BRUCE McCLIMANS
SAYBROOK TOWNSHIP — Oberlin coach Dave McFarland knew from last year’s triple-overtime win that the SS. John and Paul Heralds could be a tough opponent.
This time around, he took no chances, and in the process, he took no prisoners as the Phoenix dismantled SJP, 36-14, Friday at Lakeside Stadium.
Oberlin took on a completely new look with key additions in transfers from other schools, like offensive tackle Travis Evans, who is an Illinois recruit, but it was the transfer of junior running back Devin Martin of Elyria who took the ball, and eventually took the game from the Heralds. He rushed for 347-yards on 29 carries and scored three touchdowns.
“This was my first game as a varsity player,” Martin said. “I thank my family, my God and my offensive line in that order.”
Martin made a very good first impression as he took the ball on Oberlin’s opening series of plays and made it all his own. He carried it on all nine plays and drove over Evans’ right side to score on a 14-yard run.
“Travis is quite a specimen,” McFarland said. “We knew going in we had to control the line of scrimmage behind the wide body of Evans, so it was easy for Devin to do his thing. I didn’t realize he had so many yards, but our whole team was able to run the ball, so we just kept giving it to them.”
Oberlin upped its lead to 14-0 in the first quarter as Jaron Hicks scored from five yards out and increased the lead to 22-0 on the first play from scrimmage in the third quarter as Martin broke through the SJP middle and galloped 91-yards to paydirt.
SJP would finally get on the board when Jake Phelps, who fumbled the snap, but was quick enough to pick up the ball and scramble to the left side and find Tyler Baker, who was closely covered in the endzone. In the process, Tyler jumped high into the air and was able to snatch the ball with one hand for a 19-yard TD.
But by the end of the quarter, Oberlin was in complete control and led 36-8 as Martin would add touchdown runs of five and 11 yards.
Mike Moore would give the Herald hopefuls something to talk about at breakfast as he got behind a pulled up Phoenix defense and caught a 70-yard scoring strike from Phelps to close out the scoring for the Heralds.
SJP coach Jim Timonere was at a loss when informed Martin had rushed for 347 yards.
“I didn’t realize he did that well, but you’ve got to give Oberlin credit,” Timonere said. “They came to play and this is a team that has playoff aspirations, so it doesn’t surprise me that they did that well as a team. Make no mistake about it, Oberlin is a good team, but I thought our boys would be able to stay with them. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
McClimans is a freelance writer from Ashtabula.
