MILTON – Milton was coming off perhaps one of the biggest wins in program history last week in which it knocked off the state’s all-time winningest program in Mount Carmel for the first time ever.
By contrast, Holy Redeemer entered Friday’s matchup 0-4 and as an inexperienced and overmatched squad compared to the Black Panthers.
The end result was what one might expect for such a mismatch, as Milton scored eight touchdowns on just 20 offensive plays in the first half, and added a special teams touchdown for good measure, en route to a 66-0 win over the Royals.
The win was a bright spot of what was an otherwise less-than-stellar week of practice coming off the big win last week.
“We didn’t have a great week of practice but they came out and got focused,” said Milton coach Curt Zettlemoyer. “It’s easy to have a letdown after a big win like that, but that gave them confidence and they did perform tonight. There are a lot of things we need to work on to keep getting better, though. We need to be able to throw the ball more, we can’t have the penalties we had on special teams and we can’t turn the ball over, so there’s a lot of different areas we need to improve on, even with a win like this.”
By contrast, Holy Redeemer was held to just a single offensive yard in the first half while also committing four turnovers. For the game, the Royals managed just 52 yards of offense and had six turnovers.
“We’re young, we’re starting a lot of freshmen and sophomores and we knew coming in that it was going to be a rough game and a rough season as far as getting the experience for the young guys so that we can build for the future,” said Holy Redeemer coach Tyson Kelly. “What I will give the guys credit for is that they never give up. The best we can do for them is to coach them the best we can and make sure that they’re going to be ready in a year or two.”
The Black Panthers only threw the ball four times on the night and didn’t throw it once after the first quarter, but that was mainly due to having a 27-0 lead after a quarter, despite having only run 11 offensive plays.
Holy Redeemer stopped Milton’s first drive by forcing and recovering a fumble on the Black Panthers’ fifth play from scrimmage. However, that turned out to be Milton’s longest drive of the game in terms of plays. With the outcome already decided, they would put together one more five-play drive late in the game that ended with their only punt, and they also lost another fumble late, but other than those two drives, every other Milton possession in the game ended with a touchdown and also took no more than three plays.
After the lost fumble on their initial drive, Milton proceeded to score on its next nine possessions. Milton’s 20 offensive plays in the first half produced 380 yards – an average of 19 yards per play. For the game, Milton finished with 441 yards. The Black Panthers had five, two-play drives, as well as a pair of both three-play and single-play drives – all of which resulted in touchdowns. They also added a punt return for a touchdown in between.
Cale Bastian opened the scoring with a seven-yard touchdown following a 37-yard run by Montgomery Fisher to make it 7-0 at the 7:45 mark of the first quarter.
Chris Doyle capped another two-play drive with a 10-yard touchdown run that followed a 50-yard pickup on a screen pass from Bastian to Luke Goodwin.
Bastian then hit Doyle on a screen that Doyle turned into a 41-yard touchdown reception for a single-play touchdown drive. Bastian connected with Peyton Rearick for a 29-yard touchdown on Milton’s next drive, which was also a single-play possession, to make it 27-0 at the end of the first quarter.
That would be the final pass of the night for Bastian, who threw for 120 yards on just three completions on four attempts.
Lucas Ditty returned a punt 33 yards for a touchdown on the second play of the second quarter to make it 34-0.
It was then time for Fisher to rack up the majority of his yards on the ground on the night, as he received four consecutive carries over two different drives, turning both of them into touchdowns on two plays each – one from five yards out, and the other a burst up the middle for 90 yards. He led the way for Milton’s ground attack with 149 yards on just six carries.
Fisher’s classmate, Jaeden Canelo also added a pair of touchdown runs from eight and 18 yards out, respectively, later in the game, and he finished with 102 yards on just six carries.
“It’s never as good as you think and it’s never as bad as you think until you look at it on film, so we’ll take a look and see where we’re at,” said Zettlemoyer. “You want to come out of a game like this healthy, you want to work on those little things that we focused all week on and we want to see it come to light on Friday night, which we did.”
The Royals were unable to muster a first down in the first half and Milton held them to just one offensive yard in the half, and just 52 yards for the game. Holy Redeemer did manage to knock on the door of the end zone late, getting the ball down to the Milton 1-yard line with under a minute to go in the game. But the Black Panthers preserved the shutout when Thomas Dugan was picked off for the fifth time on the evening, which was the Royals’ sixth turnover of the night.
“One thing that’s hard to coach is effort, but these guys gave plenty of effort tonight,” said Kelly. “We do our best to motivate these guys to be disciplined every down. If guys continue giving us the effort like they did tonight and they really care about being here and getting better, the wins will come in the future. It’s just a matter of teaching them the right way now.”
Milton 66, Holy Redeemer 0
Holy Redeemer (0-5) 0 0 0 0 – 0
Milton (4-1) 27 33 6 0 – 66
First quarter
7:45 – (M) Cale Bastian 7-yard run (Lopez kick), 2-44, :37
5:09 – (M) Chris Doyle 10-yard run (Lopez kick), 2-60, :44
3:08 – (M) Chris Doyle 41-yard pass from Cale Bastian (Lopez kick), 1-41, :15
1:18 – (M) Peyton Rearick 29-yard pass from Cale Bastian (kick failed), 1-29, :10
Second quarter
11:08 – (M) Lucas Ditty 33-yard punt return (Lopez kick)
9:06 – (M) Montgomery Fisher 5-yard run (run failed), 2-19, :49
7:22 – (M) Montgomery Fisher 90-yard run (Lopez kick), 2-93, :22
4:08 – (M) Jaeden Canelo 8-yard run (Lopez kick), 3-45, 1:16
2:18 – (M) Chase Lytle 15-yard run (run failed), 2-16, :55
Third quarter
7:42 – (M) Jaeden Canelo 18-yard run (run failed), 3-70, 2:07
Statistics
HR M
First downs 4 18
Rushes-net yards 28-14 28-321
Passing yardage 38 120
Passing 7-23-0-5 3-4-2-0
Fumbles-lost 3-1 3-2
Penalties-yards 4-25 9-60
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING: Holy Redeemer: Thomas Dugan (14-(-1)), Ryan Gavin (11-5), DJ McDermott (2-10), Mike Zbierski (1-0); Milton: Chris Doyle (7-31-1), Jaeden Canelo (6-102-2), Montgomery Fisher (5-149-2), Chase Lytle (4-22-1), Cale Bastian (2-19-1), Cale Walter (2-12), Gavin Whitenight
(1-6), TEAM (1-(-20))
PASSING: Holy Redeemer: Thomas Dugan (7-23-38-0-5); Milton: Cale Bastian (3-4-120-2-0)
RECEIVING: Holy Redeemer: Mike Zbierski (3-(-6)), DJ McDermott (2-7), Michael Debaskas (1-39), Tristan Block (1-(-2)); Milton: Luke Goodwin (1-50), Chris Doyle (1-41-1), Peyton Rearick (1-29-1)
