Leonardo
By (hippy) TED RADICK
- THE FINDLAY COURIER
FINDLAY - Down 28-6 at halftime, McComb received the second-half kickoff looking to score and turn Friday's Division VI regional final into a potential upset of the state's No. 1-ranked team. Delphos St. John's linebacker Chris Pohlman had other ideas.
Pohlman picked off McComb quarterback Andrew Dee on the first play of the second half and returned two-fourth quarter interceptions for touchdowns as the Blue Jays rolled over McComb 56-20 at Donnell Stadium.
St. John's, now 13-0 on the season, advances to the state semifinals next Friday against Sidney Lehman at a site to be determined. McComb ended its season 12-1.
Pohlman's three interceptions were among the five thrown by Dee, who threw just seven picks coming into the game. St. John's turned each of those turnovers into touchdowns behind a power running attack that racked up 337 yards and allowed the Blue Jays to control the clock for 32 of the game's 48 minutes.
"To get five interceptions, I'm a little surprised by that, yeah," St. John's coach Todd Schulte said. "(Pohlman) did tell me on the sideline he was going to score tonight. I told him afterwards he might want to save some of those, not use them all in one night."
Pohlman, 6-foot-2 and 240 pounds, was Ohio's Division VI Defense Player of the Year last season. He entered Friday's game with just one interception this season, but credited St. John's defensive coordinator Steve Recker with a near-perfect game plan.
"The big thing we worked on this week was my hook zone," Pohlman said. "They like to attack the middle of the field, and coach Recker stressed to me covering the middle of the field so they couldn't. I was just fortunate they threw it my way a couple times and I got my hands on the ball. So, it worked out really well."
St. John's wasted little time in converting Pohlman's first interception into points. The Blue Jays took over on McComb's 27 and scored in four plays as Ty Bergfeld took a bubble screen pass from quarterback Jordan Leininger, broke a tackle at the line of scrimmage and sprinted into the end zone for a 26-yard touchdown to put St. John's up 35-6.
Pohlman even added a 15-yard scoring run in the fourth quarter off a rare carry as a fullback in addition to his 31- and 21-yard interception returns for touchdowns.
"There's a few things that feel better than that," he said, laughing. "There's a couple, but it's a great feeling. I don't get to experience that much and I'm going to soak this one up."
And as for predicting his touchdowns?
"It's bound to happen one out of 13 times if you say it every game," he said. "I did tell (Schulte) that; my odds aren't so good but it's bound to happen once."
Dee said Pohlman made an impression on him.
"That No. 13, the middle linebacker, he's the most athletic big guy I've ever seen in my life," Dee said. "One time was a one-handed pick, and he just got there so fast. It just shows how I have a lot to learn yet, a lot to get better at and improve on this summer. If I do go on to play college ball, I have stuff to work on."
St. John's defense held McComb to minus-4 yards rushing and sacked Dee twice. Those two sacks don't indicate, however, the pressure Dee was under all game long.
"They put pressure on him and flushed him out of the pocket," McComb coach Kris Alge said. "It was just speed, speed on the edges. They flushed Andrew out. You can't make mistakes against a good football team like that. Andrew, bless his heart, he's a helluva quarterback, he threw it to that linebacker and he didn't mean to. That's a big, tall, 240-pound middle linebacker who was dropping well. He just didn't get it over the (middle) linebacker. He didn't get enough touch on it. We thought the seam was there. He got us twice for it."
Pohlman said the pressure applied by the defensive line was key.
"Sacks are big, but the big thing with the front three is harassment," Pohlman said. "If you can get the quarterback to throw the ball when he doesn't want to, that forces turnovers. He throwing from and to places he doesn't feel comfortable, and I was able to run right under it."
"I don't want people to be going around saying I didn't have time and blaming my line," Dee said. "No, that's not how it went. They're just a good team, they blitzed us, they knew the right places to go. They made a couple good plays."
One of those good plays, this one from the St. John's offense, came on the opening possession of the game as Leininger took a quarterback draw 53 yards for a touchdown. Less than two minutes into game, St. John's was up and after a first-quarter punt was downed at McComb's 1-yard line, things were looking even better for the Blue Jays.
McComb answered with a 99-yard scoring drive. Dee, 23 of 36 for 282 yards in the game, hit Taylor Hanes for a 44-yard gain on the initial play of the drive, and McComb scored to complete a 10-play drive as Dee again found Hanes, who had seven catches for 135 yards, for a 4-yard score.
Dee's first interception came on McComb's next drive, and St. John's converted it into a touchdown as Evan Burgei, who rushed for 189 yards on 29 carries, scored on a 6-yard run.
"We needed to score when we got that opportunity after we went 99 yards and put it in the end zone," Alge said. "We had a turnover, we threw a pick and it didn't happen. We knew if we were going to beat them, we weren't going to stop them all the time. They're just too good a football team to do that. We knew we had to score with them."
Burgei added two more touchdowns, on runs of 10 and 3 yards, in the second quarter. Leininger added 104 yards on 12 carries as the Blue Jays put up 482 yards of total offense and 25 first downs in the game.
"I thought defensively we did all right for a while, and they just wore us down," Alge said. They're a good football team. They're bigger than us, they're faster than us. I'm proud of the kids, they never quit, but if you don't score with them you're not going to beat them."