Keith Bears improve to 3-0
Published 1:08 am Saturday, September 13, 2008
ORRVILLE – It’s been 37 years since the Keith High School Bears (3-0, 2-0) opened a football season with three consecutive wins. Keith’s balanced attack had little difficulty pounding the Goshen High School Eagles 41 – 8 in a 2A regional match up last night.
“We haven’t been this good at this point of the season in a long time,” said Keith head coach Harry Crum. “The boys practiced hard and played hard. Everybody including our coaching staff made a contribution in this win tonight.”
The Bear offense, which had scored 34 points in each of its last two games, played an unstoppable ‘wing-t’ offense. They scored on its first possession, marching 75 yards in just three plays. Quarterback Gerald Matthews galloped 60 yards down the sidelines to put Keith on the scoreboard in less than two minutes into the game. Clyde Moise ran it in for the two-point conversion making the score 8 – 0.
The turning point in the game came early in the second quarter after the Eagles fumbled a Keith punt on its own 41 yard line, which Ricky Lewis picked up a ran it to the 11 yard line. The Bears needed four plays to reach the end zone, as D’Wan Lewis ran around right end from 15 yards out to give the Bears a 14 -0 advantage.
D. Lewis reached pay dirt for the second time in the game on Keith’s next possession. He rushed all of the 36 yards needed in two carries, then converted the two-pointer to put the Bears up 20-0.
They added another score on an impressive 80-yard drive to close the second half.
“We believe with the ‘wing-t’ we can run the ball on anybody,” added Crum.
G. Matthews scrambled across the goal line from 15 yards out with two seconds left in the half for his second score of the game. Senior Patrick Matthews split the uprights for the point after. Keith took a 27 – 0 lead into the locker room after two quarters of play.
Senior Roger Watts gave Keith its next touchdown in the final quarter on a 38-yard run to post a 35-point difference after the two-point conversion.
Goshen, who was playing its first home game of the season, finally got on the scoreboard at the 9:33 mark of the fourth quarter on a 28-yard touchdown pass.
Keith was a little more athletic then we were tonight,” said Goshen head coach Joe Thornton.
D. Lewis added his third touchdown of the contest on a three-yard dive off tackle. He finished the game with 140 yards rushing.
The Bear offense racked up 345 total yards, while its stingy defense, led by R. Lewis, which has given up an average of five points per game this season, held the Eagles to just 77 yards in the first half