Tigers stuck in Manual
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| Tigers' Jake Holland (69) and Matt Hayes (51) wrap up a Ram ball carrier Friday night at Bryant Field. (BCR photo/Mike Vaughn) |
PRINCETON — Princeton won last week’s season 44-16 opener over Monmouth-Roseville by outscoring the Titans 30-0 in the fourth quarter. Friday night, the fourth quarter belonged to Peoria Manual.
The Rams scored three times in the final quarter to bust open a 12-12 tie. Quarterback Shyree Jones threw for two TD strikes, one to Amos Stimage, who also ran for another score in the fourth quarter to put the game away.
“We had stuff in first half we didn’t execute on. That was our big thing we stressed at halftime. They answered the bell in the second half,” said Manual coach Dan Fauser, who noted his team improved to 2-0 for the first time in a long time.
Manual mounted a 16-play, 81-yard scoring drive with Stimage doing the honors on a 19-yard scamper with 10:34 to go in the game to take an 18-12 lead.
On the Tigers’ next play from scrimmage, a fumble after the exchange from quarterback Dylan Olson to Southern Foster, turned the ball right back over to the Rams on the Tiger 18. Five plays later, Jones hit Demarco Tillman for a 26-yard TD toss.
“It was just an iso play, too,” PHS coach Dave Moore said of the fumble. “We thought we had iso all night long where they were blitzing a backer. All we had to do was seal it. Should have been good for four or five yards all the time. We’ve got to do things right.”
After the Rams sacked Olson on fourth down for a change of possession, Jones came back five minutes later to toss his second TD pass of the fourth quarter to Stimage for 34 yards. Jones is a transfer from the now closed Peoria Woodruff.
“We hold them we got a chance to come back and move the ball downfield,” Moore said. “We could have come back and tied the ballgame. Then they got two scores on us and we tried to play catch-up. That’s just not our forte this year. Biggest thing we’ve got to rebound, got Notre Dame next week.”
Logan Barnas (83 yards rushing) scored on a 12-yard run to give the Tigers a 6-0 lead with 4:34 to go in the first quarter. He added a 3-yard run with 5:12 left in the second quarter to tie the game at 12.
The Tigers had very little offense after that, held to 76 yards rushing on 31 attempts. Olson, who rushed for 143 yards last week, had an equal amount of carries (7) for negative yards as he did positive rushes, finishing in the red at minus 7 on 16 attempts.
“In Dylan’s defense, he’s hobbling around. A lot of that was the foot where he can’t turn the corner. It’s just a slight sprain,” Moore said. “We were starting to press on offense, where we really couldn’t run the ball and that’s kind of our forte to set up the play-action.”
Fauser praised his team’s defensive efforts in slowing down Olson and Barnas, noting similar duos from PHS have hurt the Rams the past two seasons.
“When you contain this quarterback ... I know he’s banged up, that kid’s a heckuva athlete. So is No. 4, the running back,” he said. “They compete and don’t go down on the first hit. We were pretty scared about playing these guys for that reason ... In the past, Princeton has beat us with two good athletes. This is the first time they haven’t done that.”
• Tiger tales: Manual was thrown for a safety in their first play from scrimmage in Friday’s sophomore tilt. The Rams then outscored 32-0 for the runaway win. ... The Tigers will be playing in Peoria next when the try their luck vs. the Irish of Peoria Notre Dame at Richwoods Stadium.
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