OhioVarsity.com - Mason scores three TD's in Ursuline win

October 27, 2007

Jonas Fortune
Special to OhioVarsity.com

As the rain fell Friday night at Green Street Stadium in Akron it was easy to get things confused between Akron St. Vincent St. Mary (8-2) and Youngstown Ursuline (8-2). Both schools carry the nickname "The Fighting Irish," both schools proudly wear green and gold and both schools suffered a loss to nationally ranked Youngstown Cardinal Mooney. So it should be no surprise that in Ursuline's thrilling 33-30 overtime victory much of the success was created by confusion.

The Fighting Irish, the ones from Youngstown, used throwback screens and misdirection plays most of the night to keep the Fighting Irish, from Akron, off balance.

"They're a very fast defense; they play hard, they scrape to the ball very quickly and that was part of our game plan," Ursuline head coach Dan Reardon said "We made some adjustments at halftime and we hit the throwback screen on them because they were pursuing on the quarterback a little bit. A couple other big plays came out of that."

Just three plays into the second half, Ursuline senior quarterback Lamar McQueen scrambled to his right, stopped near the sideline and looked back to his left. As the defense pursued, McQueen spotted a wide-open Allen Jones on the left side, near the line of scrimmage. The sophomore running back took care of the rest as he rumbled for a 76-yard score to tie the game at 14.

"Their linebackers play more downward and we just went the opposite direction. My O-line got it done for me," Allen said.

But for every big play Ursuline had, St. Vincent St Mary had one of its own. On Ursuline's next series SVSM pressured McQueen and forced him to scramble to his right. The senior uncorked an errant pass down the sideline that SVSM junior defensive back David Lee streaked in front of and intercepted before going out of bounds at the 18, deep in Ursuline territory. Three plays later it was SVSM junior Rhys Edwards punching it in for the one-yard touchdown run.

With 4 minutes and 32 seconds left to play in the third quarter, The Fighting Irish, of the Akron variety, now seemed to be in control as they led 24-14.

We gave them a short field a couple times on turnovers you never like to see that," Reardon said. But I'm proud of our kids they hung in there and kept playing."

Ursuline then went on an 11-play drive that ended with a play-action McQueen pass to sophomore tight end Jamel Turner. The Youngstown Fighting Irish were now within three at 24-21.

With just three minutes and eight seconds left ? and Ursuline trailing by six ? McQueen began to use his big-play ability to engineer an 86-yard, 14-play touchdown drive. The quarterback completed passes of 11 and six yards and ran for 33 yards before workhorse running back Darrell Mason punched it in from two yards out. Mason, a junior, finished the game with just 55 yards rushing, but had three touchdowns.

"Not to many teams have run big plays against us," SVSM head coach Dan Boarman said. "And they got two or three."

As the clock read 23 seconds, the game was now tied at 27 and came down to an extra point attempt by Ursuline senior Mike Metzinger, but SVSM had one big play left of its own. Sophomore defensive lineman Bryant Ausperk pushed through the offensive line and blocked the point-after attempt sending the two teams to overtime.

After the Akron Irish were held to just a field goal to start the overtime period, Ursuline's ground game took over. Mason rushed for all 20 yards on five carries and picked up the win for the Fighting Irish?of Youngstown.

Jonas Fortune is a senior journalism major at Kent State University and can be contacted at jcfortun@kent.edu.

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