by TYLER HATHAWAY
ONTARIO CENTER, N.Y— After falling behind late in the first quarter, Wayne (1-1) scored three unanswered touchdowns to finish the half and added two more scores early in the third quarter to pull away in what ended as a 42-14 home victory over Finger Lakes rival Newark/Marion (0-2) on Friday night.
“Right from the get go our biggest thing was dominating in the effort category,” said Wayne head coach Dave Marean. “I thought we did that across the board.”
The win comes after the Eagles fell against Hornell/Arkport-Canaseraga to open the season last week.
“It’s huge,” Marean said of his team responding with a win. “You work your tail off the whole summer long, right? You get so focused as a high school kid on that first game. We needed to respond. If we didn’t respond the way we did, I think it would have been that much more challenging, so I was proud that they lived up to the potential we thought we had.”
Newark/Marion capped off a 50-yard drive with a Nico Salerno touchdown run to take an 8-6 lead nine minutes into the first quarter. The Eagles responded with a quick two-minute drive that ended in a 27-yard run by Tanner Garrow that helped the Eagles retake the lead.
A fourth down stop in their own territory got Wayne the ball back, and then Cody Crandell took over the drive. He amassed 65 rushing yards during the course of the possession and found the endzone from a few yards out to make it 20-8 Eagles.
Crandell was a big piece for Wayne, totaling 165 rushing yards and finding the endzone three times while adding some key tackles for loss to stop the Reds’ offense on pivotal downs. He also recovered a fumble.
“As a leader, he speaks with his pads all the time,” Marean said of his lead back. “He’s a great kid, doesn’t say boo, he just goes to work every day. That one touchdown run was like a man running it the way he got in the endzone and broke those tackles. It was impressive.”
Wayne closed the first half by forcing a three and out, followed by a 37-yard touchdown strike from Brodie Newmyer to Joseph Tumia that brought the halftime score to 28-8.
“Our big philosophy is to have a short term memory,” Marean said of the end of the first half. “The game is such a long game, you can’t dwell on the last play. Otherwise, it’s gonna affect the next play. And I think they really took that to heart, and that was big for us the momentum going into the second half.”
The Eagles flew out of the locker room and took control once again. Lucas Welker made an interception in Reds territory that set up a Crandell score, and the Eagles jumped on a fumble on the ensuing kickoff that led to a 15-yard touchdown by Garrow that quickly extended Wayne’s lead to 42-8.
“The biggest thing we talked about at halftime is to finish,” Marean explained. “It’s not about how you start, but how you finish. We wanted to keep the gas on, keep going, and keep trusting in us. Ignore all the other noise.”
Newmyer completed three of six passes for 60 yards. Garrow finished with nine carries for 96 yards. Wayne finished with over 300 rushing yards.
Salerno found the endzone on the ground again to end a six-minute drive for Newark/Marion for the Reds’ final score of the game. He ended the night with 24 carries for 157 yards. TJ Streeter ran the ball eight times for 61 yards.
Wayne will hit the road to take on Lyons/Sodus (2-0) in Week 3.
“We’ll come in at 8:00 tomorrow, do some aerobics and yoga, watch film,” Marean said of how they will look to keep momentum into their next game. “It was a good night, not a great night because there’s some things we got to do better. We’ll need to get better with a tough Lyons/Sodus team next week that’s had our number the past few years.”
Leave a Reply