Jim Jablonski
The Chronicle-Telegram
TWINSBURG — Tournament games should be decided by two evenly matched teams. And that’s what Amherst and Twinsburg were Saturday night.
Twinsburg, however, ended up with the most points, 20-11, ending the Comets’ season and dropping them out of the Division I tournament.
With 2:31 to play and up 14-11, Twinsburg junior punter Sam Dejeu got off the kick of his life to the Comet 25. The Comets’ Matt Elbert was forced to turn and try to catch the ball over his shoulder. It slipped off his hands and was covered at the Amherst 22.
Four plays later, Keith Curry caught backup quarterback Andrew Collier’s 18-yard pass for a 20-11 lead, essentially sealing the game for the Tigers with 1:17 to play.
“That punt just kept on going,” Amherst coach Kevin Fell said. “We had to sit back on the rush and that gave him the chance to get off a great one.”
Field position played a big role throughout. The Tigers marched 43 yards for their first score early in the first quarter following Brandon Morgan’s fumble. A slow whistle on a sweep seemed to give the Tigers time to strip the ball.
Nine plays later they were in for their first score off a 17-yard completion from Collier to Dion Johnson. Johnson’s 2-point conversion run put Twinsburg up 8-0.
That’s where it stood until the Comets marched 90 yards in just seven plays late in the half. Quarterback Andrew Eliopoulos broke free for a 53-yard run down the left sideline for Amherst’s first score. Morgan followed it with a plunge for the tying conversion.
But the Comets weren’t finished. After holding those Tigers they marched to the Twinsburg 21, setting up Elbert’s 38-yard field goal as time expired. They took an 11-8 lead into the locker room.
Twinsburg got its best sustained drive early in the third period when it marched 61 yards in eight plays. The drive was capped by Johnson’s 1-yard run for a 14-8 lead when the kick was missed.
Defenses ruled the game. Twinsburg’s four sacks, two by senior lineman Kevin Miller, stifled the Comets while Cody Wenrich’s big plays in the fourth quarter shut down the Tigers. His last big tackle stopped the Tigers in the fourth but, unfortunately for Amherst, led to Dejeu’s big punt.
“We had poor field position all night,” Fell said. “But that was a credit to their defense. We could never seem to get the big play at the right time tonight.”
The loss was Amherst’s third in a row following eight straight wins.
Contact Jim Jablonski at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

Booming punt takes air out of Comets’ hopes

Tim Gebhardt
The Chronicle-Telegram
TWINSBURG — Kevin Fell called it a “goofy game,” for lack of a better word.
Amherst’s defense did its job — forcing Twinsburg to punt with 2:34 left to play. Tiger punter Sam Dejeu was inconsistent at best up to that point with his kicks but he had nailed the previous one 48 yards to give Amherst rather poor field position.
When he punted from his own 31-yard line, the Comets were hoping to field it and drive for the winning score. Twinsburg’s lead was a precarious 14-11.
“Two huge punts,” said Fell. “The other thing too, that you don’t really notice, (Twinsburg) uses a lot of different punt formations and so you can’t really put pressure on them. You’re not sure if they’re going to punt it or keep it. We kinda had to sit and let him punt it. That’s not good. If we could have put a little more heat on him, it would have shook him a little bit.
“My God, that last punt was 65 yards. It just kept going.”
“I believe (Amherst) had called a timeout,” said Twinsburg coach Mark Solis, the former coach at Elyria High. “I had challenged (Dejeu) because he had a couple clunker punts in the first half that really didn’t change the field position for us. I told him, ‘Now’s the time we need a good one.’ He got that thing to turn over. I don’t think (Matt Elbert) expected that thing to go that far. Obviously, the play of the football game.”
It wasn’t 65 yards — it actually was measured at 44 — but it must have looked that way to the Comets. When  Elbert turned and tried to catch it like a center fielder in baseball chasing a long fly, it was trouble. He got a hand on it but the ball bounded to the 22-yard line, where Twinsburg’s Nick Nero pounced on it.
On fourth down, Twinsburg drove the final nail in the coffin with a well-conceived pass play to the corner of the end zone where Keith Curry jumped up to get it. It gave Twinsburg a nine point lead, 20-11, with just over a minute to play. That’s how it ended, advancing Twinsburg to next week’s regional semifinal against North Canton Hoover.
“We thought we’d have a matchup with our best basketball player (Curry) who can dunk,” Solis said. “I told (quarterback) Andrew Collier, throw it up, let him be an athlete and that’s what he was able to do.”
Amherst appeared to grab the momentum at intermission when Elbert split the uprights with a 38-yard field goal to give the Comets the lead, but Twinsburg got the ball to start the second half and managed to put together a drive that yielded good field position. Eventually, that helped get the Tigers a score.
Twinsburg had its own obstacles to overcome. Its quarterback — junior Cory Eden — went out with a shoulder injury on the first play from scrimmage. With him went over 1,300 yards passing and the Tigers’ leading rusher.
Twinsburg’s offense revolves around Eden.
“You want to talk about coaching on the run,” said Solis. “Me and my offensive coordinator, we had to stitch and piece things together. That young man (Eden) accounts for 2,300 yards of our offense. You want to talk about ad-libbing — that was straight ad-lib 101. I’ve never been in that class before, but I think I got an ‘A’ and my assistants got ‘A’s’ for what we had to do there.”
Twinsburg used its backup — Collier — and tailback Dion Johnson to man the position the rest of the night. Collier finished with 126 yards through the air while Johnson ran for 124 on 39 carries — taking direct snaps from center on a number of plays.
Senior linebacker Cody Wenrich made a number of huge plays defensively for the Comets — recovering a fumble and coming through with several tackles for big losses. Quarterback Andrew Eliopoulos led Amherst’s rushing attack with 65 yards, thanks to a couple of scrambles where he got himself out of trouble, but the Comets couldn’t really sustain anything offensively. 
“(Twinsburg) is to be commended,” said Fell. “They made their adjustments, maybe a little better than we did. They came through and played a very good second half.”
FIRST TIME: Saturday’s Division I game at Twinsburg was the first time the Tigers hosted a state playoff game and fifth time Twinsburg has qualified for the postseason. Amherst was making its seventh appearance.
Contact Tim Gebhardt at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

