Anna quarterback Logan Ziegenbusch slips a tackle attempt on his way to a second quarter touchdown in Friday’s 20-7 win over Coldwater. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Anna wins its third game in a row, takes control of its destiny, and left Coldwater wondering Friday about some destiny of its own after a 20-7 Rockets win.
Coldwater, OH – Ouch…which pretty much described the words and the mood of Coldwater coach Chip Otten Friday following a complete 20-7 waxing at the hands of the suddenly resurgent Anna Rockets.
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Yes, that same Anna that left us shaking our heads after a 2-3 start.
And yes, that same Anna that lost back-to-back games a month ago 39-0 and 41-14 to St. Henry and Marion Local, respectively.
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But Friday, Otten and the Cavaliers suddenly, and without provocation, got ‘the full monty’ from the team that was written about in August – talented, confident, and centered around the most dynamic player in the Midwest Athletic Conference, quarterback Logan Ziegenbusch.
“Tonight was a serious ouch,” Otten brooded. “And the crazy thing is we started the second half with the ball and on their 35 going in to take the lead…and we fumbled.
“And when Braylon (Gerlach) got hurt…we were up 7-0 and that kinda’ took the air and the emotion out of our sails. But credit to them. Their quarterback is a slippery dude and even our best guys couldn’t tackle him. He made all kinds of runs and throws, and their defensive line and linebackers just whipped us up front.”
It started positively, with Coldwater scoring at 1:17 of the first quarter on an 18-yard slant pass from Karsyn Homan to John Pohlman to take a 7-0 lead…after denying Anna on its first possession, holding them on the 6 yard line, fourth and goal.
Anna’s Tyson Vaubel clutches a touchdown catch in the second quarter of the Rockets Friday win over Coldwater.
From that point things took a different turn for Otten, Homan, and the Cavaliers.
With 27 seconds remaining the first quarter Coldwater nose guard Braylon Gerlach went to the ground on a routine tackle attempt of Rockets’ running back TJ Roberts. He didn’t get up, and fifteen minutes later was carted from the field on a cart and taken by EMS to the local hospital with an apparent neck injury.
Coldwater was never the same after that as Anna would score midway through the second quarter on a touchdown pass from Ziegenbusch to Tyson Vaubel to close to within 7-6…and then take the lead with a minute left before halftime on a 4-yard run by Ziegenbusch, 13-7.
Slippery was Chip Otten’s description of what it was like tackling the Rockets’ junior, but it looked more like he was covered in graphite. He changed directions, stopped on a dime, and made more people miss than the Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote. Literally, he left Coldwater tacklers grasping at thin air as he ran up and down the field and sideline to sideline, looking for a crack or a crease by which to escape containment.
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“I owe it all to my big guys up front,” he said afterwards, unwilling to take credit for his obvious physical and athletic abilities. “I’m nothing without those guys and they were terrific all night, both sides of the ball.”
But coach Nick Marino and the Rockets owed another debt, to their defense, that came out in the second half and played with a painful reminder that this was a team whose defense was able to stand toe-to-toe with their season’s destiny on the line. Marino never lost faith during the painful September, his patience, or the vision of what it could become if and when it centered and everyone pointed in one direction.
Lost fumble, lost momentum…Braxton Taylor’s coughs up the football on the Cavaliers’ opening drive of the second half.
And when Coldwater took the second half kickoff and started working upfield, defensive linemen Ezra Egbert, Julian Stearns, et.al., made their presence felt. They forced back-to-back fumbles by Cavalier running back Braxton Taylor. The first one Taylor recovered. The second one Anna recovered, killing whatever momentum and energy the Cavaliers had left.
Subsequent drives and possession were equally frustrating as Anna’s 3-3-5 defense both crowded the line of scrimmage to manage Homan, and snuffed out any threat of striking with the pass downfield. They pounded on Homan when he ran, re-aggravating an ankle he had hurt earlier in the year, sacked him three times, and held him to 13 of 28 passing, for 128 yards and an interception.
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In the meantime Ziegenbusch was running and throwing…up and down the field (116 yards rushing, 137 yards passing), and scored his second touchdown of the game with 1:09 remaining the third quarter to literally ice the game, 20-7, with the entire fourth quarter left to play.
Coldwater’s Austin Uhlenhake puts a lick on Anna receiver Kale Hoying on this first half pass attempt.
But down two starting linemen now with the loss of Gerlach, Anna’s big interior lines became a factor. Defensively, they squeezed the Cavaliers running game, allowing Homan just 23 yards on 14 carries, Taylor 69 yards on 9 carries, and Derek Dues to 11 yards on 2 carries. Homan was intercepted at the goal line in the fourth quarter by Brody Murray to kill one drive, and wide receiver Jonah Gruss had a touchdown catch go through his hands to kill another. Otten and team didn’t wait for the clock to run out to begin the handshake line. They started with 37 seconds remaining.
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“We’ve been getting better the last three weeks,” said Nick Marino, afterwards. “It’s taken some time and we were a little beat up early in the year, but I think it began with the Marion game. We didn’t do what we needed to, but we had more yards than they had. We realized that we were good enough, if we did our job.
“It makes a huge difference for our quarterback to be completely healthy, and defensively we held a good Coldwater team to 7 points tonight. I know it didn’t look good when we were 2 and 3. We were looking down a long road there. But the kids fought through it, they took coaching, and hats off to them. They’re doing their job now and we’re gettin’ better and better.”
Coldwater quarterback Karsyn Homan considers what comes next at the conclusion of Friday’s loss to Anna.
“It wasn’t do or die tonight,” said Logan Ziegenbusch. “We knew we could come in here and win. We just had to do our job. If we just keep working on our craft, the same mentality over the next couple of games, I think we’ll be in pretty good shape for the playoffs.”
And the timing couldn’t be better. Anna closes out its season the next two weeks with Delphos St. John and Versailles.
Chip Otten can not afford to be so optimistic. Down two starting linemen and playing with an ‘ouchy’ quarterback, he faces St. Henry next week (who blasted Minster 48-12 on Friday) and Marion Local in the season’s finale. There’s never been a better time to discover additional eligibility for Brody Hoying, Craig Schoenherr, and Petey Post.
“I think we had only lost one fumble for the year coming into tonight,” he said, considering the Cavaliers’ three turnovers. “And I think we’d only had four turnovers, total, coming into tonight. Just frustrating, and now we have to go to St. Henry and Marion. And I would think that we’ll lose Braylon for the remainder of the year.”
He was headed to the hospital to check on his young lineman, hoping, with the other three thousand who watched Friday, for the best. A painful reminder of the fortunes of football and fate.
Anna then, and Anna now.
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