08/24/2007

Record-Eagle/Mark Urban
Kingsley's Tommy Sedlacek is taken down by Reed City defenders, including Dylan Ridderman (11).

Reed City spoils season debut for Stags, 35-0

Haney runs for 217 yards, four TDs for Coyotes

By MARK URBAN

murban@record-eagle.com

KINGSLEY — If there was a season redo button, Kingsley would have pushed it early and often.

After losing senior Warren Niewiadomski to a knee injury on the game's opening kickoff, things went from bad to worse for the Stags in a 35-0 season-opening loss to Reed City on Thursday night.

After Kingsley was stunned by the injury to one of its captains, two plays later the score was 6-0. After two more offensive plays for the Coyotes, it was 12-0.

"That's the way the season has gone so far, to be honest, from the first day back on Aug. 6,” Kingsley coach Tim Wooer said. "It'll be a true test of the character of our kids and how they handle adversity. Even though it's early in the season, we're in a tough situation.

"We said last night that he might be the best guard we've had in a long time. The coaching staff was talking about how good he's been on both sides of the ball.”

Wooer fears Niewiadomski suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament. It would be the second of the season for the Stags, who lost junior running back David Zaleski in the preseason.

"I've went 12 years without an ACL and now we've had two,” Wooer said.

After the injury, Reed City senior Myles Haney put a hurt on the Stags.

Haney opened the game with a 26-yard run and followed it up with a 53-yard jaunt through the Kingsley defense for the touchdown.

After a three and out by Kingsley, Haney had a 12-yard run and Kris Eichenberg went 25 yards for a touchdown and it was 12-0 with the game not even three minutes old.

Haney would find the end zone two more times in the second quarter, both from 9 yards away.

The first came on the second play of the period and he added the conversion run to make it 20-0. Haney's third touchdown of the first half came 37 seconds before halftime and Bryan DesJardins' kick made it 27-0 at the break.

For the half, Haney had 13 carries for 163 yards en route to a 23-carry, 217-yard performance. Haney had a 4-yard touchdown run on the first play of the fourth quarter and Eichenberg ran in the conversion.

"He's our money man, he's our senior,” Reed City coach Monty Price said. "He ran really hard. He had a little bit of the flu big and some cramps but he overcame adversity and persevered. But give all the credit to the offensive line, they're the ones than opened the holes.”

Reed City also did a nice job controlling the line of scrimmage on defense. Kingsley had just two first downs — one of which came on the final play — and 40 yards in the first half.

"They're a good football team,” Wooer said. "What they did to us tonight is what they did to four other teams in their (preseason) scrimmage. I just didn't foresee this happening.

"I knew they were a little more physical than us. But I didn't think they were 35 points better than us.”

"Our goal was to win the physical battle and I think we did that tonight,” Price added.

Logan Washburn led the Kingsley defense with 13 tackles while Justin Mueller added 10 stops. Tyler Lajko added a leaping interception and Kirk Turner a fumble recovery.