By Tim Glon
Senior Tate Humphreywas solid in his first career start, running and passing Ohio Northern to a 28-14 football victory over Capital Saturday afternoon at Dial-Roberson Stadium.
The Polar Bears improve to 1-2 overall and are 1-1 in Ohio Athletic Conference, while the Crusaders fall to 1-2, 1-1. Humphrey completed 15 of 23 passes for 177 yards and two TDs and ran 20 times for 64 yards and a third touchdown for Ohio Northern.
Senior Carter Paul carried the ball 10 times for 72 yards and junior Devian McKennie carried the ball 15 times for 49 yards and a score. Senior Justin Wilson led the ONU receiving corps with five catches for 29 yards and Paul caught three passes for 51 yards and a TD.
The Polar Bears led 21-0 at halftime, then held on in the second half for the victory. The games was delayed for 1 hour, 7 minutes due to lightning with ONU ahead 14-0 with 3:47 left in the second quarter and the ball on the Capital 5-yard line. After the delay, Northern needed only two plays to score on a 1-yard run by McKennie to lead 21-0.
Humphrey hit senior Frank Thein on an 18-yard touchdown strike with 4:29 left in the first period, then swept in from three yards out to make it a 14-0 lead with 12:34 left in the first half. The lengthy lightning delay forced the cancellation of halftime and the teams went straight from the end of the second quarter to the start of the third period.
Capital returned the second half kickoff to the ONU 40-yard line and the Crusaders scored nine plays later on a 2-yard TD run by Nolan Gill to pull within 2107 with 10:44 left in the third quarter. After an exchange of punts, Humphrey capped a 7-play, 75-yard drive with a 31-yard screen pass to Paul for a touchdown and it was 28-7 ONU with 2:46 left in the third.
Capital answered, driving 61 yards in 12 plays on its next possession and scoring on a 2-yard run by Alex Nyzda to pull within 28-14 with 13:14 left in the game. But Northern ran 11:19 off the clock on its final two possessions to put the game away. First, ONU ran 6:10 off the clock on its next possession before punting, then ran out the game's final 5:09 after stopping the Crusaders on a 4th and 10 play from the CU 47-yard line.
"I thought our players did a nice job with the weather conditions and the wet field conditions," ONU head coach Dean Paul said. "We had several players in the lineup for the first time today and I thought they did a good job. Tate managed the game well in his first career start and we had a freshman at left guard (Rody Seballos) and I thought he handeled himself well.
"We tried to shorten the game in the second half and Paul, Humphrey and McKennie ran hard and stepped up to keep our offense on the field and keep the clock running." Nydza ran 20 times for 85 yards and a score and completed 2 of 9 passes for 31 yards to lead Capital offensively.
ONU out-gained CU 361-192 in total offense and controlled the ball for 35:11. Defensively, juniors Sean Denson, Dillon Kwiat and Josh Simon had eight tackles each for ONU, while Aaron Knisley had a game-high 13 tackles for Capital.
The Polar Bears will take to the road next Saturday for a 1:30 pm contest at No. 1-ranked Mount Union.