Twinsburg 20, Amherst 11

Amherst    0    11    0    0    —    11
Twinsburg    8    0    6    6    —    20
Scoring
T – Dion Johnson, 17 pass from Andrew Collier (Johnson run)
A – Andrew Eliopoulos, 53 run (Brandon Morgan kick)
A- FG, Matt Elbert 38
T – Johnson 1 run (kick failed)
T—Keith Curry, 18 pass rom Collier (run failed)
Team statistics
    T        A
First downs    17        9
— by rushing    11        4
— by passing    5        4
— by penalty    1        1
Yards rushing    215        177
Yards passing    126        143
Total offense    347        320
Passes att./comp.    12/8        13/5
Intercepted by    1        0
Fumbles/lost    2/1        2/2
Penalties/yards    10/90        7/48
Individual statistics
RUSHING—(T) Dion Johnson 29-124, Cory Eden 1-14, Tyler Glover 1-4, Andrew Collier 5-4, Joe Hiller 3-16, Nick Nero 5-48, Byron Williams 1-8. (A) Andrew Eliopoulos 8-65, Shane Bockey 2-26, Brandon Morgan 14-48, Jason Stump 7-30, Charlie Davis 3-8.
PASSING—(T) Andrew Collier 12-8-126-2-0. (A) Andrew Eliopoulos 12-4-117-0-1, Matt Elbert 1-1-26-0-0.
RECEIVING—(T) Dion Johnson 4-51, Nick Nero 1-20, Byron Williams 1-35, Brandon Francisco 1-2, Keith Curry 1-8. (A) Brad Block 2-29, Josh Gonzalez 1-26, Ben Schwinn 1-13, Ethan Link
1-(-2).

Scoring summary

FIRST QUARTER
TWINSBURG 8, AMHERST 0. Dion Johnson 17 pass from Andrew Collier (Johnson run) 5:50. DRIVE: 9 plays, 43 yards. TIME OF POSSESSION: 3:58. KEY PLAY: Cory Eiden runs for 14 yards and first down on Twinsburg’s first play from scrimmage.
SECOND QUARTER
AMHERST 8, TWINSBURG 8. Andrew Eliopoulos 53 run (Brandon Morgan run) 3:36. DRIVE: 7 plays, 90 yards. TIME OF POSSESSION: 2:38. KEY PLAY: On third down and 10, Eliopoulos hits Ben Schwinn for 16 yard gain to
T-48.
AMHERST 11, TWINSBURG 8. Matt Elbert, 38 FG, 0:00. DRIVE: 7 plays, 48 yards. TIME OF POSSESSION: 1:45. KEY PLAY: Elbert completes halfback pass to Josh Gonzalez for first down at T-24.
THIRD QUARTER
TWINSBURG 14, AMHERST 11. Johnson 1 run (kick failed) 3:56. DRIVE: 8 plays, 61 yards. TIME OF POSSESSION: 3:13. KEY PLAY: Twinsburg retains possession when Devon Sanders fumbles Amherst’s punt but Mike Maier recovers to start drive at T-39.
FOURTH QUARTER
TWINSBURG 20, AMHERST 11. Keith Curry 18 pass from Collier (run failed) 1:17. DRIVE: 4 plays, 22 yards. TIME OF POSSESSION: 1:06. KEY PLAY: Amherst fumbles Twinsburg punt to start drive at A-22.

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