SHEFFIELD TWP. – There’s nothing like an opening-night lopsided victory against a worthy opponent to help exorcise the demons from a disappointing previous season.

“We had been waiting for this game to come around for almost a year,” Elyria Catholic quarterback Danny Reaser said after piloting the Panthers to a 45-6 victory over Clearview on Friday. “Right after the Cleveland Central Catholic game (the 2009 finale) we have been hoping to get a reversal from last year.”

Elyria Catholic started last season as a candidate to reach the Division IV state championship game. The Panthers did not make the playoffs, finishing with a 7-3 record. It was clearly eating at Reaser, if not the whole team.

“Our game plan was to run our offense until (Clearview) gave up,” Reaser said. “It worked perfectly. The offense was phenomenal. The whole team was phenomenal.”

Reaser was the most phenomenal of them all. He broke the EC career record for passing yards with a 32-yarder to junior James Baker with three minutes to play in the first half. That completion gave Reaser 99 yards for the game and 3,415 for his career, eclipsing the mark of 3,390 yards set by Cody Schuster.

Schuster, who graduated in 2008, was Reaser’s predecessor at quarterback.

But Reaser wasn’t anywhere near done. He finished the evening completing 26 of 37 passes for 383 yards and five touchdowns. Two of his TDs went to Conor Voreis, who caught 10 passes for 143 yards. Baker caught six for 147 yards, including a 69-yard pickup that set up Elyria Catholic’s fourth touchdown late in the third quarter. Baker took the Panthers to the Clearview 10-yard line on the play.

“We had tremendous blocking from the other wide receivers,” Baker said. “Conor and Zach (Rogers) blocked well for me. Danny made so many great throws.”

Reaser and the Panthers hit only one soft spot. After scoring on its first three possessions, with Reaser completing 13 of his first 14 passes, EC went three series without a TD as Reaser completed only 6-of-14 for 51 yards.

The 69-yard pass to Baker woke up the offense. Reaser ended the game hitting on seven of his final nine throws for 154 yards and three TDs.

“The score was misleading,” EC coach Ben Malbasa said. “Clearview is a good, well-coached team. We just caught the breaks tonight.

“We had adversity and we battled back,” Malbasa added. “We have had some injury problems but we didn’t let them get us down. I like to see that.”

The Reaser-to-Baker pass in the third quarter proved to be the dagger in the heart for the Clippers.

“He is a very talented quarterback, that’s for sure,” Clearview coach Mike Collier said of Reaser. “We had occasions, when it was 21-6, to make it close and we couldn’t finish drives. Then we gave up that big pass play and it all spiraled from there.”

Reaser passed 11 yards to Jordan Alpaster with 2:39 left in the third quarter, making the score 28-6.

It took EC 1:14 to make the score 8-0. Reaser completed four of five passes on the first drive, with the big play being a 34-yard pass to Baker on third-and-4. Voreis ended it with a 20-yard reception.

The Clippers answered with a 15-play drive that took 7:37 and ended with Davon Daniels passing 4 yards to Ryan Collier. The conversion attempt failed, leaving EC with an 8-6 lead. Matt Morgan and Zach Rogers scored for the Panthers to make it a 21-6 game with 9:06 to go before halftime.

Clearview’s best chance to cut into the Panthers’ 21-6 lead came after Aaron Arnoczky intercepted Reaser and returned the ball to the EC 46. The Clippers got as close as the 14 before fizzling out on a fourth-and-12.

TEMPER, TEMPER: The game got a little testy at times. Five personal foul penalties were called – three on Clearview and two on Elyria Catholic.

Contact Steve Byrne at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

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