September
24, 2004
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| After being held scoreless in the season's first two weeks, Dave Stahl got the Indian Hills offense in gear on Thursday night against Mahwah. | |
OAKLAND - The first two weeks of the season were anything but pleasant for the Indian Hills football team. Losses by a combined score of 88-0 can be a very demoralizing for a proud program that has experienced a good bit of success the past few years. So, when Mike Fuller cracked the goal line in the second quarter of Thursday night's game with Mahwah, the reaction looked more like a championship winning touchdown on the Braves' sideline.
With the monkey off its back, Hills kept giving the ball to Fuller and he kept powering his way into the Thunderbird secondary, racking up 179 yards and three touchdowns on 31 carries to pace the Braves to a 27-0 victory. The win puts Indian Hills at 1-2 and drops Mahwah to the same record. The T-Birds played without four starters, including running back / linebacker Mike Meola, out with a separated shoulder.
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| Ken Eberling was Mahwah's only real offensive weapon, catching three passes for 70 yards. |
The Braves did a good job of capitalizing on the weakened Mahwah defense as Fuller just kept pounding away between the tackles.
"We worked in practice on picking up our intensity on the field," IH head coach Mark Aramburu explained, "and tonight we were successful. We didn't turn the ball over, stayed out of penalties and we got some rhythm."
The teams traded punts on their first two possessions before Hills went 68 yards in 13 plays to score its first points of the season. Fuller, a junior, ran it on 12 of the 13 snaps on the drive for 46 of the yards, including the final three.
"It was
nice to just get a feel for the run," Aramburu noted. "This is his first crack
at it, and he did a real good job."
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| Mike Fuller's straight ahead style led to 179 yards rushing and three touchdowns for Indian Hills. |
Dave Stahl's first of three extra point kicks made it 7-0 with 8:48 left in the first half, and the Braves came right back with a 55-yard march on their next series, which began after Alex Boden forced a fumble on a sack that was recovered by Ryan Spittler.
That was the first of nine sacks the Braves would collect in the game as they continually pressured the pocket and forced QB Eric Kamback and replacement Scott Rossignol to pull the ball down and eat it. The second score came on a 20-yard pass from Stahl to Brad Zak on a crossing pattern. Zak had pulled in a 32-yarder earlier in the drive, the only two completions of the game for Stahl.
Down
13-0 at the half, Mahwah head coach Jeff Remo went to Rossignol midway through
the third quarter, but by then the Hills defense was teeing off on the passer.
Andrew Coker had one solo sack and shared two others, while Randy Rotella
and Jake Schultz each had 1.5 sacks.
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| Brad Zak hauled in Indian Hills' only two pass completions, one of them for a 20-yard score. |
When Fuller, who had less than 100 yards rushing in the first two games combined, ran for a 12-yard score three plays into the fourth quarter, the game was all but decided. Fuller added a 9-yarder later in the period to pace a 282-yard ground game and 307 yards of total offense.
Mahwah's offense netted a total of only 72 yards in the game. They were 1 of 11 on third down conversions, picked up zero yards on 13 first down plays and managed but four first downs. The QBs were a combined 3 of 12 passing for 70 yards (all three were to Ken Ebeling), but the nine sacks gave back 51 yards.
Rotella paced the Braves' defense with 9 tackles and Coker added 7 stops. Kevin Haslam led Mahwah with 11 tackles and Paul Scherer was in on 8 others.
"We're a young football team, and we still have to get better," Aramburu said. "We'll take this but we've got to get a lot better. Getting this win going into a bye week was huge, especially for our mental attitude. Now we need to get healthy and keep working hard."
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