Canton McKinley suffers setback in penalty marred contest
By Keno Sultan
C-Town Radio announcer and statistician
CANTON--Penalties are the biggest peeve of any high school football head coach.
Multiple penalties are bound to eventually vault a coach over the edge.
Friday night, that is exactly what occurred at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium as Canton McKinley looked nowhere near the team they were from last week in a 33-14 dismantling of Warren Harding as they were repeatedly short-circuited by hordes of penalties that eventually caught up to them in a 28-7 setback to Avon in their home opener.
Avon had their series of penalties as well but it was a big fourth quarter that propelled them to victory as running backs Tyler Kaufmann and Jakorion Caffey both scored touchdowns to turn an otherwise competitive football game at 14-7 into a three-touchdown triumph.
For 17th year Eagles head coach Mike Elder, his team has always been a contender in Division II. Elder always has had his teams on the verge of a trip to Benson Stadium but their season always stalled a game short of the state final. Although the state finals are only 14 weeks away, Elder had a reason to enjoy his first trip to Canton and hopes there is a second one awaiting them in 14 weeks assuming they do not run into construction roadblocks in either Akron Hoban or Massillon Washington, two teams that have ended the Eagles season repeatedly and used them as springboards for state championship contests in 2018 and 2020 respectively.
What impressed Elder the most was his defense as for the second straight week, they only yielded seven points.
"They did a good job of understanding their roles within the defense and we played good team defense and our guys just don't freelance, they are expected to be in places and they are disciplined guys. Because of that, they are playing well," he said of his team's second straight stellar performance on defense.
It was the Eagles second offensive series that got them on the scoreboard. Spanning 12 plays, the visitors converted three fourth down situations that eventuall ended with Caffey scoring the first of his two touchdown runs and an early 7-0 lead.
It remained that way until McKinley's offense finally ascended on their fourth possession when highly touted junior running back Nino Hill plowed his way for a hard two-yard touchdown run to issue McKinley some much needed momentum with 9:33 left before the intermission and a tie score at 7-7.
That momentum didn't last long when for the second straight week in a row, McKinley yielded a touchdown to end the first half when Eagles quarterback Nolan Good threw a 26 yard touchdown pass to Cole Kepner, who got behind a Bulldog defensive back with 29 seconds remaining to hand the Eagles a 14-7 lead they repossessed and maintained.
McKinley overcame that situation last week. That wasn't the case this time. And no one was more frustrated about that than Hall himself.
"It was poor execution. We had drive stallers and penalties, we just didn't get the job done," he said tersely.
McKinley actually had a chance to edge closer to the Eagles in the third quarter but two dropped passes that had touchdown spelled on them and then a sack on fourth down impaled their chances severely as the second half dwindled away.
Not coming away with a score after a botched Avon punt loomed large. When asked if momentum may have swung their way had they converted one of those for a touchdown, Hall attested he didn't know largely because of his team's failure to convert.
"You really don't know, you would think that would change something. You just don't know because it didn't happen. So there is a lot of football we wish we could get back," he said. "It all starts with me, we have to make those corrections and come back better next week."
"Our defense made some crucial stops. We had two holding penalties and a shanked punt and all the momentum was on their side and we talked about trying to get that back and I think our defensive coordinator Jared Cecchetti and our defense played lights out and this victory goes to them tonight," said Elder of the third quarter. "It was tough sledding offensively tonight because of the penalties and those were hard to overcome but in the fourth quarter when the game was on the line, the defense made some crucial stops and we were finally able to grind it out with our run game. For our defense to play the way they did, I'm so proud of them and we leaned on our offensive line and our backs of Kaufmann and Caffey to close it out."
For McKinley, they will have to look into the mirror and see what kind of team they want to be. With Federal League play on the horizon, they do not want to be on a two-game losing streak as they travel to Dublin Coffman, who defeated Centerville 22-14 at press time. Coffman stifled McKinley 28-26 last season by draining the final eight minutes off the clock that left many players in tears as they took a frustrating loss.
Hall is interested to see how his team will respond after the penalty filled madness that engulfed his legion of Bulldogs.
"We have to clean up all of our mistakes on both sides of the ball and we have to be able to control the ball offensively and not have things blow up in our face with penalties on both sides," he said.
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