Published: September 06, 2008 01:20 am         

‘D’ stands tall

Berries make big 2nd half plays, nip Red Devils

What a difference a year can make.

For the second week in a row, Logansport faced an obviously much-improved program from a team it had lambasted a year earlier.

Last week the Berries escaped Peru with a 26-23 win and on Friday night a strong second half helped them catapult past Richmond, 35-30.

The Berries (3-0, 1-0 in North Central Conference) struggled offensively for much of the first half, excluding a couple of nice touchdown passes, and went into the break trailing 21-14. But they looked like a different team in the second half in taking control of the game.

“I’m gonna tell you what we said at halftime,” Logan coach Bucky Kramer said, ‘Take care of your stuff.’ That’s what we said. These kids, call them the comeback kids, call them what you what, something. They have got to have some motivation to play other than just stepping on the field and playing, and I guess they want to play from behind all the time.”

Even though the Berries allowed 30 points to an athletic Richmond squad, the defense helped key the win. The defense was often put in difficult situations in the first half, and in the second, it came through when it counted other than a last-minute drive which kept Richmond (1-2, 0-1) alive until the Berries recovered an onsides kick.

“Starting off down 14-0, we put our defense in a bad situation. Our defense answered the call pretty much all night long,” Kramer said. “Defensively those kids played hard. They took away what we needed them to take away. ... Overall I’m going to give my defense a lot of credit for keeping us in the spot where we can do the things we need to do.”

Logan quarterback Derek Rowe, who entered the game averaging 201.5 yards rushing per contest, was held to just 31 yards rushing on 12 carries. One of those carries was a 31-yard loss on a bad snap out of the shotgun formation.

But Rowe kept the Logan in the game in the first half with a pair of deep touchdown passes across the middle of the field on a 43-yarder to Broc Conrad in the first quarter and a 38-yarder to Victor Silva in the second.

“It’s no secret Derek is a talented kid, and he’s worked hard to get better at his craft,” Kramer said. “I’m going to give coach Hollis Yenna, coach Jay Jones and coach Cory Howard all the credit in the world for making that happen.

“They took Derek Rowe completely away from us tonight, and those other kids knew that challenge coming into this ball game, and they stepped up to that challenge.”

Silva was one of the players who stepped up for Logan. On his 16th birthday, Silva recorded 116 yards from scrimmage, and his 21-yard touchdown run with 1:24 left in the game, in which he broke a couple tackles, turned out to be the game-winning score.

“All that hard work at practice, we just put it out there,” Silva said.

Richmond’s Richard Nelloms, who had 165 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns, kept the Red Devils alive with a big kickoff return and a 49-yard reception that set up a one-yard plunge by Parris Gray with 46 seconds left to play. But Logan’s Travis Emery recovered the ensuing onsides kick to seal the win.

Logan’s first drive of the second half consisted of eight runs and 49 yards, and it was capped by a five-yard TD run by Joe Flory. Logan’s second drive was a 55-yard drive that was capped by an 11-yard dart up the middle by Austin Mills for a touchdown.

Richmond had a couple chances with the ball trailing 28-24 in the fourth quarter, but a sack by Bailey Allen ended one drive and another drive was ended after an incompletion on fourth-and-nine, setting up Silva’s run.

Allen and Brock Titus, both 6-3, 250-pound defensive tackles, helped clog the middle of the field for the Berries. Allen said of his sack: “It felt good — broke through a double-team — it’s the best feeling in the world.”

Richmond coach Eric Gillespie wished his squad would have taken better advantage of its fast start.

“It’s a classic case when you’ve got a team down, you’ve got to put them away. And we didn’t put them away,” he said. “We let them hang around, and a team that’s experienced and a program that’s been around for awhile, those guys are used to winning and know how to win, you let them hang around long enough, they’re going to figure it out.”