MOUNTAIN TOP — On a night where he ran for more than 100 yards and scored a pair of touchdowns, the biggest play Western Wayne’s Josh Vinton made Friday came when he didn’t have the football in his hands.
The Wildcats’ senior ran from his own end zone toward Crestwood ballcarrier Jaden Shedlock as the quarterback was wrapped up at the 1-yard line. With Shedlock falling forward but not yet down, Vinton delivered a hard, clean hit which kept Shedlock from getting into the end zone.
The fourth-down hit left the Comets with a scoreless first half trailing by a couple touchdowns. The momentum Crestwood had gained on the nine-play, 62-yard drive was washed away because it didn’t pick up that 63rd yard.
Crestwood didn’t threaten to score again until the game’s result was in hand. Western Wayne moved to 4-0 for the first time since 2019 with a 21-0 victory at Crestwood Stadium.
“That was a momentum-killer for sure,” Crestwood coach Ryan Arcangeli said. “Give them credit. That’s what good teams do.”
Vinton prepared all offseason for a moment like that goalline collision, Wildcats coach Shane Grodack said. He’s not just a two-way player, but a three-way player who is contributing on offense, defense and special teams.
Vinton, who is averaging more than 20 carries a game through four weeks, had 29 more last night for 140 yards and a touchdown. He also caught a screen pass for a 55-yard touchdown. And a week after recording a fourth-quarter pick-six, he came up with another stellar defensive play.
“There are few kids I’ve seen in my years of coaching who worked as hard as he did in the offseason to mentally and physically prepare himself for this season,” Grodack said. “There’s times we’ll pull him out of the game and give him a blow, but in a game like this that’s this tight, we have to have our 11 best on the field.”
Believe it or not, despite the final numbers, Crestwood’s defense did quite the admirable job against Vinton last night. More than half of his 140 rushing yards came on Western Wayne’s first scoring drive after a Sean Owens interception.
Vinton carried eight times in a 10-play drive following Owens’ interception, and he accounted for 78 of the 84 yards, including the final 19 to put the Wildcats up 7-0.
But after that possession in which Vinton averaged 9.75 yards a carry, the Comets held him to just 2.95 yards per carry over his final 21 totes.
“Hat’s off to Crestwood. They made some goof plays and they played good defense,” Grodack said. “They came to hit. They stymied a couple drives.
“We had grit. It was nothing to do with a lack of grit,” Arcangeli said. “(Vinton) is exceptional and I thought we did as good a job as we could do between the tackles on that guy.”
In fact, on the next series when Western Wayne got into a third-and-long situation, they still went to Vinton, but in a much different manner. The Wildcats rolled quarterback John Pyatt to his left before throwing a screen back to the right. Vinton caught the pass with a convoy of offensive linemen in front of him. He needed to make just one cut at about the Crestwood 20-yard line to finish off a 55-yard catch-and-run which put the Wildcats up 14-0.
“We made an adjustment to try and stop the rollout, and it’s just a great adjustment from Western Wayne,” Arcangeli said. “That’s on (the coaches), not the kids. The kids played it aggressively, and we have to do a better job of telling the kids on the back side to stay home.”
That 14 point lead was more than enough for Western Wayne as the Wildcats turned away Crestwood’s offense multiple times. Despite running for 239 yards as a team, Crestwood was turned away on downs at the Western Wayne 36-yard line when it was stopped on fourth-and-1 early in the second quarter. Some 6 minutes later, Vinton kept Shedlock from falling into the end zone.
“Any time you have a goalline stop in high school football, it’s critical,” Grodack said. “We got ourselves in position and we had to rise up and do it. Our defense is playing outstanding.”
Even with the game having been decided late in the fourth quarter, Owens made a brilliant tackle in the backfield on fourth-and-goal from the Wildcats 6-yard line to all but end the game.
“We’re not trusting the call all the time (in the red zone),” Arcangeli said. “It’s a characteristic of young kids in certain positions. We’ll block two plays good, then we block one really bad. It’s inconsistency over the base of our offense and we have to get better with that.”
Western Wayne 21, Crestwood 0
Western Wayne 14 0 0 7 – 21
Crestwood 0 0 0 0 – 0
First quarter
WW—Josh Vinton 19 run (Jacob Wells kick), 3:33
WW—Vinton 55 pass from John Pyatt (Wells kick), :14
Fourth quarter
WW—James Jimenez 12 pass from Pyatt (Wells kick), 6:13
WW CRE
First downs 14 15
Rushes-yds 34-149 48-239
Com-att-int 7-13-1 2-7-1
Pass yards 154 13
Total yards 303 252
Fumbles-lost 2-0 0-0
Penalties-yards 6-50 7-50
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing—Western Wayne, Josh Vinton, 29-140, TD; Sean Owens, 1-12; James Jimenez, 1-1; Vinny Silon, 1-(-1); Team, 1-(-1); John Pyatt, 1-(-2). Crestwood, Jaden Shedlock, 18-134; Jacob Jeckell, 11-31; Matthew Bealla, 5-25; Colin Lazo, 7-19; Giovanni Barna, 3-14; Jack Rodgers, 1-9; Nate Walsh, 2-7; Dylan Bellas, 1-0.
Passing—Western Wayne, Pyatt, 7-13-1, 154 yds., 2 TDs. Crestwood, Shedlock, 1-3-1, 11 yds.; Rodgers, 1-3-0, 2 yds.; Barna, 0-1-0.
Receiving—Western Wayne, Owens, 4-76; Vinton, 1-55, TD; Jimenez, 1-12, TD; Silon, 1-11. Crestwood, Rodgers, 1-11; Emmett Seyer, 1-2.
INTERCEPTIONS—Western Wayne, Sean Owens; Crestwood, Jack Rodgers.
RECORDS: Crestwood (1-3); Western Wayne (4-0).
