Sunday, November 21, 1999

Local boys make good

By Dave Feltner
Sports Editor

LIMA &emdash; Of all the scenarios played out in the minds of Calvert players, coaches and fans during the week, this one probably never made conscious thought.

That's probably why it hurts so much.

If you use their previous 25 football games as a measuring stick, something happened to the Senecas Saturday night that just plain defies logic &emdash; they got pushed around.

Marion Local running back Travis Unrast rushed for 205 of the Flyers' 286 yards, and quarterback Mitch Knapke was a near-perfect 13-of-16 passing for 237 yards and three touchdowns. That type of domination added up to a 38-12 victory and a regional championship for Marion Local.

"Their competition made them a better team," Calvert coach Toby Hammond said. "I think that's pretty obvious. You can really see that. They took it right to us. They ran right at some of our younger kids on defense, as anyone with any brains would do."

It was part of an exploitation that allowed the Flyers (10-3) to break off scoring plays of 43, 85 and 84 yards against a Calvert defense which had been giving up just 169 yards per game.

"We're not overly big, but we've got pretty good size and we're a physical team," said Flyers coach Tim Goodwin, the Northwest District coach of the year. "We just kind of go out there, feel things out and see what's going to be successful for us on that particular night and then go from there."

Against the Senecas, it was pretty much what ever they wanted to do.

Knapke's first pass of the game was a 15-yarder to Brian J. Wolters (six catches, 175 yards, three TDs), who broke a tackle and scooted 43 yards for a touchdown. The first of five Brad Heckman PATs gave the Flyers a 7-0 lead with 2:33 left in the first quarter.

Calvert responded two drives later with an eight-play, 55-yard march that culminated in Nate Keller's 79th and final career touchdown pass, a 6-yarder to Eric Lee. The snap on the conversion went awry and Calvert trailed 7-6.

From there, it was all Flyers.

Marion Local started its next drive on its own 39 and moved to the Calvert 10 on 11 consecutive running plays. Knapke followed with his only pass of the drive, a 6-yarder to Wolters, and two plays later Aaron Winner plowed in from the 3 on a fourth-and-1 play to put the Flyers up, 14-6 with 3:07 left in the half.

The drive covered 61 yards in 14 plays and chewed up seven minutes on the clock.

"I was afraid they'd be able to control the ball on us," Calvert coach Toby Hammond said. "I knew they could run the ball well, but I didn't think they'd be able to break the big plays on us like they did.

"They blocked really well, and (Unrast) ran pretty hard, but we didn't tackle very well. We missed a lot of tackles."

Calvert stalled on its next possession, and Local blew the game open when the Senecas called a pair of timeouts late in the half, hoping to get the ball back and get a quick score before the end of the half.

But on third-and-4 from Knapke hit Wolters on a medium-range route. Wolters turned up the sideline, avoided a diving tackle attempt by Dustyn Risner and went 85 yards for a touchdown and a 21-6 lead.

If that opened the floodgates, the Senecas got swept away by the undertow when they failed to move the ball or take any time off the clock on their final possession of the first half.

And after an interference penalty by Calvert on the ensuing punt, Local was up nicely at the Calvert 45 with 51 seconds left.

From there, Knapke hit Wolters for 18 yards, then Adam Grieshop for 11 and then 9. Two plays later he found Wolters for a 7-yard score and a 28-6 lead with six seconds left in the half.

Thanks to a blitzkrieg first half in which the Flyers rolled up 295 yards of offense, Hammond had to pull out a halftime speech he's not accustomed to making.

"I honestly thought things weren't too out of hand at halftime," Hammond said. "I thought if we could just get a few stops, gain some confidence, and put some points on the board, that we could get right back in it.

"But as it turned out, we couldn't stop them, and we never got our passing game going."

Instead, it was they Flyers who kept rolling.

A 40-yard kickoff return by Unrast to start the second half eventually led to a 22-yard field goal by Heckman.

Calvert managed just one first down on its next possession, and after a punt pinned Local at its own 11, Unrast delivered the kill shot.

On second-and-5 from the 16, Unrast bounced off right tackle and right up the Calvert sidelines for an 84-yard scoring sprint and a 38-6 lead.

Calvert's Bart Fisher provided one last lick for Calvert, when he returned the following kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown. Fisher also hit a major milestone in the game when he grabbed four passes for 78 yards, giving him a state-record 2,596 for his career.

"If you've seen our games this year, you know that we're capable of breaking the big play," Goodwin said. "We like to control the ball, but when we have to we can throw pretty well. Wolters has been making those plays all year.

"There are some pretty good players on (Calvert's) defense, so I was a little surprised that we popped so many."

It's a scenario that caught everyone by surprise.