WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
by John Wareham
SPARTA – It was business as usual for Dane Nauman.
The Scots’ running back ran for 300 yards in Highland’s second-to-last playoff game last season, then duplicated that task nearly a year later in the 17-14 season-opening win over Fredericktown Friday night.
The Scots (1-0) lost quite a few offensive players from last year’s team, including the quarterback and many members of the offensive line, but they still have Nauman, who continues to set fields on fire with his running.
He set the tone in the first quarter after each team scored on big plays.
When Fredericktown turned the ball over on downs at the Highland two-yard-line, Nauman took the ensuing handoff and sprinted down the sidelines for a 98-yard scamper.
The junior running back carried the ball 31 times in the game for an even 300 yards behind an offensive line with several new players, several of whom are seeing their first varsity action.
“Three hundred yards, a lot of chunk in there”, Scots coach Ty Stover said. “He got one big one and we were hoping he’d get a couple more of those big ones. We gotta get back to the drawing board and get our o-line in the right state of mind and spread the ball out a little bit more and we’ll be better.”
“They’re a good group, they’re gonna come back and work hard and I know we’re going to come back and try to correct the mistakes,” Stover said.
Teegan Ruhl was the workhorse for the Fredericktown offense.
Ruhl, a senior, scored on a 62-yard pass to open the game and then had the final Freddie touchdown in the beginning of the fourth quarter, on a two-yard run (video here). Quarterback Ben Mast scored a two-point conversion after Ruhl’s dive (video here) to get the Freddies within three points, but Highland’s defense held on for the rest of the quarter and preserved the win.
Ruhl finished the game with 186 yards on the ground on 24 rushes and scored twice.
Highland’s next three games are on the road (Triway, Crestview and Ontario) and Fredericktown goes to Northridge next week.
