Friday, August 26, 2011

Ronan Orange and Black Game 2011

Sometimes breaking down an inter-squad scrimmage would be an exercise in over-analyzing things but Ronan fans have to feel pretty good about themselves after tonight.

The first team offense looked zeroed in on offense, committing very few errors and scoring touchdowns on six of their seven possessions against the scout team. Head coach Jim Benn said that the team is still waiting for a few guys to get healthy and that causes havoc on the scout team.

Despite that, one could still be impressed with the Chiefs. With quarterback Robbie Gauthier at the helm, it took only one play from scrimmage for them to score. Gauthier, who's baseball nickname of "Big hit Bob" is going to have to be changed to "Big play Bob," after he connected with wide receiver Marcus Hungerford for an 80-yard touchdown pass.

"I like our scheme that we have now," Hungerford said. "I just like the way we do stuff."

Hungerford also caught a pass for the two-point conversion afterward.

On their next possession, the first team offense handed the ball off to Polson-transfer Jake Skelton, who ripped off an 80-yard touchdown run.

"Our backs ran the ball well," quarterback Robbie Gauthier said. "They ran hard when we needed them too."

Skelton was impressive all night, and so was running back Jack Humphreys, who racked up an impressive yards-per-carry average.

Gauthier would score on the next possession thanks to a one-yard run and after he was done with his part of the scrimmage, he had plenty of kind words to say about the Ronan offensive line.

"We're trying to be a more up-tempo offense and our line did great," Gauthier said.

Humphreys scored next for Ronan on a seven-yard run, and Skelton put the ball in the endzone on the possession after that with a 52-yard catch and run.

Ronan's only blemish was a fumble on their sixth possession of the scrimmage but they were able to erase that thanks to a six-yard Skelton touchdown run.

When the Chiefs put their first-team defense in, the result was equally impressive as the Chiefs forced a fumble on the first play by the scout team. On the next possession they forced a forth down and Robert Fau intercepted the ball. He would come up big on the third possession by the scout team, recovering a fumble forced by the defense.

The first team defense ended things by forcing another forth down before the scrimmage focused on the younger kids.

There's lots of them too, as 57 kids came out for the team this year which is the biggest number that Benn has seen.

"It was surprising to hear we had that many freshman and sophomores come out," Hungerford said.

Benn also said that the senior class was a great group of kids, and they should be the core group that comes up big for the Chiefs this year.

Next Friday, Ronan will play defending Class B state champion Bigfork in their first football game since changing classifications. It's something not lost on the team, coach Benn said that it's a well-coached hard-nosed team and Gauthier said it's a game that will allow the team to see where they are at.

"State champs," Gauthier said. "We are going to try and show them what we got and what we want to do is show everyone that we belong in Class B."

Ronan just missed the playoffs last season in Northwestern A and beat conference champion Columbia Falls in the final game of the season. Moving down to the B classification hasn't changed the focus of the team though, as Hungerford plainly stated about how much the change really matters.

"It's still football," he said.


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