AMHERST — Coaches try a number of things to motivate their players, and one of the favorites is discussing the lopsided defeat an upcoming opponent laid on you the season before.
Such was the case for the Amherst football team when coach Kevin Fell talked to his players about the thrashing they took last year at the hands of the Midview Middies.
“It was at practice earlier this week and Coach said we’re not going to lose to this team twice in a row,” senior captain Brandon Kish said. “He said it was one of the worst games he’d ever seen.
“You don’t forget a game like that. It was horrible.”
Count Kish with those who were properly inspired. The running back rushed for 109 yards and two touchdowns and became a human highlight reel during a long touchdown reception to lead the Comets to a 41-12 win over the Middies on Friday night.
“All I can tell you about last year’s game is that they beat us up in every way possible,” Fell said of Midview’s 20-6 home win. “We probably had better players than they did this time around. Plus I think they are a very young team and they lost their composure a little bit.”
It would have been tough for any team to recover from Amherst’s march down the field on its opening drive. Kish broke off short gains to the left, right and up the middle, and Comets quarterback Andrew Eliopoulos hit Kish and tight end Ryan Bartizal with perfect passes to move the ball easily to the 1-yard line, where Eliopoulos plunged into the end zone for the 7-0 lead.
Midview then had three of its best offensive plays of the game — a 13-yard sweep by quarterback Brett Whitesel and a pair of passes from Whitesel to running back Josiah Holt — before coughing up the ball on Amherst’s 33-yard line.
The Comets marched down the field again and scored on Brandon Morgan’s 14-yard reverse to the right side. Then Kish bounced off the left side of the line and sprinted 26 yards for a score. Eliopoulos and Bartizal hooked up for a 19-yard score, and Kish took a short screen on the right side and spun, deked and bowled his way 82 yards for another score — and the Comets led 34-0 at the half.
“Right after I got into the end zone, I tried to think about what I just did,” Kish said of the long pass play. “I couldn’t remember much of anything. I just knew I had a wall of people to run behind and that made it kind of easy.”
“I won’t talk about that first half,” Middies coach Bill Albright said. “I think the kids did a good job coming out in the second half and challenging. Nobody quit, and that was important. We wanted to see who wanted to play for the rest of the season.”
The Comets added a final touchdown — Kish for 5 yards up the middle — before Holt ended the shutout bid with an 18-yard run to the right side. The teams emptied their benches near the end of the third quarter and Middies reserve quarterback Kody Younglas provided the final thrill with a cutback move that earned him a 74-yard sprint down the sideline for the final touchdown.
“There are 22 faces out on that field and about 15 or 16 of them just experienced their second varsity game against a very tough program,” Albright said. “That’s why we play tough non-conference games like this and why we scrimmage Avon Lake before the season — to be prepared.
“These guys are going to compete for a ( West Shore) conference title.”
SPREADING IT AROUND: The Comets have scored 93 points in their first two games and the offense is coming from just about everywhere on Amherst’s roster. During Friday’s win over Midview, four players lined up at quarterback, three players caught passes and 14 running backs were used.
Contact Shaun Bennett at 329-7137 or sbennett@chroniclet.com.

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