By Gaylen Duskey
realfang@citlink.net
Calhoun built up a huge halftime lead then thwarted a Tygart's Valley comeback attempt en route to a 48-21 victory at Mill Creek Friday night evening its record at 2-2.
The Red Devils, who scored with :02 remaining in the first half for the 34-0 lead, dominated the game early on then played the Bulldogs pretty well even up the rest of the way.
Calhoun had one of its best offensive games in the last several years as it rolled up 475 yards total offense with 334 coming on the ground.
That was thanks to the running of two Calhoun backs as Cole Ritchie carried the ball 31 times for 116 yards while Seth Moore had 134 carries for 100. Casey Ritchie also chipped in with 61 yards on nine attempts while Lucas Wilson had 58 on the same number of runs.
Perhaps the Red Devils' most outstanding offensive performance was turned in by Ethyn Miller, who caught six passes for 141 yards and three touchdowns.
Miller did a ton of damage to the Bulldogs in the last two minutes of the first half as he recovered a fumble and scored on passes of 35 and 25 yards, the latter coming with :02 remaining.
Miller's 141 yards receiving was good enough for fourth place on the all-time single game receiving yardage list for the Red Devils. The top individual game was set by Zach Moore with 161 yards against Roane County in 2006. Bronson Clark is second with a game of 149 yards while Tyler Shartiger is third with a game of 146 yards.
After taking an early 7-0 first quarter lead on a 16-yard pass from Casey Ritchie to Miller Calhoun put the hammer down in the second quarter.
First Moore scored on a 10-yard run for a 13-0 lead.
Then Cole Ritchie hammered in from two yards out and added the extra points for a 21-0 lead.
Following that Miller performed his heroics.
But the 0-4 Bulldogs would not give up.
P.J. Lanham came up with the first of three long plays for the Bulldogs that made things interesting in the third quarter.
The do-it-all back rambled up the middle for a 50-yard touchdown and added the extra point kick to cut the score to 34-7.
But Calhoun rebounded from that as Casey Ritchie scored on a one-yard run to push the lead back to 34 again. His run came after Nathan Hipp had recovered a fumble at the 22 of Tygart's Valley. Wilson did most of the heavy lifting on the short drive, setting up Casey Ritchie's scoring run.
It didn't take the Bulldogs any time to get that touchdown back as Ryan Hoffman took the ensuing kickoff in for the touchdown. A two point conversion set the score at 41-15.
Again Calhoun responded.
This time Seth Moore had the score on a 10-yard run. The score had been set up by his 22 yard gallop earlier in the drive.
The final score of the game came when Tygart's Valley connected with an 80-yard pass from Hunter Parks to Rece Wamsley taking the ball inside the Red Devils' 10 yard line. Parks' short run for the score made in 48-21.
The fourth quarter was played between the 20s as neither team could get anything going offensively.
Calhoun came close to getting on the board twice late in the fourth quarter.
First Casey Ritchie intercepted a Tygart's Valley pass and the Red Devils rolled to the 20 before losing the ball on a fumble.
Following that Hipp recovered his second fumble of the game and rambled from deep in his own territory to the Tygart's Valley 15.
However, the Calhoun subs were unable to punch it in as time ran out.
Calhoun County will try to remain on the winning side of the board Friday night when it plays host to Tyler Consolidated, 2-2. Tygart's Valley will play East Hardy.
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