Toledo Christian remained unbeaten in a convincing way on Friday night.
The Eagles scored touchdowns on their first nine possessions, held a short-handed Holgate team to negative yardage in the first half, and cruised to a 62-0 victory in an 8-man football game at Bowsher’s Charles W. Matthews Stadium.
“Preparation’s huge,” Toledo Christian coach Andrew Skeels said. “Holgate’s a team that over the summer, we’ll practice against them. They’re kind of our rivals in the last few years, so we are really prepared for them, just like them for us.
“They were short-handed today, but they always prepare well. Defensively, I think we were able to hit the quarterback and it kind of hurt them not having their starter in there. But our defensive line, we kind of try to set the tone.”
Toledo Christian improved to 7-0 (5-0 Northern 8 Football Conference) with its third shutout of the season. The Eagles have outscored their opponents 346-35.
Holgate suffered its first loss of the season in falling to 6-1 (4-1).
“For the situation we were in this week, I thought our guys really handled the adversity. We rolled in with, basically Wednesday, trying to put together an offense,” Holgate coach Colton Wagner said. “We didn’t have either one of our quarterbacks tonight, our running backs, we didn’t have both of our running backs.
“So we had some guys that needed to step up.”
Toledo Christian found the end zone on all eight first half possessions in taking a 56-0 lead. The Eagles started in Holgate territory on seven drives; the only drive they didn’t was still in great position at their own 49.
Toledo Christian had 201 yards in the first half and held Holgate to minus-9. Overall, the Eagles had a 261-24 advantage in total yards and held the Tigers to two first downs.
“We just have a team that’s hungry to compete,” said Toledo Christian senior defensive lineman Jason O’Neil, who had multiple sacks and tackles for loss. “Honestly, Holgate’s my favorite team to play because they compete, and we compete too, and it’s just a blast every time.”
Toledo Christian quarterback Tyler Grace threw for 165 yards and five touchdowns on 11 of 14 passing, and he also added a rushing touchdown. Karter Koester tallied six receptions for 37 yards and three touchdowns, while Drew Lachmiller rushed for 45 yards and two scores on seven carries.
Josiah Hillrich (three catches for 76 yards) and Sam Anderson (two for 39) both had a receiving touchdown as well for the Eagles.
“We knew going in, they’ve got a bunch of studs on there,” Wagner said. “You can try to take away one, but they’ve got four other guys that are going to do something with that ball.”
Field position proved to be critical as well. Holgate started every possession inside its own 35 and never got into Toledo Christian territory.
“We were over there every time because we have a great kicker, Landen Shaffer, who got [multiple] touchbacks,” O’Neil said. “He’s kicking it great, and then that gives us the opportunity to not worry. I can fly around more at defensive end because I’m not worried about the red zone. So it just opens me up to run fast and hit hard.”
Isaac Mendoza’s 13-yard run in the second quarter and quarterback Kaiden Giesige’s 12-yard run in the fourth were the only Holgate offensive plays that went more than 10 yards.
Toledo Christian will look to continue its winning ways when it faces another unbeaten team next week at Sandusky St. Mary Central Catholic (6-0).
“That’s kind of been our goal since last year when we lost a couple games early. We’ve been on a roll since then,” Skeels said. “We talk about momentum all the time, and we were kind of worried coming off a bye week [last week] how our momentum would keep going. But our guys answered the call.”
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