Mentor opened up their season Friday night at home with a convincing 34-21 victory over the Canton McKinley Bulldogs. The Cardinals offense was led by quarterback Scotty Fox. He threw for three touchdowns, two of those to WR Jacob Stapleton. Also a pair of rushing touchdowns by RB Mitchell Waite. Mentor opted to receive the ball to open up the series. QB Fox got the offense moving to give the Cardinals some momentum. But fell short on their first drive and had to punt the ball away.
On their first possession, McKinley was able to move the ball into Cardinals territory before a costly fumble, recovered by Mentor linebacker Jake Geduldig, shifted momentum back to the Cardinals. QB Fox capitalized on the turnover to find WR Stapleton in the end zone for the games first points and to put Mentor on top 7-0 midway through the first quarter. The McKinley Bulldogs would respond with a 30-yard touchdown run less than two minutes later to tie the game to close out the first quarter.
Photo by Garrick Pitt
It was all Cardinals entering the second quarter. QB Fox would find Stapleton again for a 10-yard TD pass. This put Mentor up 14-7 with 10 minutes remaining in the first half. McKinley threatened to score again driving the ball all the way to Mentor’s two-yard line. Including a 48-yard run, but a costly holding penalty brought the ball all the way back to midfield. The Bulldogs were unable to get the offense moving after that. A quick 4-and-out for McKinley gave Mentor the ball back with 7:51 left in the half. In one of the more impressive runs of the night, Mentor RB Mitchell Waite broke away with an 80-yard sprint to push the lead to 21-7 entering halftime.
Second Half
McKinley opened the second half to get action underway at JTO. The Bulldogs were able to move the ball down the field but had their drive stalled and were forced to punt it away. Mentor opened their series with a pair of catches from WR’s Stapleton and Nick Jares to set up a 1-yard TD run for Mitchell Waite, his second of the night, to increase Mentor’s lead to 28-7 to close out the 3rd quarter.
Despite the score, McKinley refused to give up and continued to attack on offense. The Bulldogs marched down the field and connected on a 12-yard touchdown pass to pull the game within 14 points with 5:18 left to play in the fourth. Two minutes later, quarterback Scotty Fox responded a touchdown pass of his own, this time to WR Nick Jares, to increase Mentor’s score to 34-14.
McKinley was able to put together a nice drive that resulted in a 34-yard passing touchdown to bring the score to 34-21. Plagued by costly penalties and turnovers, McKinley fought hard late to score 14 points in the final five minutes, but it unfortunately wasn’t enough to overcome the deficit. Both teams played extremely tough, and it made for a great week 1 match up
The Cardinals and Bulldogs both showed why their was hype surrounding both teams coming into the season and there are a lot of positives for both teams moving forward. McKinley will look to bounce back when they head to Youngstown next Friday to take on Austintown-Fitch (1-0) while Mentor will look to continue their strong start and avenge last year’s playoff loss as they travel to FirstEnergy Stadium to take on Cleveland rival St. Ignatius (0-0).
High school football is officially back!
Photo by Garrick Pitt
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