Mapletown blanks Carmichaels, stays unbeaten
Rob Burchianti/For the Observer-Reporter
Mapletown's Landan Stevenson (1) tries to ward off a Carmichaels defender during Friday night's game at Mapletown. The Maples defeated the Mikes, 42-0.
MAPLETOWN — It was the Landan Stevenson Show again Friday night as Mapletown handily defeated Carmichaels 42-0 to remain undefeated in the Class A Tri-County South Conference.
Stevenson, doing double-duty as the primary running back and placekicker, along with teammate A.J. Vanata, led a bruising rushing attack that totaled 240 yards on the ground and five rushing touchdowns.
“Our plan was offense to run the football mix a few passing plays in with it,” Mapletown head coach George Messich said. “And defensively, our kids are just real aggressive. We didn’t change anything. We played defense tonight the way we did the last four games.”
Stevenson did it all for Mapletown (2-0, 5-0), which entered the game 4-0 for the first time since 1997.
On 21 carries, Stevenson rushed for 140 yards and three touchdowns. He also went seven-for-seven on extra-point kicks, caught a pass from Vanata for 27 yards and completed a pass to Vanata for eight yards.
Vanata had nine carries for 64 yards and two rushing touchdowns, covering nine and 12 yards.
“(Vanata and Stevenson) are both very good runners,” Messich said. “And they’ll be the first to tell you though, our offensive line is a lot better than we’ve had in a long time. We have four or five guys up there who do a tremendous job blocking.”
“I expected them to run the ball and they did,” Carmichaels head coach Ron Gallagher said. “They did it efficiently. You know, we were losing every phase of this game. Nothing was really going our way.”
Vanata scored first for Mapletown on an nine-yard run with 7:25 in the first to go up 7-0 with Stevenson adding the extra-point kick.
Mapletown followed with three touchdowns in the second quarter: a six-yard rushing TD by Stevenson, a nine-yard scoring jaunt by Stevenson, and 15-yard passing touchdown from Brody Evans to Even Giriffin to put Mapletown up 28-0 at halftime.
“We don’t ever give a message of being down,” Gallagher said. “I said, ‘Listen, if they can score 28, so can we.”
Carmichaels’ defense did do better in the second half, but Mapletown still found ways to score. Vanata had a 12-yard touchdown run in the third quarter, and Stevenson had a 10-yard touchdown run in the fourth. With all the extra-point kicks by Stevenson, it led to the final score of 42-0.
Stevenson finished with 24 points which gives him 521 for his career, which breaks the Mapletown school record of 516 that was held by Dylan Rush.
“We got to look at the film and see what see what’s going on and get back to fundamental football,” Gallagher said. “Because we didn’t play really good fundamentally.”
Carmichaels (1-1, 3-2) will look to bounce back in their next game at Beth-Center. Mapletown has a key TCS game at California.