By JEFF FISHER
Vigilant/Argus

Kept under wraps – sort of, in the first two games, Cassopolis running back DaShaun Curtis found his share of openings Friday night.

The senior back ran for 204 yards on 19 carries and scored five touchdowns (30, 63, 63, 4, and 15) as Cass scored 30 unanswered points to roll past cross-county rival Edwardsburg 50-37 in the Lakeland Conference football opener for both teams.

The Rangers improve their mark to 3-0 overall and 1-0 in the conference, while the Eddies drop to 0-3 overall and 0-1 in league play.

“He turned it up. We haven’t seen that from him in the first two games, I don’t know what the deal was tonight,” Ranger coach Andy Hubbard said. “I’ve got to somehow get him to do that every week now because the schedule isn’t going to get any easier for us. He has to do  that week-in and week-out.

“We had a great game plan for their (Edwardsburg) offense. It is the first time that I have ever stopped it. This is the best team in the area that runs the wing-T offense. In the second half, special teams was a killer for us and it was my worst performance in years. Offensively I thought we did a good job, we ran hard.”

Eddies’ Austin Stinnett got the visitors on the board first on a 3-yard touchdown run, as the Eddies took an 8-0 lead, but the Rangers matched the Edwardsburg score when quarterback Steven Eleazer found Josh Montgomery from four yards out.

After an Edwardsburg punt, the Rangers struck again when Eleazer found Curtis, who eluded two defenders on his way for a 30-yard touchdown run. Cass went up 14-8.
On the Rangers third possession of the game, and at the Eddies 37-yard line, Curtis busted loose up the middle for 63 yards and a score to put the Rangers up 22-8.

The Ranger defense forced the Eddies to punt again, but Eleazer intercepted the fake punt and Eleazer would run it in from 14 yards to put the hosts up 30-8 at the break.

Two Devin Bywaters touchdown runs of 34 and 25 yards, and the Eddies got within five points (36-31) with 11 minutes to go in the game.

Curtis added another touchdown to make it 42-31.

The Eddies weren’t finished quite yet. On the next play Adam Kendall took the kick off and return for 90 yards to make the score 42-37 with nine minutes to go, but another Curtis touchdown, this time from 15 yards put Cassopolis up 50-37 and took away any hopes of an Eddies upset.

“I told them to hit somebody. The bottom line is that we got out-hit in the first half on both sides of the ball. The second half we were to come out and be real basic and run base plays,” Eddies coach Kevin Bartz said. “It is a sickening performance when they are scoring 50 points. They are a quality football team with great athletes, Curtis ran extremely hard. I am tired of us putting ourselves in situations when we are down early.

Offensively and defensively in the first half we were terrible.”

Devin Bywaters led the Eddies in rushing with 123 yards on 12 carries.

Kyle Ramsey was 8-of-12 passing for 113 yards while Steven Eleazer was 8-of-8 for 113 yards.

Ramsey was in for Frank Majors who suffered a high-ankle sprain earlier.

“Kyle came in and did a tremendous job for us,” Bartz added.

The Rangers finished with 474 total offense, while the Eddies tallied 324.
Stinnett led the Eddies with nine tackles.

Edwardsburg 8 0 16 13 – 37
Cassopolis 8 22 6 14 – 50
E – Austin Stinnett 3 run (Stinnett run)
C – Josh Montgomery 29 pass from Steven Eleazer (Eleazer pass to Jackson Connor)
C – DaShaun Curtis 30 pass from Eleazer (kick failed)
C – Curtis 63 run (Eleazer pass to Tommy First)
C – Eleazer 14 run (Eleazer pass to Connor)
E – Cole Golden 4 pass from Kyle Ramsey (Stinnett run)
C – Curtis 63 run (pass failed)
E – Devin Bywaters 34 run (Golden run)
E – Bywaters 25 run (Jeff Roberson kick)
C – Curtis 4 run (pass failed)
E – Adam Kendall 90 kickoff return (run failed)
C – Curtis 15 run (Eleazer run)