WELLSVILLE — When Tayton Driskel broke through the Wellsville line and bolted forward for 12 yards on the what was left to a chewed up, muddy field in Wellsville, Iola coaches, fans and players got a glimpse of what they had hoped to see plenty of on Friday night.
The offensive line opened the hole and Driskel was able to run north and south against a Wellsville defense — that while it hadn’t surrendered many points in the first two games of the season — they had been hurt in the running game.
Unfortunately, it was the first run of its kind in the game for Iola — it gave the team it’s initial first down of the game with the clock reading 2:02 in the fourth quarter.
The Eagles stifled the Mustangs’ offense for the entire game and it began in the trenches, where the bigger Eagles linemen were able to control the line of scrimmage and
force Driskel to have to make moves in the backfield to avoid losses and with the field conditions being poor, that made making moves tougher for the sophomore tailback.
“(Wellsville) was one game away from the state title game (last year,” Mustang coach Doug Kerr said. “That is not because they score points, it is because of their defense. They pride themselves on tough defense. Whether you are the 50th man on the roster or their best player, they attack and play defense.
“We knew it coming in and I tried nine or 10 different formations and it didn’t matter, because at the point of attack, we were getting physically beat and we are going to have to fix that in order to be successful.”
Ben Cooper also struggled to get anything going and ended up on his back on a majority of his passing attempts. The lack of time for Cooper to throw also limited the Mustangs’ ability to throw downfield to their big-play targets Ethan Holloway and Joey Zimmerman.
“It is very, very simple,” Kerr said. “They pride themselves on being an attack style defense and it wasn’t anything we hadn’t talked about all week. I just don’t think they grasped how intense and physical those guys play. They are a physical team.”
The only passes that the Mustangs were able to complete, prior to the final drive, were short passes to fullback Chase Regehr with the longest of those resulting in a 2-yard gain.
“I threw the kitchen sink at them and it was just a physical, after-the-snap, meltdown,” Kerr said. “It wasn’t pre-snap it wasn’t on paper. We had things open all night that knew we could hit on them… Now I am going to work on installing toughness on our kids.”
The hits also took a physical toll on Cooper who ended up leaving the game for A series late in the second quarter after taking a number of vicious shots.
The Iola defense started the game off well and frustrated Wellsville senior quarterback Trajen Smith into multiple errant throws. The signal-caller also was responsible for at least one of Wellsville’s unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
But the defense wore down as the game rolled on and had to contend with the punishing running style of 235-pound running back Daryon Winton. Winton combined with Wellsville’s other primary back, Reece Williams, helped lead the offense to 171 yards rushing.
Once the defense was exhausted from the punishing ground game, Smith was able to get the passing game rolling with several deep passes to his speedy pass catchers Braden Crist, Alex Hosford and Williams.
