By Frank Rizzo
JEFFERSONVILLE — September 14, 2001 – The benefits of being a bigger school manifested themselves in not so subtle ways last Saturday, as Sullivan West stomped Roscoe 47-8 in a non-league football season opener.
“Roscoe played a good game, they played fairly tough,” noted SW coach Ron Bauer, “but we were able to rotate fresh people in… and substitute freely. The heat was definitely a factor and we had more numbers [than they did] and that helped us.”
Mike Compton opened the scoring for the host Bulldogs in the first quarter, taking the ball in from the 6. Joe Meyer then kicked the first of his five PATs.
The Bulldogs stopped the visitors inside the SW 20 to end one Blue Devil scoring threat.
SW’s Kevin Mullally scored the first of his two TDs in the second quarter, from the 7.
Still in the second, Collin Wilson recovered a Roscoe fumble near the 20 and several plays later Steve Mootz took it in from the 2 and Meyer’s PAT gave the hosts a 21-0 lead.
A fumble recovery by Josh Long set up SW’s final score of the first half, on Mullally’s 3-yard run.
“They had scored to make it 14-0 with about 41&Mac218;2 minutes to go in the half, so we were still in it,” said Roscoe coach Fred Ahart, “and then they sacked us twice, and recovered the fumbles and scored. That was a real key part of the game.”
A Roscoe fumble recovery gave the Blue Devils their lone score on their first possession of the half. On fourth-and-goal from his 4 quarterback Brian Ballard rolled to his right and found David Eggleton open for the TD with 4:17 left in the third quarter. Roscoe set up to kick the PAT, but Ballard grabbed the snap and outran defender Andrew Lanese to the corner.
In the fourth, SW responded with a 60-yard drive, capped by Mootz’s 3-yard run.
Lanese set up the next SW scoring drive by returning a punt to the Roscoe 20. Two plays later Bryan Long scored from the 9 and Meyer’s kick gave SW a 41-8 lead.
A 22-yard run by SW’s Mike Compton with seconds left in the game finished the scoring.
Bauer said the Bulldogs came in with a healthy respect for Roscoe quarterback Ballard.
“We were concerned about stopping him because he rolls out well, he’s quick and he’s very good on the bootleg plays and the options,” Bauer noted. “We needed to stop him because we’ll be facing good quarterbacks down the line.”
Ahart also thought the heat and SW’s superior numbers proved critical on Saturday.
“I thought that on their first few series we did a credible job of stopping them,” Ahart said. “We came in trying to win, but to their credit Sullivan West is an outstanding ‘C’ school and will go a long ways. They’ve got size and quickness.
“We’re looking forward to the season, especially in our ‘D’ league,” Ahart added.
Notes: Mullally led the Bulldog ground game with 131 yards on 21 carries and two TDs. John Compton added 81 yards on 17 attempts as SW overall ground out 323 yards on 54 carries… the Roscoe stat sheet showed Brian Ryder leading with 59 rushing yards on 15 carries and the Blue Devils as a whole carried 31 times for 86 yards… on defense, SW was led by Ryan Schumacher with 11 tackles and Everett Saul with 10.