Sports
Ohio Sneaks Away a Win against Akron, 14-12
< < Back to ohio-sneaks-away-a-win-against-akron-14-12It was a second half of attrition, but Ohio found a way to escape the Akron Zips 14-12, Saturday afternoon picking up their first conference win of the season.
Ohio combined for just 47 yards of offense in the second half, allowing Akron ample opportunity to potentially take the lead. However, Akron was unable to ever find paydirt as they were forced to settle for field goals all game.
Even though the Zips outgained Ohio by almost 100 yards, their four field goals would be as much offense as they could muster, even when they were given short-field opportunities.
For Ohio, their defense played like it had been all season, bend but don’t break. Akron settled for four field goals off of the leg of Robert Stein, which came from 40, 33, 41, and 30 yards.
Quetin Poling had another impressive game recording 11 total tackles, two tackles for loss, a sack, and an interception. The pick killed a Zips drive and gave Ohio great field position inside Akron’s 30-yard line.
Poling interception gave Ohio a chance to go up two scores but Greg Windham, threw an interception in the end zone. It was Windham’s only drive of the game as he finished 0-of-3 with the lone interception.
Frank Solich had high praise for linebacker after the game, “He came up and made some very big plays in the second half…and he is a very explosive player from the defensive end.”
Both of the ‘Cats scores came in the first half. The first of which was Derrius Vick’s only touchdown pass of the day. Vick found Keith Heitzman on a 24-yard play-fake putting the ‘Cats up 7-3 late in the 1st quarter.
The only other score came on the ‘Cats very next drive when Daz’mond Patterson scored from four-yards out. Ohio back-to-back touchdown drives were as good as the offense looked all day.
Derrius Vick had an impressive first half finishing 12-of-17 with 127 yards and a touchdown. After the first half, the fun and games ended for Vick. He finished the game 18-of-26 with 179 yards and was sacked three times.
Papi White impressed many once again finishing the game with 56 yards on the ground and a hurdle in the second quarter over an Akron defender. Not only did white impress on offense, he returned a kickoff 53 yards landing him with 152 all-purpose yards on the day.
The ‘Cats now sit at 4-1 on the year and have started Mid-American Conference play off on the right foot. The next test for Ohio is Miami who will travel to Athens for a homecoming edition of the Battle of the Bricks.