Glenelg hangs tough early but falls in 2A final, 35-7
Few outside Glenelg believed the Gladiators stood a chance against Oakdale in the Class 2A state football championship game Saturday night at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.
Bears senior quarterback Collin Schlee was too big and too fast and could throw a football nearly 70 yards. Senior running back Simeon Sabvute was too dynamic. Senior linebacker Maurio Goings was a wrecking ball on defense. All three — among others — have Division I football games in their futures.
The Gladiators heard all of that this week, but for nearly two quarters on Saturday, they proved all those people wrong. They quickly knifed through Oakdale’s defense and capped an 80-yard opening drive with a touchdown, and their defense stood tall and forced the Bears backwards on the next. Everything was working early.
Although Oakdale scored midway through the first quarter, the extra point failed and the Gladiators remained ahead and hung around. They intercepted Schlee twice in the opening 24 minutes, something he had done only three times all year, and they held the lead longer than any other team had against the Bears.
But once Schlee threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to Ethan Reifer with half a minute left in the first half, the lead and Glenelg’s dream of a perfect season and a state championship disappeared altogether.
Oakdale became the team everyone expected to see and scored 35 unanswered points to beat the Gladiators, 35-7, and win their first state championship and finish the season undefeated at 13-0.
“Our kids played their hearts out,” Glenelg coach Butch Schaffer said. “They made plays when they had to make a play, and we didn’t.”
Schlee, an oral commit to Kent State, started the night 0-for-5 passing but finished with four touchdowns — two rushing, two passing — and completed 10-of-22 throws for 210 yards, and he also led the team in rushing with 89 yards on four carries.
Glenelg senior running back and Yale commit Wande Owens did it all, just as he had done all season. He had an interception on defense and led the way offensively with 103 yards and a touchdown on 26 carries, but 76 of them came in the first quarter. He finishes his career with the second-most rushing yards in state history with 6,354 and 2,680 yards and 40 rushing touchdowns on the season — a Howard County singleseason record. He also scored at least one rushing touchdown in every game this fall.
“It was very emotional,” Owens said of watching the final minutes tick away. “Sitting on the sideline and realizing that this is my last high school football game, the last time I put on the ‘G.’ We had a great year, but we came up short of our goal.”
Glenelg (13-1), playing in its first state championship in program history, got moving early thanks to the legs of senior quarterback Tyler Reiff. He broke loose for a 60-yard run on the second play from scrimmage, and Owens found the end zone two plays later on a 10-yard run to give the Gladiators an early 7-0 lead.
Their defense stood tall on the ensuing drive, but an interception thrown by Reiff gave Oakdale life. Like Reiff, Schlee gave the Bears what they needed with his legs, as he outran the Glenelg defense for a 66-yard score to cut the deficit to 7-6.
The Gladiators put together a classic Glenelg drive — draining the clock and pounding the ball — late in the first quarter and into the second. It went 55 yards on 13 plays and ate up the clock, but four penalties proved costly and the drive stalled at the Oakdale 40 yard line.
After the Gladiators gained 159 yards of offense in the first quarter, they struggled in the second despite their defense intercepting Schlee on back-to-back drives. Camden Renehan had the first early in the quarter only to see Glenelg go three-and-out, and then Owens intercepted a pass in the end zone on the next drive one play after a penalty nullified an Oakdale touchdown. Again, the Gladiators couldn’t take advantage and went three-and-out.
They couldn’t slow the Bears down for a third time in a row, however. Schlee commanded a 35-yard scoring drive that ended with a 14-yard touchdown pass to Reifer to give Oakdale its first lead, 13-7, with only 30 seconds left in the half.
Once they held the lead, the Bears couldn’t be stopped.
“I’m not going to lie, I was crying my eyes out,” said Glenelg senior linebacker Sam Alsheimer. “I think I hugged everyone on the team. I’ve never been more emotionally attached to one team. I love this team and I’m proud of every single one of them.”
Despite the loss, this year’s Glenelg team will be remembered as the best in school history. It set a school record with 13 wins and did what no other team had done: win a state semifinal game and play for a title on the big stage. The Gladiators are the first Howard County team to play for a state championship since Howard in 2015 and outscored opponents 521-101 on the season.
“My guys know how I feel about them. I wouldn’t trade them for the world,” Schaffer said while fighting back tears. “That’s how it is. I’m proud of them.” O G FIRST QUARTER G: Wande Owens 10-yard run, Chris Retzbach kick [0-7] O: Collin Schlee 66-yard run, kick failed [6-7] SECOND QUARTER O: Collin Schlee 19-yard pass to Ethan Reifer, Justin Ritter kick [13-6] THIRD QUARTER O: Maurio Goings 2-yard run, Schlee pass to Reifer conversion [21-7] O: Schlee 14-yard pass to Blake Baxter, Ritter kick [28-7] FOURTH QUARTER O: Schlee 18-yard run, Ritter kick [35-7] FORT HILL 20, DOUGLASS-PRINCE GEORGE’S 8: Blake Beal rushed for two touchdowns to lead the Sentinels (13-0) to their fifth state tile in six years beating the Eagles (8-5) in Class 1A at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.
Carter Swan had a 55-yard rushing touchdown for a 7-0 Fort Hill lead with 8:53 left in the first quarter.