Chiefs come up just short in season opener at Corvallis

Zach Urness

Leader Staff

CORVALLIS — So close and yet so far.

The Ronan Chiefs came up just short in their first game of the season but showed they have plenty of potential, taking a 19-7 lead over Corvallis in the third quarter before a few tough plays late in the game allowed the Blue Devils to pull out a 22-19 win.

"It's frustrating when you're looking at a win in the face and you let it slip away," said Ronan head coach Dan Sward. "We were playing very good football, but had about six minutes or eight minutes when adversity really hit us and we just couldn't recover. But it shows us that to be a good team you can't afford letdowns."

Nick Courville scored on a 16-yard touchdown to give Ronan a 19-7 lead in the early stages of the third quarter, but then things started to go wrong for the Chiefs.

Long snapper Mike Avila was injured and his backup, while Sward said he did well the rest of the game, let one get away on a punt attempt and Corvallis recovered the ball and scored a few plays later.

Still ahead 19-14 in the fourth quarter, the Blue Devils scored on a 5-yard touchdown run with six minutes to play and made the two-point conversion, giving Corvallis a 22-19 lead they wouldn't relinquish.

"We had two more chances but just couldn't get anything going," noted Sward.

The Chiefs played very well through the first half, recovering a Corvallis fumble on the opening kickoff and scoring on a Mike Fisher 1-yard run.

Fisher, who finished with 109 yards rushing and 19 of 23 passing for 148 yards, scored his second touchdown of the game at the end of the second quarter, driving Ronan down the field with a 30-yard pass to Makenzy Kelch and scoring on a three-yard run to give the Chiefs a 13-7 lead going into the half.

"Fisher did a nice job," noted Sward.

Running back Nick Courville finished the game with 75 yards and a touchdown on 14 attempts and Makenzy Kelch caught five passes for 75 yards. Tyson Noyes added two catches for 48 yards and Cory Heardy had two for 28 yards.

Following the game, one major area that Sward thought the Chiefs could improve was stopping the run, as they gave up 259 yards on the ground to Corvallis.

"We're going to work on building up our defense to stop the run," said Sward. "We've got to clean up our mistakes before we face Hamilton."

Brett Burns led the Chief defense with nine solo tackles, three assists, a fumble recovery and a blocked field goal. Nick Courville had five tackles, five assists, two sacks and a fumble recovery. Mike Fisher added two interceptions.

Sward also pointed out that with a few exceptions, the offensive line exceed his expectations.

"I knew our line would struggle a little bit," he commented. "Once they get it down they'll do well, but for the first game they did a nice job for the most part."

Despite the loss, Sward noted that he thought the game was a good learning experience and that he was looking forward to Ronan's next game, which comes at Hamilton this Friday.

"It was a tough game to lose," he said. "But hopefully it will teach the team something about what it takes to win. I think it can be a good learning experience."