Spring Hill steamrolls Summit

SPRING HILL – The Spring Hill Raiders (1-0) manhandled the Spartans of Summit (0-1) 32-0 on the road Friday night with an effective offense.

Summit and first-year coach Brian Coleman were looking for their first ever victory at home on a hot and humid night to kick off the regular season but instead received a lesson in hard hitting football by local rival Spring Hill.

“We have got to go back to work,” Coleman said. “They were more physical than us and we cannot have that. We are not built to take on the physicality. We have got to come back and we have got to be more physical than the other team.”

The Raiders were led by junior starting quarterback Tylin Oden who used his legs in the first half to take off for two touchdowns that gave Spring Hill all the points it would need to best the beleaguered Spartans.

Spring Hill also had solid rushing from senior running back Malcolm Nicholson who picked up 58 yards on nine carries including a 5-yard touchdown run in the third quarter.

“I wanted to be aggressive tonight and prove that we were better than the other team,” Nicholson said. “We just tried to focus on not making so many mistakes and trying to build up our confidence and see who is better.”

The Raiders didn’t just run the ball either, moving to the air in second half with backup quarterback Blake Lovell who threw two passes, both for touchdowns.

“We didn’t pull it off we dominated the game,” Spring Hill head coach Tom Turchetta said. “We had a great week of practice. I thought we would play well. My big concern was we’ve been consistently inconsistent and what I told the kids at the school was that we challenged them. We said ‘we want a football team to play tonight, not a bunch of guys who want to play football’ and I think you saw a complete game.”

The offense got the glory but the Raider defense pitched a shutout limiting Summit quarterback Michael Zakrzewski to just 28 yards passing while the Spartans leading rusher Dylan Bates gained only 50 yards.

Summit punted the ball six times in the game and Spring Hill forced three turnovers with fumble recoveries by Nicholson and Hunter Whitwell while Raider Demontre Esmon intercepted a Spartan pass in the third quarter.

Another part of Spring Hill’s success was the special teams work that included an electrifying 44-yard punt return by Dre Smith that would set the table for an eventual Raider score in the third quarter.

Spring Hill scored its first points in second quarter when Oden took the ball 27-yard for a rushing touchdown and the 6-0 lead at the 7:07 mark.

Oden continued to put the game on his back with 1:56 before the half taking the ball nine yards to score and make the Raider advantage 12-0.

The second half scoring got started for Spring Hill with 8:55 left in the third quarter when Nicholson ran the ball 5-yards for a third Raider score and healthy 19-0 lead.

Later in the third quarter, at 2:33, Lovell found his target in tight end Kennedy Ross for a 6-yard grab making the already lopsided score 25-0 Raiders.

The final scoring play of the game was also Spring Hill’s when Lovell connected with fullback Zach Frye for a 20-yard touchdown catch making it 32-0.

The ability to score early on Summit was of great value to Oden and the Raiders who did just that.

“It’s very important because like they said in the newspaper about them hitting us in the mouth, we had to do the same thing to them,” Oden said.

For a team that was victorious in just one game a year ago, Spring Hill is suddenly riding high heading into the second game of the season on the road with Mt. Pleasant Thursday.

“That’s the best Spring Hill’s looked in I can’t tell you how long,” Turchetta said. “This is huge. It is huge for the program, huge for our school, huge for our community. It validates every single thing we’ve done with these kids.”