Rangers fall to Eddies, 24-7
Published 3:38 am Thursday, October 30, 2008
By By JEFF FISHER / Vigilant/Argus
EDWARDSBURG – It took until the second quarter, but after that the game was well in hand for Edwardsburg.
The host Eddies shocked the visiting Cassopolis Rangers with a 17-point fourth quarter and went on to a 24-7 home victory, at Leo Hoffman Field, to close out the regular season.
With the victory, the Eddies improve to 5-4 overall and 5-2 in the Lakeland Conference, good enough for third place while the Rangers, in a three game skid, fall to 6-3 overall and 4-3 in the league.
"To end with a win against Cassopolis, going 5-4 gives us momentum going into next season and with what the seniors did tonight is going to carry-over big time. It makes it easier to go the next nine months with a win in your back pocket," Eddies coach Kevin Bartz said.
The grind-it-out style Edwardsburg usually employs also worked against Cass.
After Edwardsburg's Wade Smous started the scoring with a 32-yard up the middle run early in the second quarter, the Rangers responded with a 10-play drive that took over five minutes off the clock. The drive consisted of runs by Kyle Haithcox of 30-yards and Steven Eleazer for 22-yards setting up a Haithcox run from 1-yard out, to even the scoring.
With less than a minute to go in the first half, Smous busted for a 35-yard run that set up a Brian Sevison 31-yard field goal to give the hosts a 10-7 lead at the half.
"That was huge going in late, we were backed up with a minute to go, Smous breaks up the middle, and we knew if we got down there or even close we are in good shape," Bartz commented on the late field goal.
The Eddies would finish off the Rangers in the fourth quarter that saw touchdown runs of 10- and 57-yards from Jimmy Burghduf to put the Eddies up 24-7 to complete the scoring.
Burghduf rushed for 89 yards on six carries and also registered 10 tackles.
Wade Smous was the Eddies leading ground gainer with 151 yards on 14 carries and one touchdown. As a team, the Eddies rushed for 345 yards.
"Smous is so effective because he is slow and he can use his 5.2 speed to his advantage in this offense. It was a complete job on both sides of the ball," Bartz added.
"We still haven't cleaned up the mistakes, we have to clean them up. I thought defensively we did a good job in the first half. They (Edwardsburg) found a weakness in the second half and they started to give the ball more to the halfback and then we had mistakes and you can't do that against that offense," Ranger coach Andy Hubbard said. "We have to get over the hump and we talked about it this week at practice, and if we don't clean up the mistakes it is not going to happen. We just have to get back on track."
The Eddies defense rose to the occasion.
The defensive line held the Rangers to 204 rushing yards and held quarterback Nick Davis in check. Davis was 3-of-7 for 28 yards and was sacked three times.
"The defense was definitely huge for us tonight. It was four quarters of great defense by us. Offensively it was what they gave us," Bartz added.
The Rangers were without their leading rusher DaShaun Curtis. Curtis suffered a high ankle sprain last week against Coloma.
Cass was led by Eleazer with 93 yards. Haithcox finished with 87 yards.
"He (Eleazer) did a heck of a job for us. He is a junior and I'm sure that he will be in the backfield for us next year. I expect big things from him," Hubbard concluded.
The Eddies 5-4 finish is a three game improvement from last season, and also avenged a 52-37 defeat to the Rangers last season.
The Eddies have also won the last seven-of-nine games against the Rangers.