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Owls soar over visiting Lions
- Updated: November 7, 2015
Mount Healthy, Oh. – The Mount Healthy Owls advanced to the second round of the Division III playoffs Friday night with a 46 – 27 win over the New Richmond Lions at The Owls Nest in our US Marines Battle of the Gridiron Series match-up.
Mount Healthy coach Arvie Crouch / photo by Michael Noyes
Mount Healthy (8-3) led by a single point at halftime 21-20, before separating themselves in the second half to coast to the 19-point victory.
The Owls were once again led by their senior quarterback David Montgomery, who ran the ball 26 times for 305 yards and five touchdowns. However, it was a team win for him.
POST-GAME INTERVIEWS
—Arvie Crouch, Mount Healthy
—David Montgomery, Mount Healthy
—Onyango Collier, Mount Healthy
“It’s a 22-player game and I can’t run the ball by myself, I love my team and my line did everything for me and my slots and wide outs, without them there would be no me,” said Montgomery.
Mount Healthy’s success has been largely due to Montgomery, as this was his seventh game with more than 200 yards rushing this year and his season total through eleven games is 2,532 yards.
New Richmond (7-4) was able to hang in the game behind its own playmaker, senior running back Michael Williamson, who had 197 yards from scrimmage and all four of the Lions’ touchdowns.
“He was really good, I didn’t like seeing him making all those plays of course, I’ve got a lot of respect for him and that whole team played hard and brought their A game,” said head coach Arvie Crouch.
The Lions were ultimately undone by their five turnovers and an Owls’ defense that just played a little better in the second half.
“It was rough in the beginning and there was a lot of arguing and impatience with each other but there were no adjustments at all, just teamwork,” said senior defensive lineman Onyango Collier.
Coach Crouch agreed that the second-half performance was mostly based on better fundamentals.
“There wasn’t really any adjustments we just wanted to clean up some things, we need to tackle when we were there, we’ve been a second half team all year long,” said Crouch.
The Lions appeared to fear the return game of Mount Healthy and never kicked the ball deep on kick offs so the Owls benefitted from great field position in the game as their first two possessions started in New Richmond territory as did their final two scoring drives.
Neither team accomplished much through the air as there were just 125 passing yards in the game on eight completions, compared to 525 yards on the ground.
Mount Healthy racked up yardage and points on several big plays, with four of its seven scoring drives taking around a minute or less on three or fewer plays each.
After never winning a home playoff game prior to 2013, Mount Healthy has now won at home in the first round of the postseason three years in a row, however it was a bittersweet moment for the senior class as this was their final game at The Owls Nest.
“It’s sad because you always want more games and you never want something good to end,” said Collier.
New Richmond now turns the page to 2016 while Mount Healthy will take on the number one seeded Wapakoneta (11-0) next Friday in the Region 10 bracket with the site yet to be determined.
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