Saturday, October 02, 2010
Sports News

Titans rush past Railers

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[October 02, 2010]  CHATHAM -- During the first, third and fourth quarters of Friday night's game at Chatham-Glenwood, it appeared as if two evenly matched teams were going head-to-toe, trading productive offensive possessions and momentous defensive stops.

But during the second quarter, it appeared as if one team was dominant. One team capitalized on the other team's mistakes and one team closed drives with touchdowns.

The Railers were on the wrong end in the second quarter, when the Titans scored 20 unanswered points en route to a 32-6 victory.

The loss left Lincoln's record at 2-4 this season, meaning the Railers will have to go unbeaten for the remainder of the season if they hope to make the playoffs.

Lincoln coach Jared Shaner, while applauding a resilient second-half performance by his team, recalled the helplessness he felt in the second quarter as the game slipped away.

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"It was very frustrating," said Shaner, summarizing the second quarter. "That was one of the only quarters (this season) where I'd say where you just felt like the wheels were coming off."

Lincoln entered the quarter trailing 7-0, with the ball. But, after a quarter that included an interception, special teams miscues and a porous run defense, the Railers trailed 26-0 at halftime.

Of particular frustration to Shaner was the last four minutes of the first half. Trailing 20-0 with possession of the ball, Lincoln aimed to get on the board with a touchdown, and with a strong first possession of the second half, get back to within one touchdown.

Instead, the Railers turned the ball over on downs and surrendered another touchdown to the Titans.

"You play a team like Chatham or Griffin," said Shaner, "and it's 20-0, four minutes to go in the second half. As a coach, you're thinking, 'Put a drive together. I want to score.'

"But right behind wanting to score is wanting it to be 20-0 at half still. We want to use four minutes of the clock and not let them score. They intelligently took some timeouts with about a minute left, got the ball back and we let them go down and score. That took the wind out of our sails."

Aside from the troubled second quarter, the other difference in the game was the Titan running game.
Chatham's duo of running backs, Devin VonNordheim-Moore and Tony Giovannelli, tore up the Railer defense behind a powerful offensive line. VonNordheim-Moore finished with 20 times for 174 yards and scored three touchdowns. Giovannelli had eight carries for 129 yards with two trips to the end zone.

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The duo also accounted for all three of the Titans' second-quarter scores.

Shaner said Chatham's sheer strength was tough for the Railers to handle.

"If you lined up our kids and their kids, that's a whole lot of time in the weight room for their kids," said Shaner. "Their line is good. Nobody huge, but good-size kids that are strong. Both of the running backs are big, physical kids.

"You always feel like you can do more. But they just came up and kicked our rear ends."

In the second half, the Railers played respectably, holding Chatham to just six points and breaking the shutout with a two-yard touchdown pass from James Leisinger to Darvez Stancle.

But by then, it was largely too late. But the effort didn't go unnoticed.

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"I told the kids at halftime, they had two choices: roll over and get beat 50 to nothing, or, try to fight a little bit," said Shaner. "I think we did that in the second half. I'm proud of them for that."

Leisinger finished 7 of 19 for 91 yards, throwing one touchdown and three interceptions. Leisinger had 14 attempts for 69 yards on the ground.
Stancle had five catches for 77 yards and one touchdown.

Among the Lincoln running backs, Jordan Sandrolini led the way with 10 carries for 51 yards.
As a team, the Railers ran the ball 41 times for 145 yards.

Lincoln returns home to Handlin Field next week, taking on the Springfield High Senators.

[By JUSTIN TIERNEY]

(Justin Tierney's Railer articles)

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