first play of the game, sophomore running back Daquanne Parks took a double handoff out of a double-wing formation, broke three tackles and raced 70 yards for a touchdown.
Daquanne Parks scans the field for defenders and then turns on the afterburners to extend the Red Raiders’ advantage over Jonathan Alder.
Parks said he was exhilarated to see nothing but green synthetic turf after breaking the first wave of defenders.
“What a start that was,” Parks said. “Honestly, it was just a regular play but it was blocked and executed well. One thing we noticed as the game went along was that (the Pioneers) followed our motion to the wrong side and we kind of exploited that on our big plays.”
After a three-and-out by Alder, Turner took an inside handoff and bolted 90 yards to the end zone.
“To punch them in the mouth like that on our first two plays really got the momentum on out side and made things easier for us,” Turner said. “Sure, we worked on perfecting those plays all week in practice, but they weren’t necessarily supposed to break like that. But I guess all of our runs have that kind of potential when they’re executed right.”
A Turner interception led directly to a 1-yard TD run by fullback Noah Sollars.
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Not long thereafter, Parks hit another home run – this time 78 yards and once again on the opening play of the drive.
It was a 28-0 at halftime, and that included a foiled London scoring drive in the final two minutes of the half.
“I tried to tell the guys in the locker room that 28-0 is not of hand, but we certainly had to find a way to shut them down and get something on generated on offense ourselves,” Alder coach Nate Snedeker said.
A 33-yard TD run by Sollars at 2:49 of the third quarter made it 35-0 and forced a rolling clock.
After that, Marquise McFarlane (28 yards) and Bryston Toronto (35 yards) added to the onslaught.
Noah Sollars hops over a tackle attempt by Grant Horne during the Red Raiders 49-0 shelllacking of rival host Jonathan Alder.
London finished with 480 yards rushing on 34 attempts – a hefty 14.2-yards-per-carry average. Parks led the way with 171 yards on just six carries. Turner added 119 on three runs and Sollars 102.
The performance hiked the Red Raiders’ season rushing totals to an eye-popping 10.3 yards per carry.
Alder came in having allowed just seven points in its previous three games.
Almost lost in the haze of the big run plays was another superlative performance by the defense. London held Alder to just 49 total yards and 30 of it came on the final play of the game with backups on the field.
“I loved our pursuit to the ball,” Cutler said.
Snedeker tried to put into perspective what makes London, ranked 11th in the Associated Press Division IV state poll, so tough.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, London freshman Craig Beaver violently dislodges the ball from Alder’s Wyatt Clemons late in the 4th quarter to help preserve the shutout.
“Until you see it live, you can’t simulate what they do in that offense,” he said. “If you’re one step off in your assignment, they’ve got athletes that can hurt you. Their kids are really well coached and they run great schemes. And defensively, they’re very good in a lot of places.”
It marked the fourth straight win for London over Alder in the long rivalry, which took a hiatus from 2012 to 2018 when the teams played in different leagues. The Pioneers had won the previous 12 meetings, dating to 2003, when Cutler was an All-Ohio linebacker at Alder. He went on to play at Bowling Green.
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