Ringgold football runs to shutout of Yough

By: Jeremy Sellew
Friday, September 3, 2021 | 11:44 PM

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Ringgold coach Darwin Manges was looking for his Rams to build confidence after last week’s tough loss to Elizabeth Forward.

After a dominating display in Friday’s game against Yough at Joe Montana Stadium, Manges and his Rams are full of confidence.

The offense was firing on all cylinders, and the defense was overpowering as Ringgold rolled to a 40-0 nonconference win over the Cougars.

The rushing attack racked up 368 yards behind an offensive line that continuously leaned on a young Cougars front.

“After scoring on the opening drive, we felt like we set the tone and you could see the confidence build,” Manges said. “We were disciplined to the point we only had to throw the ball three times and were able to run everything out of our base formation.”

The Ringgold offensive attack featured the three-headed monster of Landon Oslowski, Brayden Fine and John Polefko.

Oslowski and Fine each carried the ball eight times and scored a touchdown. Oslowski led the way with 129 yards, and Fine finished with 117. When one of them wasn’t gashing the Yough defense, it was Polefko banging and bullying his way straight through the heart of the Cougars.

Polefko toted the rock 11 times for 78 yards and three touchdowns.

“We have three or four kids that can take the ball to the house from anywhere on the field,” Manges said. “And last week they were disappointed. They felt they had EF on the ropes, and that game could have gone any way.”

The Rams opened the game with a seven-play, 64-yard drive that ended with a 1-yard plunge by Polefko. The big play of the drive was a 36-yard strike from Deondre Dotson to Fine.

The defense picked up its first turnover when Donte Kinds intercepted a Gavin Roebuck pass attempt. One play later, Polefko ran over a host of Yough tacklers on his way to a 14-yard touchdown.

“All those guys are different types of runners, and John will run you down just to run over you,” Manges said. “He’s such a strong runner.”

Just 1 minute, 16 seconds into the second quarter, the Rams added to their lead with Oslowski racing 36 yards for his first score of the game. His extra-point attempt was wide, which left the score at 20-0.

The Rams forced another punt, which was fielded by Fine. It looked as if he was going to return it for a score, but he was ruled out of bounds just in front of the end zone. Polefko finished it off for him with another 1-yard plunge as the lead swelled to 27-0.

“This is what happens when you have such a young team,” Yough coach Chris Chunko said. “They were bigger and stronger than us at the point of attack, and they really leaned on our defensive front. This is going to be a great film for us to watch and learn from our mistakes.”

Chunko was proud of the fact his players never quit, and they limited the damage by picking up two turnovers on defense as the Rams were driving late in the second quarter.

Their lone slip up was a Fine 65-yard touchdown run that pushed the Rams (1-1) to a 34-0 lead at the half.

“Offensively, we’re firmly entrenched with what we want to do,” Manges said. “Defensively is what we’ve really been working on, and we really started to see tonight that the kids have bought into seeing the open and closed windows. Our linebackers were just running downhill all night and were really making some good hits.”

After Yough started the second half with a three-and-out, the Rams invoked the mercy rule when Maddox Sukel capped off a 72-yard drive with a 6-yard touchdown run.

The Cougars (0-2) were barely able to move the ball on offense, with minus-15 yards rushing. For the game, Yough totaled 34 yards of offense.

“We had to throw, so we went to the screen game and the short game. I thought that worked OK,” Chunko said. “We just couldn’t do much against that defense.”

Roebuck completed 8 of 19 passes for 49 yards.

“Any time you can force a team into doing something they’re not comfortable with, you’re on the right path,” Manges said. “We did that tonight by taking their run game out of it.

“It’s feels a lot better to be sitting here at 1-1 instead of 0-2. We’re going to use this win as something to build on and see if we can make it 2-1 next week.”

The Rams hit the road to face South Allegheny on Friday, and the Cougars will host Trinity.

Tags: Ringgold, Yough