Senior Exzaviar Moody drags along some National Trail defenders with him on this run.
The defense contained the Blazers’ run game throughout the game.
By Drew Terhall
DailyAdvocate.com
NEW PARIS — After a close game at halftime, Ansonia High School football pushed the pedal to the metal and ran all over National Trail, 44-17, on the road.
Head coach Adam Hall said the team made mistakes in the first half that were cleaned up in the second half.
“Our line fired off the ball, the backs were running very hard in the second half. It wasn’t always pretty, it was a little ugly at times. But, we were getting yards. That’s Ansonia football,” Hall said.
Both teams love to run the ball. So naturally, both teams scored through the air on their opening possession.
The Blazers scored on a 29-yard passing play. The Tigers scored on an Ian Schmitmeyer pass to Trendon Spence for a 50+ yard touchdown play.
Spence added an interception to his stat sheet in the first half. That helped set up a Keegen Weiss 5-yard touchdown run.
National Trail added in a 26-yard field goal before half to be down 16-10 to Ansonia.
Then Ansonia took over. They drove down the field on their first second half possession as Exzaviar Moody scored from two yards out.
After National Trail had a snap go over the punters head on the next possession, Ansonia was in the redzone on the 19-yard line.
Moody added another 2-yard touchdown to his stat sheet and gave Ansonia a 30-10 lead.
The Blazers would respond with a 35-yard touchdown pass. Hall said they had to give up some plays through the air to bottle up their run game.
“They have a ton of good running backs. They’re very fast. We’ve seen them on film runall over teams,” Hall said. “We were determined to not let that happen tonight.”
Weiss then added in two more rushing touchdowns to give Ansonia their comfortable win. One of his scoring drives came after he ran for a 40-yard gain on fourth down as the punter. With no one watching him, he took off deep in his own territory to get to midfield.
The win moves Ansonia to 6-1 on the season and they remain as one of the top teams in the WOAC. Hall said while his team is not short of motivation, this win will help them be more amped up for the upcoming road to the playoffs.
“It was good for our guys to come out and get a win over a good team. It gives us some extra motivation going down the stretch,” Hall said.
Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]
