(PHOTOS BY RACHEL NAGEL / THE VILLAGE REPORTER)
BIG NIGHT … Delta senior Landon Lintermoot plows through the line on one of his 37 carries on the night that led to a team leading 236 yards. VIEW 115 PHOTOS OF THIS CONTEST FOR FREE AT WWW.THEVILLAGEREPORTER.COM
100 YARD RUSHER … Vincent Martinez hits the gap on a second half run. Martinez joined Lintermoot in rushing for over 100 yards as he would total 158 on just nine carries.
By: Joe Blystone
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
publisher@thevillagereporter.com
DELTA (August 30, 2024) – Delta’s victory over Fairview was more like a World War II history lesson. The Panther offensive line was more like Patton’s tanks driving the enemy backward and gashing holes in their defense as Delta running backs led by Landon Lintermoot romped for 236 yards and ran out to a 28-7 lead.
Then after a surprise attack of consecutive onside kicks after Fairview scores, with their backs to the wall, the Delta defense stood fast like McAuliffe did at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, as the Panthers held on for a 35-28 victory.
The Panthers are now 2-0 on the season while Fairview suffered its first loss after a win over Wauseon last week.
“I thought Coach (John) Winterfeld and Coach (Brandon) Behnfeldt worked with those guys up front really hard, not only in pre-season but all summer long,” Delta Coach Mike Vicars explained talking about his O-line that created running lanes all night.
“We have some good size up there, good guards, we are led in the middle by Cass Chiesa and Parker Cone. They are the only two seniors up front and they do a great job, they are the ones who’ve got to open seams.”
Fairview’s William Zeedyk set the tone of what Fairview was going to do all night long as he completed five straight passes to get to the Panther 36 on the first drive.
Two misfires and Wyatt Flickinger’s sack for loss of nine yards forced an Apache punt and the Panthers began to chew up terrain from there.
On the fourth play from scrimmage, freshman Marcus Nagel broke lose for a 52-yard blast to paydirt and a 7-0 Delta lead with 7:11 left in the first.
Zeedyk answered right back, going 6-9 on the next drive, capping a march off that went 101 yards because of Apache penalties, hitting a wide-open Gavin Meade for the last 49 and the tying score with 4:20 still to go in the quarter.
At that time Delta began a time consuming, deliberate march from their own 20 after the kickoff. Lintermoot was the main carrier in a 15 play, 7:13 clock eating scoring sortie, with 10 totes of the rock.
The senior running back had runs of 11 and 18, then got five on a fourth-and-2 from the Fairview 18 to keep the march going before pounding the ball in from four yards out to give Delta the lead for good at 14-7.
The Panthers got on the board again after a Fairview punt, and again it was Lintermoot doing most of the damage as he went 11 on one carry and 26 more on another around Vincent Martinez’s 14-yard jaunt to get the ball to the one where Lintermoot went the final yard to make it 21-7, 2:21 before halftime.
The opening drive of the third was a carryover of the first half as went for 13, then 32 and the final 10 in another 80-yard drive that took nearly five minutes off the clock and put the Panthers ahead what in seemed to be a comfortable 28-7 margin, especially after Alex York picked off a Zeedyk aerial to shut down the Apaches’.
However, a holding penalty, then a mishandled handoff and recovery at the Panther 7 led to Zeedyk’s first play strike to Logan Olinger to chop the Panther lead to 28-14.
The following onside kick try bounced off a Delta up lineman and into the hands of the Apaches and Zeedyk set sail again from the Fairview 48.
A dropped TD pass only deterred Zeedyk for a moment as he hit Oliger for 36 yards on the next play on a fourth-and-20, then found Meade in the endzone from 10 yards out to get Fairview within a score at 28-21 a minute into the fourth quarter.
A second onside kick was pounced on by Fairview, giving them a golden starting point at the Delta 48. However, the Panther defense stood fast this time as Richard Flores made a tackle for a loss on a Fairview outside screen, Flickinger scored his third of four sacks on the night for a loss of 14 and Flores stopped Brady Williams after a catch, short of the line to gain to regain possession for the Panthers.
“The one time I personally put them in a bad situation after that penalty and I called that wingback counter that we fumbled and caused a touchdown, just dumb on my part, I guess that’s what happens when you sit out of coaching for five years,” Vicars said.
“At the same time, those guys rallied up. I thought overall our defense played really good, that’s a very high-flying offense that can put a lot of points on the board, they are going to win a lot of games this year.”
Delta scored a key two touchdown margin halfway through the fourth when Martinez raced 63 yards to the Fairview 2 and Lintermoot did the honors for the fourth time on the night to make it 35-21, making Zeedyk’s TD pass to Jonathan Huffman with 28 ticks left only a gap closer.
Vicars expressed the importance of winning non-conference games as far as the playoff picture. “For sure because they don’t play common opponents you play on a weekly basis.”
“When they win you can rack up points for sure. (Fairview) was a pre-season pick in their league, we knew it would really be a hard-nosed game after we saw what they did with Wauseon last week. You’re right it’s big, and we have another big one next week.”
Lintermoot ran 37 times on the night for 236 yards. Martinez added another 158 on just nine carries as Delta ran 58 times as a team while throwing just one incomplete pass.
It was just the opposite for the Apaches as eight runs, including those four Flickinger sacks went for minus-32 yards, but Zeedyk loaded up a whopping 66 times, completing 38 for 432 yards and 4 TDs.
Delta plays their last non-con game against undefeated Lake next week. Fairview plays Bryan next Friday.