The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Columbia remains perfect
It wasn’t the prettiest of games, but Columbia scored 28 second half points and forced seven total turnovers to defeat Wellington 49-14 on Friday night.
Columbia (7-0, 4-0) got their seventh straight win of the season, but only held a 21-14 lead at halftime over the pesky Wellington Dukes (3-4, 1-4).
“It’s just trusting one another,” Columbia coach Jason Ward said. “We are a family. Not to get to corny but trust is a big part of being a family and like I told them when things get like that, you look to your left and your right and your coaches and you have to believe that we will get it figured out.”
Ward added “we were really able to be on the plus side of the plus minus tonight so that is really big.”
Columbia’s defense forced three turnovers on downs, three interceptions and a fumble to keep Wellington out of the end zone for the most part. The Raiders scored 35 of their 49 points off turnovers.
“The defense played a lot better than the score would indicate,” Wellington coach Rob Howell said. “You can’t turn the ball over period and especially against a good football team like Columbia is. Hats off to (Columbia) they are solid all around. When you put yourself in bad situations like that you aren’t going to be able to do anything.”
Columbia’s Andrew Champagne had 300 yards of total offense and three touchdowns, while Cody Davis had 120 yards receiving, a touchdown and two interceptions. Marco Cirigliano didn’t gain many yards in this contest on the tough Dukes defense but scored four times. Owen Menge had 145 yards of total offense and a touchdown.
“Offensively, we can’t do what we do without our offensive line,” Cody Davis said. “That is our foundation. If they play good, we will play good. Defensively, I guess I was just kind of in the right place at the right time.
“Coach Rice is one of the best defensive coordinators around and a lot of our success is because of him,” Davis added.
“They make it easy for me,” Andrew Champagne said. “They get wide open and make great plays.
“They tried to take away our running game and they did a little bit but we can throw it on them so they can’t take away everything,” Champagne added.
“It feels amazing,” Davis said about the win. “Especially coming in and beating them on their homecoming night, there is nothing greater.”
“Party crashers,” Champagne added.
For Wellington, quarterback CJ Polen threw for 186 yards, 115 of those yards going to senior Jon Brasee. Brasee also made numerous plays on defense for the Dukes.
“He’s the leader and the captain of the football team and he earns it,” Howells said about Brasee. “He works his tail off in the offseason. Everything that he is doing on Friday night lights is because of the work he puts in behind the scenes.”
Even though they are 3-4, the Dukes have put themselves in position to win games, they just need to finish them out.
“We just have to learn from the wins and losses and triumphs and failures and keep building off it and going,” Howell said. “This is a team that despite the score they never quit. Even there at the end they were still doing some things well and fighting hard.
“We just have to keep taking the next step and trusting the process and building the program,” Howells added.
Columbia has been one of the top offenses in the area so far this season, outscoring opponents 322-64 over their seven games and scoring 101 points in their last two games.
Coming into this contest, Andrew Champagne was second in the area in passing with 949 yards and seven touchdowns. Marco Cirigliano was second in rushing with 806 yards, just three behind Rocky River’s Tommy Bebie. In addition, Cody Davis and Owen Menge are two of the top receivers in the area.
“We are an offense that we are going to make teams defend the whole field,” Ward said. “It’s nice to have the talent to be able to do that. I thought that Andrew’s legs were big in this game as well.
“It was a different game than what you see on the scoreboard and the fact that things were a bit dicey there is really good for us and we will take something from that,” Ward said. “Not to mention Wellington has a really good defense.”
Columbia might be 7-0, but there is still a lot of season to be played.
“We are still going each week 1-0,” Champagne said. “It’s great and everything but it really doesn’t matter for the future so we are keeping the same mentality and trying to dominate every week.”