Tribe trounces ’Skins

FORT RECOVERY — The Indians needed two drives to get the offense going.
Once they did, the Redskins had no answer.
Caleb Martin threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more, led the Tribe to 500 yards of total offense and the defense settled down after one big play as the Fort Recovery High School football team shut out the Fort Loramie Redskins on Friday night, 32-0.
“We struggled to get stuff going in the first quarter,” said Martin, who threw, ran and caught the football. The University of Toledo commit was 10-for-18 passing for 230 yards, rushed five times for 123 more and caught a 18-yard pass from running back Will Homan.
“After that we picked it up and started trusting (the offense) more,” he said. “Things really paid off.”
Brent Niekamp, whose team is 2-0 and opens Midwest Athletic Conference play Friday at home against the Parkway Panthers, said his team still has a ways to go despite the shutout.
“We’re still learning in a lot of positions,” he said. “I felt like our guys did a good job of adjusting to the pace of the game, figuring things out and continuing to work and make plays throughout the course of the game.
“Eventually good things will happen if you can do that.”
The first such occurrence was on the Tribe’s third drive of the game, when Martin connected with sophomore Derek Siefring for a 52-yard touchdown. Siefring ran a post over the middle of the field and a Fort Loramie defender fell down at the 27-yard line, leaving the 6-foot, 3-inch, receiver wide open and able to trot into the end zone.
Martin connected with Homan for a 72-yard pass on fourth-and-10 from the Fort Recovery 12, but it was called back because of a penalty. Ethan Schoen caught a Martin pass for 35 yards to get the Indians into the red zone, and Homan scored his lone touchdown from the 3-yard line three plays later.
From there, Martin did the rest.
He scampered 52 yards for his first rushing touchdown to make it 20-0 Indians, found Jason Roessner on a 19-yard post route for a 26-0 Tribe lead, then turned on the jets for a 67-yard TD run early in the fourth quarter to cap the scoring.
“First, I was looking for Will down the sideline,” Martin said of his progression on the pass play he turned into the 52-yard touchdown.
But Homan wasn’t open.
“Then Payton Jutte on the post route,” he continued. “It opened up in the middle so I figured I’d take it.”
Homan joined Martin by eclipsing the century mark, rushing for 115 yards on 14 carries. He made his presence known on the defensive side of the ball too, making seven tackles, most of which were hard hits on Fort Loramie running back Jake Ward. Late in the quarter, Homan hit Ward so hard it knocked his mouthpiece out, and the Redskin senior was slow getting to his feet.
“Their style of offense makes you use all 11 guys to stop the run,” said Niekamp. Ward carried the ball 33 times for 179 yards, a big chunk of which was a 60-yard run around the right edge on the first play from scrimmage.
“Those guys had to be disciplined, make their read and come in and fill their alley hard,” Niekamp said of the defense. “(Homan) did a good job of that.”
Following Ward’s big play that got the Redskins to the Fort Recovery 17, a false start, a facemask and block in the back penalty pushed Fort Loramie back to the 25-yard line. The drive stalled there when Roessner picked off a Nathan Raterman pass in the end zone.
Fort Recovery’s defense buckled down after that, as Fort Loramie only gained 61 yards the remainder of the game.
Curt Grube led the Indians with 11 tackles and Andrew Stocker was second with nine including 1 1/2 in the backfield.
“One thing we always preach is … you can’t let a big play become a score,” Niekamp said. Fort Recovery’s backside corner Davis Will chased down Ward preventing him from reaching the end zone. “You have got to believe that if you can get him down and make them run a few more plays that we can stop them and we did that.”