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Shaffer on Grant Holloway: ‘We won the game because of number 5’
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
Kale Shotts Mitchell Clark Trenton Meadows
Rochester football coach Isaac Shaffer said that junior quarterback Mitchell Clark wants to be great.
Clark showed off some greatness on senior night, scoring the winning touchdown on a 1-yard sneak with 8:00 left three plays after a crucial fourth down completion to Trenton Meadows as the Zebras beat Northwestern 30-22 on senior night at Barnhart Field Friday.
Kale Shotts led the ground attack with 177 yards rushing, including 66 in the fourth quarter. Meadows had a memorable 18th birthday: 83 yards rushing; 38 yards receiving, including a touchdown; and 39 yards passing on a halfback pass to Liam Spence on the first play from scrimmage.
Clark added 48 yards passing.
Alex Chapman had 65 yards rushing and two touchdowns on offense and an interception on defense. Camden Susaraba had a fumble recovery.
Shaffer also had special praise for halfback-linebacker-safety Grant Holloway.
“The biggest one out of those (senior) guys is number 5 Grant Holloway,” Shaffer said. “He’s not going to show up in the stat book for what he did tonight. We won the game because of number 5. The way he blocked. His toughness. Yeah, seven (Meadows) absolutely made a lot of great plays. Thirty-three (Shotts) did as well. Grant Holloway, just an unselfish and tough kid. He helped us win this game big time.”
Rochester improved to 4-4 overall and 3-3 in the Three Rivers Conference. Northwestern is 4-4, 4-2.
“It means a lot,” Holloway said. “The team actually came together tonight. We were really a team tonight, and you could see it out there.”
Colin Cook threw for 260 yards and two touchdowns and also ran for a touchdown for Northwestern, who wiped out a 22-7 deficit. They tied the game on Cook’s 4-yard touchdown run and a two-point conversion pass akin to the “Philly Special” from the 2018 Super Bowl from wide receiver Jayden West to Cook.
Rochester, who did not score in the second half in their previous two losses to Peru and Northfield, responded.
Meadows ran for 18 yards on the first play of the ensuing drive that put the ball at the Northwestern 44.
Shotts had runs of 7 and 5 yards.
But three plays later, Rochester faced fourth-and-5 from the Northwestern 24, and Northwestern called timeout with 9:20 left.
Rochester had attempted only one pass in 19 offensive snaps in the second half, so Northwestern packed the box, expecting a run.
Holloway went in motion from right to left, but he was a decoy. Instead, Meadows slipped out into the flat and was open and caught it at the 20 and advanced it to the 11 before running out of bounds for a 13-yard completion.
“They definitely liked to do that,” Clark said of packing the box. “We’ve seen that on film, and our game plan was just to go and run over them. We just tried to carry out our game plan, and it worked. Our offensive line got after it, and our guys just blocked their butts off. Just a heck of a night for the guys.”
Shotts then ran for two yards, and Meadows ran eight yards up the middle before being tackled inside the 1. Clark then scored on a sneak off left guard.
He then rolled to his right and found Holloway for a two-point conversion pass, floating it over defenders Ethan Krisher and Logan Martin into Holloway’s waiting arms.
“That was a big emphasis that we had,” Clark said. “It’s just we got to keep it going from the first half and moving to the second half and just try to keep the momentum going and stay focused throughout the game and capitalize and shut them down.”
Cook hit running back Ayden Giles for 18 yards and DeWayne Perrigen for 13. Three plays later, he hit Perrigen for 10 yards to convert a third-and-5 and move the ball to the Zebra 20.
Three plays later, he hit Perrigen for seven yards to convert a fourth-and-4.
Giles ran for two yards, and Cook ran for a yard. On third-and-goal from the 4, Gavin Fincher deflected a pass from Cook but then had to leave the game due to cramping.
Shaffer called timeout with 4:33 left.
