The Saline Reporter
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Hornets pull away for 31-21 victory
Offensive line paves way for big game on ground
By Jerry Hinnen, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: August 31, 2006
Don't expect the Saline Hornet football team to turn down an invitation to the Big Day Prep Showdown anytime soon.
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For the second straight year, Saline used the Showdown to kick their season off with a big win, this time pounding out a 31-21 victory over Flint Carman-Ainsworth. The Hornet offense racked up 411 yards — 274 of them on the ground — and never punted in a dominant effort.
"That's our kids just being disciplined," Saline head coach Mike Glennie said of the victory. "We felt if we played physically and stayed disciplined, we would be there in the end."
Unlike Saline's 40-13 whipping of Northville in the 2005 Showdown, Saline's match-up with Carman-Ainsworth was back-and-forth affair for much of the game. Behind star quarterback Marty Cardwell, the Cavaliers took the opening kickoff and marched 73 yards in 17 plays, eating 8 minutes and 41 seconds off the clock on their way to the opening score and a 7-0 lead.
Despite the drive, running back and linebacker Vince Helmuth served notice that the Hornets would not be intimidated by leveling Cardwell on a quarterback keeper at the 2-yard line. The big hit drew a reaction from the crowd and even though the Cavaliers scored two downs later, the play seemed to wake the Hornet sideline up.
"It's an emotional lift," Helmuth says of delivering a hit like that one. "It gets the guys going, gets their blood flowing even more than it was before."
The future Michigan Wolverine than dealt out some punishment from the other side of the ball, seeing his number called on the Saline's first six plays from scrimmage on four rushes, and two receptions. But it was halfback Mike Adler who capped the drive, scoring on a fourth-down misdirection play from five yards out to trim the Cavalier lead to 7-6 with six seconds left in the first quarter.
A fired-up Hornet defense forced a punt on the next Carman-Ainsworth possession and Saline took the lead with a grinding 13-play touchdown drive. Quarterback Kyle Brown finished the drive and made up for a series of (recovered) fumbles earlier in the possession by connecting with halfback Austin Trott for an 11-yard score. Brown missed his second straight extra point try, however, leaving the Saline lead at 12-7.
It would not last long. With only 44 seconds remaining in the half, Cardwell found receiver Eugene Blackwell deep down the field for a 59-yard touchdown and a 14-12 halftime lead.
"We knew they had some great athletes and would make some big plays," Glennie said. "We had to make sure that when they did, that we didn't let it get to us, that we stayed committed for four quarters."
If it got to the Hornets at all, it never showed. Saline opened the second half by driving 64 yards in only six plays, Trott scoring on a reverse from the Cavalier 11.
A missed two-point conversion and a Carman-Ainsworth touchdown on their next possession meant Saline still looked at a 21-18 deficit with 6:05 to play in the third. But by the end of the period, the Hornets would seize control of the game.
First, Adler scored his second touchdown, taking a pitch from Brown and racing in from the Cavalier 12 to put the Hornets up 25-21. On the ensuing kickoff, Brown's squib kick took a ricochet off the shin of one of the Cavalier up-men (accidentally, Glennie says) and Brown alertly fell on the live ball to give Saline possession. Nine plays later Helmuth bulled his way in from the 3 to push the lead to 31-21 with 11:56 remaining in the game.
Whatever hope the Cavaliers had of a comeback evaporated on their next play from scrimmage, when Elijah Marshall fumbled behind the line and Luke O'Brien recovered for Saline at the Carman-Ainsworth 27. Although the Hornets failed to score following the turnover, a critical fourth-down roughing-the-passer call against the Cavaliers allowed Saline to run more than seven minutes off the clock and seal the victory.
Glennie called the drive to start the second half "the turning point" and said the recovered kickoff "was huge," but credited the Hornets' conditioning for putting his team in position to triumph in the second half.
"We have a very demanding off-season conditioning schedule," he said, "and this is the sort of game where you can look at [that schedule] and say 'This is why we do it.'"
The Hornets finished the game with a whopping 11-minute edge in time-of-possession (29:35 to 18:25) and collected 24 first downs to the Cavaliers' 13. Much of Saline's clock-chewing was thanks to Helmuth, who was named his team's Player of the Game after collecting 157 total yards and a touchdown on 24 carries and a pair of receptions.
But afterwards, the senior deflected the credit elsewhere.
"It's our offensive line," he said. "When our O-line plays as physically as they played, you can do what you want on offense. And what we wanted to do was run the ball."
Next up for Saline will be their home opener against the 0-1 Ypsilanti-Lincoln Railsplitters, set for this Friday at 7 p.m. Lincoln fell to Milan last week 54-12.
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