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10/15/05
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Hard-fought victory pushes Tigers to 8-0
Saturday, October 15, 2005 <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>By TODD PORTER
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Scott Heckel Massillon running back Brian Gamble catches a screen pass from quarterback Bobby Huth in the fourth quarter of a key third-down play. Gamble took the pass 31 yards for a first down at the Warren 17. He went on to score from the 8 and give Massillon a 13-0 win over Harding. It was the Tigers’ first win over Warren since 1989.
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MASSILLON - Expectations are sometimes a dangerous thing in Massillon.
Until this year.
Having endured back-to-back 4-6 football seasons, the Tigers weren’t about to settle for more mediocrity. Massillon raised its record to 8-0 with a 13-0 win over Warren Harding in front of more than 9,000 fans Friday.
The Tigers hadn’t beaten Harding since 1989. Friday’s win wasn’t easy, despite the Raiders’ 2-6 record.
“Our (coaches) expectations and the kids’ were different,” Massillon’s first-year head coach Tom Stacy said. “These kids expected a lot. The kids’ expectations were higher than the community’s was before this season.”
That’s quite a statement.
After Massillon was finished grinding out the win, the Tigers’ expectations matched that of Harding head coach Thom McDaniels. The veteran head coach told Stacy after the game he believed Massillon could win 15 games and the school’s first state title since the playoffs began in 1972.
Whoa, big fella.
“That team plays with heart, and with passion,” said McDaniels, whose six losses this year will ensure him of his first losing season in more than 30 years of coaching. “They play with effort. They have their share of talent, too. I just love the way that Massillon Tiger football team plays.”
Harding might have been the best team Massillon has played. Certainly, defensively that argument could be made.
The Tiger offense struggled much of the night and finished with a season-low 197 yards.
“This was like a basketball game where you’re expected to win by 12 or 15 points,” Stacy said. “Then all of a sudden, you have to grind out a 4-point win. That’s what it felt like. I don’t think we were flat. We expected a grudge match, and we got exactly what we thought.”
Massillon’s offense didn’t score a touchdown until the fourth quarter. The Tigers took a 7-0 lead when Andrew Dailey blocked a Harding punt inside the Warren 5. Brian Gamble plucked the ball from the air and returned it 3 yards for a touchdown.
“We thought we could get it with a scheme and Scott Garcia, our special teams coach, did a great job with the call,” Stacy said.
The Tigers offense, which put up 54 last week and 29 against St. Ignatius, went dormant much of the night.
But a defense that has nine straight quarters of shutout football and four shutouts this season, came through. Senior outside linebacker Quenten Paulik epitomized what this season has been like.
The 6-foot-4, 230-pounder switched from quarterback to linebacker in the offseason. Paulik had three tackles for a loss Friday night.
None were bigger than his corral in the fourth quarter.
With plenty of time left, Harding’s offense drove from its 32 to the Massillon 8. On second-and-5, the Raiders tried a wide receiver reverse with Jay Provitt, the state’s sixth-fastest 100-meter runner last year.
“I read it, I saw the fake handoff to the running back, and I saw him coming around,” Paulik said. “I knew he was fast. We scouted that.”
Paulik threw Provitt for an 11-yard loss. Harding, facing third-and-16 from the 19, never recovered.
“We gave (Provitt) the ball going into the wide side of the field and asked a kid to make a play,” McDaniels said. “Their kid made a better one.”
Before that, the Tigers took a 13-0 lead.
Running back Brian Gamble, who finished with 119 of Massillon’s 121 rushing yards, appeared to have scored on fourth-and-goal from the 1. He was 2 yards deep in the end zone, but officials ruled his knee down at the 1-foot line. Gamble accounted for 94 of Massillon’s 124 yards on its final two drives.
He gave the Tigers a 13-0 lead when he went off tackle behind Cory Shane and Kyle Arnold for an 8-yard score.
Perhaps Gamble’s biggest play, aside from his block punt return, came on third-and-9 for the Warren 48. He took a jailbreak screen 31 yards to the 17.
“Big players make big plays in big games,” Stacy said. “He’s a great football player. But this was a team win. Our defense ... I can’t say enough about them.”
The offense did enough to win. The defense, however, is raising expectations.
At least outside the locker room and across the sideline.
Reach Repository sports writer Todd Porter at (330) 580-8340 or e-mail:
todd.porter@cantonrep.com.
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