Mikes control line of scrimmage against FC, win conference title
Carmichaels’ Cody Brown celebrates after the Mikes defeated Fort Cherry to win the Tri-County South Conference title Friday night.
Carmichaels players celebrate Friday night as Fort Cherry quarterback Ryhan Culberson walks off the field after slipping and falling in the end zone for a safety during the first half.
Carmichaels’ Joseph Minor wipes his hands off of between plays Friday night against Fort Cherry.
Fort Cherry’s Ryhan Culberson jumps to avoid the tackles of Carmichaels’ defenders Brennen Pelzer and Jonathan Christopher.
Fort Cherry’s Zachary Vincenti is tackled by Carmichaels’ William Brown during the first half Friday night.
Carmichaels’ Jonathan Christopher breaks the tackles of two Fort Cherry defenders Friday night to convert a first-half two-point conversion.
Carmichaels’ Garrett Ponick drops a pass from quarterback Jonathan Christopher.
Fort Cherry quarterback Ryhan Culberson is tackled by several Carmichaels players Friday night.
Carmichaels’ Jonathan Christopher tries to stiff arm Fort Cherry’s Robert Cooper during Friday night’s game.
CARMICHAELS – On these kind of nights and under conditions like Friday – steady driving rain, strong wind and a grass field caked with ankle-deep mud – a football team goes only as far as its offensive and defensive linemen can take it.
The linemen at Carmichaels High School took the Mikes all the way to the Tri-County South Conference championship.
Carmichaels fell behind Fort Cherry only 82 seconds into the game but its linemen impressively won the battles in the muddy trenches and paved the way for the Mikes’ 16-7 victory in the showdown for first place in the conference.
Carmichaels (7-0, 7-1) rushed for 217 yards, its defense held Fort Cherry to only two first downs and forced a second-quarter safety, and the Mikes used two long touchdown drives to win its first conference title since 2004.
“What happened tonight started in the weight room in January, progressed into the spring and summer and transitioned into fall camp,” Carmichaels head coach Ryan Krull said. “I am so incredibly proud of my players.”
Figuring out why Carmichaels won wasn’t hard. It was the Mikes’ offensive line that controlled play and allowed a straight-ahead running game to wipe out an early deficit.
Fort Cherry (5-1, 7-1) took a 7-0 lead on the game’s third offensive play. Carmichaels fumbled on its first play and Fort Cherry’s Nick Rogers scooped up the loose ball and returned it 53 yards to the Carmichaels two-yard line. Two plays later, quarterback Ryhan Culberson rolled right and found tight end Devon Brown in the end zone for a 7-0 lead with 10:38 left in the first quarter.
“It was so sudden,” Krull said. “We were saying ‘typical us’ but this group is different. I just thought it’s going to be harder than we wanted it to be.”
It wasn’t that difficult once the Mikes’ offensive linemen – center Noah Kaczmarczyk, guards Austin Strahan and Evan Burnett, tackles Tim Currey and Robert Meadows, and extra linemen Collin Reynolds and Jacob Turner – began imposing their will at the line of scrimmage. Carmichaels’ offense wasn’t fancy. The Mikes kept the plan simple and ran, for the most part, straight ahead behind their big offensive line.
On its third possession, Carmichaels drove 91 yards in 12 plays (11 runs) to take the lead. Tailback Cody Brown, who rushed for 94 yards, scored on a five-yard run off right tackle. The Mikes went for a two-point conversion and quarterback Jonathan Christopher’s run gave Carmichaels an 8-7 lead in the final minute of the first quarter.
The drive was typical of Carmichaels as it relied on a multitude of runners. Joseph Minor had a 13-yard run off right tackle, Brown followed with 12 yards up the middle, Brennen Pelzer ran 16 yards on a sweep and Christopher completed an 18-yard pass to Hunter Phillips before running 11 yards to the FC five-yard line.
“They definitely won the battles in the trenches,” Fort Cherry coach Jim Shiel said of Carmichaels. “We’re young and inexperienced up front and a night like tonight doesn’t play to our style. We couldn’t get the offense moving.”
A Carmichaels punt backed Fort Cherry up at its own three-yard line midway through the second quarter. On third down from the five, Culberson dropped back to pass, moved to his right and slipped just inside the end zone for a safety as Currey pursued the play. The safety gave Carmichaels a 10-7 lead that it took into halftime.
Fort Cherry had only one yard total offense in the first half, 40 yards in the game and just two first downs. The Rangers’ initial first down didn’t come until late in the third quarter.
“That defense was as good as it gets,” Krull said. “They even scored two points for us. That’s credit to (assistant coach) Jan Haiden’s game plan and our kids for executing it. We were concerned about (Culberson) as both a passer and runner, but we got pressure on him and made him uncomfortable. We got to him a couple of times and our pursuit was as good as I’ve ever seen it.”
Culberson completed one of 10 passes for two yards – the touchdown to Brown – in the miserable conditions and ran for six yards on 15 attempts. Charles Lowry had two sacks for the Mikes.
“We’ve been a big-play team all year, but with the field conditions we weren’t able to open things up. Our guys couldn’t cut. They were sliding all over the place. And a couple of times we had receivers behind their defense. Ryhan typically can throw the ball 60 or 70 yards on a dry day but not in these conditions.”
Carmichaels made it a two-score game when it went 57 yards in 12 plays on its opening drive of the second half, taking 6:06 off the clock. Christopher scored on a three-yard run that was supposed to be a sweep around left end, but the quarterback stopped – no easy task on this night – reversed field and beat a FC tackler to the corner of the end zone to make the score 16-7.
“Our offensive line, those guys had to buckle down in bad conditions and move bodies,” Krull said.
The key play in the drive was Christopher’s 22-yard pass to Garrett Ponick on fourth-and-four from the Fort Cherry 39.
“I am a physical education teacher,” Krull said, “and I have to see all those conference championship banners on the wall in my classroom every day. I know 2004 was the last one. It’s nice to add another one. It’s huge for us, it’s huge for our community, our kids and our program.”