The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Rockets keep the Helm
Bay’s second-half surge sinks rival Rocky River
Bay exploded for 28 fourthquarter points as the Rockets ran away from arch rival Rocky River for a 35-3 victory Sept. 29, keeping the Helm trophy in Bay while improving to 6-0 on the season.
Celebrating homecoming in front of a packed house of Bay alumni, the Rockets took awhile to settle down and get over some mental mistakes to get things going against the team they wanted to beat most of all.
Starting the fourth quarter deep in the Pirates’ territory, Bay only led 7-3 and was still looking for a breakaway moment. After a drive nearly stalled out with some good defense by Rocky River (3-3), junior quarterback Connor Shell broke through for the Rockets, running through a host of Pirates for an 8-yard score and his first touchdown of the night with just over 10 minutes left in the game.
Shell would go on to score two more touchdowns.
“Halftime couldn’t have come soon enough for us because we kept shooting ourselves in the foot in the first half and I think we came out a little too fired up, you know with it being Rocky River our biggest rival and everything, and we just kept making mistakes,” Bay coach Ron Rutt said.
“Once we got it going in the second half, it started snowballing for us and our execution really improved.”
Turning to Shell and senior running back Trey Psota, who helped set up the first score of the night with a 54-yard run on his way to 109 yards for the game, the Rockets’ offensive line moved quickly on traps and counters to help open holes up for the backfield.
While Shell tossed the first touchdown of the game on a 2-yard score to Matthew Cover, once the running game opened up, Bay was really in business.
“We’re a run-heavy team, so when we can spread people out and get our passing game going a little bit it really helps,” Rutt said. “Connor, he’s a great runner and he runs downhill, which is great for a quarterback and makes him a weapon because he’s almost like a tailback taking snaps.”
Finishing his day with 45 yards and three scores on eight carries, Shell opened up the passing game with a couple big third down conversions that kept scoring drives alive to put the game out of reach for the Pirates. Shell added another 66 yards passing.
“As a mentality we focused on having a more balanced attack instead of just pounding the ball when we were struggling from early on, but once we found a rhythm, we couldn’t stop,” Shell said. “I just wanted to be a leader, so I told my guys if you give me the ball, I’ll lead you through it. It’s all their work, I give it all to my offensive line.”
Stuffing the run game early and often, the stingy Rockets’ defense allowed 144 yards of total offense and picked off Rocky River quarterback Colton Sullivan three times.
Causing chaos all day for Sullivan was junior Max Showalter who had two interceptions including a 37yard return for a touchdown.
“Max Showalter, R.J. Sunahara and our secondary was just tremendous,” Rutt said. “The whole defense just played great and they really saved us in the at first half because we kept giving them great opportunities and our defense stood tough every time when they had to.”
Trailing Bay by four points to start the fourth quarter, Rocky River needed big plays and Coach Josh Wells said the team just came up short.
“We didn’t make plays when we needed to make plays, we were able to move the ball pretty well all night, that’s a big check offensively, but we don’t make a few key plays offensively in big spots in the game and it just unraveled from there,” Wells said. “We have four more games, our three losses are against three really good teams. We’re a young team, we knew that and we compete and that’s all you can really ask for.”