Cook made a quick bootleg to the right and attempted a pass to Perrigen in the front right corner of the end zone, but Spence was there defensively, and the pass was low and landed incomplete.
“Just staying together and not panicking,” Shaffer said of the defensive stop. “We’ve had previous weeks where things are going bad, and I don’t want to say that we give up, but we’re just thinking about so much rather than the next play, and tonight we did that, and Liam Spence just made a great play, another guy on senior night that just stepped up for us.”
Rochester then ran the final 4:28 off the clock. Shotts had six consecutive carries at one point. He converted a third-and-3 with a five-yard run on the first play after a Northwestern timeout.
And with 1:51 left and the Zebras facing second-and-7 from the Rochester 31, Shotts squirmed through a hole that left guard Derek Wortley created, shed a tackle and took it 21 yards to the Northwestern 48 to clinch the game.
“We just stayed sound and stayed to our keys,” Holloway said of the defense. “And really just pass defense, and our run defense didn’t let up a lot of yards. Just sound defense there tonight.”
Rochester scored first and lost against Peru and Northfield. This time, they won despite their opponent scoring first.
Rochester fumbled on their first two possessions. A Chapman interception averted the first turnover, but Northwestern capitalized off the second with Perrigen taking a wide receiver screen to the right and turning upfield for a 25-yard touchdown.
On the ensuing drive, Meadows ran 37 yards down to the Northwestern 33. A 14-yard Shotts run got it to the 20, and Chapman ran 17 yards on a jet sweep to the left for a touchdown. A two-point conversion pass attempt to Holloway fell incomplete, and Northwestern maintained a 7-6 lead.
After Northwestern turned the ball over on downs with Jayden West being stopped by Mason Oliver, Holloway and Shotts for an eight-yard reception on fourth-and-10, Rochester answered with a seven-play, 70-yard drive.
One play after Shotts converted a third-and-3 with a five-yard run, Chapman followed blocks from Navan Goodman, Gavin Fincher, Derek Wortley and Mason Oliver on another jet sweep to the left for a 48-yard score. Aiden Wilson’s two-point conversion run made it 14-7.
“We want to establish the fullback, but when you can’t do that and now when the halfbacks can run jet as well as they did tonight, Alex Chapman had some big runs in the first half off jet that really opened that up and caused them to get out of what they normally would make them comfortable,” Shaffer said. “By the end of the game, they were in a 4-4. So we felt like once we had that, now we could establish Kale Shotts at the fullback again, and that really helped.”
After Susaraba’s fumble recovery and an exchange of punts, the Zebras extended their lead with an 11-play, 85-yard drive that included an 17-yard Shotts run, a 22-yard pass from Clark to Meadows and a Shotts 13-yard run before Meadows made an over-the-shoulder catch on Clark’s 13-yard touchdown pass on fourth-and-6.
“Just his toughness and his want-to to be great,” Shaffer said when asked what stands out about Clark at quarterback. “He’s a kid that wants things to be done right. He wants to do them right. He’s like an NFL quarterback there, stepping up as he’s getting hit and delivering good passes. Just can’t say enough about that kid and just his toughness. And everything else is just starting to come with more and more experience.”
Meadows’ two-point conversion run gave Rochester a 22-7 lead they took into halftime.
Rochester 30, Northwestern 22
Northwestern 7 0 7 8 – 22
Rochester 6 16 0 8 – 30
First quarter
NW – DeWayne Perrigen 25 pass from Colin Cook (Lee Stafford kick)
RHS – Alex Chapman 17 run (pass failed)
Second quarter
RHS – Chapman 48 run (Aiden Wilson run)
RHS – Trenton Meadows 13 pass from Mitchell Clark (Meadows run)
Third quarter
NW – Ayden Giles 9 pass from Cook (Stafford kick)
Fourth quarter
NW – Cook 4 run (Cook pass from Jayden West)
RHS – Mitchell Clark 1 run (Grant Holloway pass from Clark)
