Red Raiders Bring The Pain To Urbana With Ground-And-Pound, Bounce-Back Dominance

Confounding anticipation of an impending demise, London bounced back from an unexpected loss last week to throttle high-flying Urbana and send a message to the rest of the CBC.

London, OH – In a world where instant replay existed in the Central Buckeye Conference, officials would be emerging from a long look under the hood with a definitive overturn of an assessment formed league-wide during the first half of the season.

“Upon further review,” they’d say, “London is not a pushover incapable of winning a sixth straight league championship.”

It might have seemed that way in Week One, when the Red Raiders’ seniors lost the first regular-season home game of their careers to Division I New Albany.

And it definitely seemed that way last week when London scored only once and lost at Graham, 10-7, to fall to 3-2 overall – more losses in a single season than any of its seniors have ever experienced.

But like a judge quieting an unruly courtroom, London emphatically restored order across the Kenton Trail division of the CBC with a 59-19 thumping of previously once-beaten Urbana on Friday night.

“We know the way we played last week just wasn’t London football,” said junior running back Bryston Toronto, who contributed four touchdown runs to the Red Raiders’ rout. “We came out here and knew we had a job to do and we were determined to get it done. I think it’s pretty clear, we did.”

Urbana, coming off a frantic rally from 11 points down in the final four minutes at North Union to get to 4-1, didn’t flash nearly enough of the explosive offensive its previously exhibited and quickly fell into a 35-0 hole.

“That was the old Urbana,” first-year coach Geron Stokes said. “It’s still in there, and we have to get it out. We see it show up all the time and it showed up tonight. We’re very capable of that.”

The Hillclimbers (4-2, 0-1) are also quite capable of more, but quarterback Grady Lantz had too little time to find his targets under the duress of London’s rush and some early drops by Urbana’s receivers did him no favors.

Still, London was a meat-grinder and wasn’t losing this one, with Toronto bulling for 166 yards on 24 carries, augmented by Isaiah Near’s 164 yards on just nine attempts.

“We got back on pace tonight,” said Near, who scored on runs of 54 and 45 yards and set up another London TD with a 42-yard burst. “We got some things fixed in practice and cleaned up how we do things.

“We got our heads on straight and were like, ‘Let’s go. This is not London football.’ “

To the delight of an appreciative Homecoming crowd, the Red Raiders quickly showed and kept showing what head coach Kyle Cutler called a, “back to basics” approach.

“Credit to Graham (5-1, 1-0), but everything that could have gone wrong went wrong for us last week,” Cutler said. “We weren’t in synch and we didn’t make critical plays when we needed to. I can’t really explain it beyond that. We just didn’t perform at an optimum level.”

An eight-play, all-run, 65-yard drive to open the game set a different tone against Urbana. Toronto carried six times and cashed in the march after quarterback Colt Hughes’ 31-yard run injected some early life.

From there, it escalated quickly, with Hughes scoring from 10 yards out and Near’s 54-yarder following immediately after Urbana tried and failed on a fake punt from midfield.

Near and Toronto each scored again to make it, 35-0, before Lantz cut into that with the first of his three touchdown passes, a 60-yarder to Carter Houseman 32 seconds before the break.

The resultant 35-6 score didn’t last until the half, however, with Urbana failing on the first of four unsuccessful on-side kicks to help London race to Eli Noble’s 33-yard field goal before the bands performed.

“We have to find a way to be better defensively,” said Stokes, whose team welcomes unbeaten Jonathan Alder (6-0, 1-0) on Friday. “I got us blown out very fast with the on-side kicks and throwing the ball as much as we did.”

Lantz, who entered off consecutive 300-plus passing performances, finished 21-of-40 for 219 yards and three touchdowns.

“He competes, but he has to be cleaner,” Stokes said of his strong-armed QB, an Ohio State baseball commitment. “He has to be the one that delivers belief to our team by his level of play.”

The same responsibility falls on Toronto, to get the tough yards inside, and Near, to supply the outside speed, for London (4-2, 1-0).

“That’s my brother,” Toronto said of Near. “He’s a great player. He plays both sides of the ball and he has a huge gas tank. He’s a playmaker. We really count on him.”

Hughes makes the London Wing-T function with his nifty fakes and effective change-of-pace runs, occasionally powering over center for chunk yardage and getting free outside from time to time.

He finished with one rushing TD and 51 yards on eight carries.

“What we do isn’t complicated,” Near said. “It works because we work. Nobody is going to outwork us. That’s what it comes down to.”

Likewise, the Kenton Trail division will likely come down to what transpires over the next two weeks. That’s because, after Alder travels to Urbana in Week Seven, it plays host to London in Week Eight, which should pack most of Madison County into Performance Stadium just outside Plain City.

Alder hasn’t beaten London since doing so twice in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, but now the Red Raiders appear a much more dangerous opponent than just one week ago.

“When something like that (loss at Graham) happens, maybe we needed that,” Near said. “Maybe we were being complacent. Maybe we let all the wins in the past get to us.

“But the way we responded and the way we worked after that loss, everybody just kept their head down and went back to what we do. We run it. That’s what we do. Now, we have to keep doing it.”