BLANCHESTER — A week ago, Ty Goodwin may have been the best offensive lineman on the Blanchester High School football team.
Friday night against Norwood, Goodwin was the unquestioned power back behind a 30-21 win at Barbour Memorial Field.
Because five players, four of them two-way starters, were injured the previous week against Waynesville, Goodwin took his No. 74 jersey and lined up behind the center. He took every direct snap on offense and ran the ball 45 times for 288 yards and two touchdowns.
For good measure, he completed a 41-yard touchdown pass to Dylan Short.
“Ty’s a tough kid and we knew he could handle what we were going to do,” BHS head coach Jon Mulvihill said.
With so many openings following an injury-plagued defeat last week to Waynesville, Mulvihill and his coaches had to figure out a completely different game plan.
“I left the decision up to coach (John) Lovin (offensive coordinator),” Mulvihill said. “I gave him some suggestions.”
The one that made the most sense was moving an offensive tackle into the backfield and letting him touch the ball on every play.
“He’s run the 100-meter dash for the track team,” Mulvihill said. “He runs decent. He was a skill kid as a sophomore but he went to 200 pounds, so we put him on the line (last year). He runs with a lot of anger. He worked his tail off in practice this week. He was up to the challenge.”
Norwood struck first, though, a 70-yard pass play on the first play of the game.
Then the Wildcats took their turn on offense, embarking on a long, time-consuming drive that culminated in a two yard TD run by Caleb Sears at the 2:30 mark. Goodwin’s two point run made it 8-7 BHS.
Just over two minutes later, the Wildcats scored again on the Goodwin-Short pass play. The two point run by Goodwin made it 16-7. It was 16-15 Blanchester at halftime.
Goodwin scored from 6 yards out in the third then added a 9 yard scoring run in the fourth as BHS pulled out to a 30-15 leads. Norwood scored late to make it a nine-point final margin.
“I couldn’t be more proud,” Mulvihill said of his team. “They could have packed it in with what we lost last week but they rose to the challenge this week.”
As impressive as the move from tackle to quarterback is the fact that Goodwin faced a Norwood defense determined to stop the run. With no fewer than nine players within just a few yards of the line of scrimmage, BHS was going to be tested against the stacked box. It passed. The line of Chasen Allison, Gabe Staehling, Cody Kidd, Wyatt Oberle, Tristan Malone, Jared Daniels and backfield blockers Dustin Trace and Jude Huston helped Goodwin approach the 300-yard mark.
“We were lining up and playing smashmouth football,” the BHS coach said. “We were going to do it no matter what. If it worked, we were gonna win. If it didn’t, we weren’t (going to win). Ty was about the only option we had to run the ball the way we wanted to run the ball.”
SUMMARY
Sept. 9, 2022
@Barbour Memorial Field
Blanchester 30, Norwood 21
N^7^8^0^6^^21
B^16^0^6^8^^30
RUSHING: N (16-38-0) Sonny Ward 9-28-0, Gavin Leonard 5-6-0, Devin Isaac 1-4-0, Jeremy Sanders 1-0-0; B (49-303-3) Ty Goodwin 45-288-2, Caleb Sears 4-15-1
PASSING: N-Sonny Ward 15-30, 176 yards, 3 TD; B-Ty Goodwin 2-4, 41 yards, 1 TD
RECEIVING: N (13-168-2) Dylan Horsley 6-42-0, Jeremy Saunders 3-93-1, Jermell Jackson 3-22-1, Breden Hill 1-11-0; B (2-41-1) Dylan Short 1-41-1, Dustin Trace 1-0-0
TACKLES: B (27 total, 13 solo, 2 sack, 1 TFL) Casey Shank 8-4-1-1, Aiden Begley 3-1-0-1, Tristan Malone 2-1-1-1, Dylan Short 3-2-0-0, Cody Kidd 2-1-0-1, Chasen Allison 2-1-0-0, Caleb Sears 1-1-0-0, Jude Huston 1-1-0-0, Sammy Roush 1-1-0-0, Seth Perkins 1-0-0-0, Isaiah Abbott 1-0-0-0, Jarrod Daniels 1-0-0-0, Collin Elston 1-0-0-0.
