Astounding athleticism: Galion's speed too much for Wynford to contain in season opener

GALION — Coach Matt Dick expected his Galion Tigers to start the season strong.

Then again, he did last year, too. Instead the Tigers had their hands full at Wynford coming away with a one-score win thanks to a pair of special teams touchdowns.

Hosting Wynford on Thursday, a new-look Galion — having graduated a very special senior class of 13 — struck early and often in a 49-13 win in Week 1.

"We had a good week of practice," Dick said. "I think I expected (this). I probably expected it last year, too, we just had a little bit nicer weather. When you have a senior quarterback, it makes it easy. But hats off to Ayden Schmidt getting to play that first series … for him to go down and throw a touchdown pass is pretty awesome."

Schmidt started under center and completed three passes, one of which a 33-yard strike to Jacob Chambers to open the scoring. Prosser came back in after the Tigers recovered a fumble on the kickoff and doubled the score on a 10-yard rush. Wynford would respond with a Brayden Campbell to Anthony Evans wheel route for 33 yards.

But that's the closest it would get as Prosser hit Chambers for a 24-yard touchdown, then ran another one in from 22 yards out, before hitting Chambers again with a 25-yard strike. At the half, Galion led 34-7 with Chambers having eight receptions for 121 yards and three touchdowns.

"We have a lot of explosive kids," Dick said. "Jacob Chambers is pretty explosive, Alan Carver, Braxton Prosser … and then we have three or four running backs. We just have a lot of depth, and we just kept subbing them in and out. Coaches did a good job keeping everybody fresh. There's a lot of new faces that can make a lot of plays. And to be honest with you, there's still a couple freshmen I think could probably mix in and make some plays as well.

"We're blessed to have a lot of guys that once they touch the ball, they make big plays. Chambers, whenever he touches the ball, I bet about 50% of the time he's gonna score touchdown. This year, we're just gonna spread the ball around a little bit more, keep guys fresh with how we're subbing — I think it's going to pay dividends."

With so many new faces, there were questions that needed answered entering the season. Notably, how would the Tigers handle losing so much size up front?

Easy, with athleticism and patience.

"We didn't know what to expect, especially with this young of a team," Chambers said. "A lot of new kids, but everyone's really stepping up and playing. It's just a lot of learning."

Sam Evans rushed in from 23 yards out, Kale Early did the same from 20 yards, and a 4-yard run by Wynford's Anthony Evans capped off the scoring on the night.

"Galion is a great football team, they do some really good things on offense," Wynford coach Cyle Skidmore said. "They put their kids in the right position to be explosive and make big plays, and obviously they did that tonight. I thought they controlled the line of scrimmage up front and that's something our kids have to learn. You can't show up and think you're going to control the line of scrimmage.

"We can get better from this and we can learn from it, that's all we can do in that situation."

What was most impressive about Galion controlling the line, was that is where the Tigers had the least amount of experience.

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"Our O-line is not super huge," Dick said. "A kid like Zach Sallee is probably 6-foot, 200 pounds, but he runs a 4.5 (second) 40. He's just a freak human being. He doesn't look like the 6-4, 280 tackle, but he plays like one.

"And it's all through the line. Michael Drake, Sam Estep, Luke Garverick, Cameron Kuehlman, Jacob Martin, all those guys have played above our initial expectation through the first two scrimmages and one game.

"But it only gets tougher (from here)."

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This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Astounding athleticism: Galion's speed too much for Wynford to contain in season opener