Meigs County coach Jason Fitzgerald didn't want Silverdale Baptist to catch fire early Friday night in the Region 3-2A battle at the Seahawks' stadium.
If the Seahawks had any hopes early, Meigs County quickly extinguished them by erupting for 19 first-quarter points, then intercepting Silverdale quarterback Alex Gonzalez on the first two Seahawks possessions of the second half on the way to a 32-19 victory.
Tigers freshman quarterback Aaron Swafford looked more like a veteran than a newcomer to high school. He ran for two touchdowns and threw for three scores (58 and 16 yards to Logan Fowler and 22 yards to Zy Moore), as the Tigers were never threatened after the early bulge.
Fitzgerald knew Meigs (3-1, 1-1) needed an early knockout blow to keep Silverdale at bay.
"Silverdale was a really good football team and much improved. Let's not give them a whole lot of hope early," Fitzgerald said. "Because if you let a team like that stay in it early, then they're going to believe they can win the football game. So our whole goal was to get off to a hot start and kind of put some doubt in their mind. I thought we did a good job of that tonight."
Silverdale (3-2, 1-1) pulled within 19-7 in the second quarter when Christian Rogers took a lateral from quarterback Alex Gonzalez and threw a 68-yard touchdown pass to Alex Burks. But any second-half hopes Silverdale had were diminished quickly in the first three possessions of the third quarter as Moore and Fowler both picked off Gonzalez and Silverdale muffed a punt and Meigs County recovered.
"We wanted to try and get our passing game going quite a bit," Fitzgerald said. "We had not done a lot with our young quarterback. And we wanted to get him on track a little bit because we knew they stacked a lot of people in the box. We had some success in the passing game early. That opened things up and we played really well on defense. I'm happy with the way we played."
Swafford scored in the second half on runs of 15 and 6 yards as Meigs built a 32-7 lead. Burks pulled Silverdale within 32-13 with a 3-yard scoring run with 6:54 left in the game, and Elijah Irwin ran in from 11 yards out for Silverdale's final touchdown as time expired in regulation. Burks led the Seahawks rushing with 90 yards on 13 carries, while Swafford paced the Tigers with 71 yards on 11 totes and Moore added 52 yards on 11 carries.
Silverdale coach Al Rogers saw one of his defenders, Rogers, rack up 12 tackles, but the coach said his Seahawks needed a complete-game effort.
"We have got to finish on defense," Rogers said. "We had multiple third-down-and-longs that we gave up. Meigs County's a good ballteam. They're not a 20-point better team than us. That's no disrespect to them. That's how much I believe in my guys.
"We're going to get back. Football isn't just a game. It's about life. How you handle adversity is going to determine your character. That's what we're going to do. We're going to fix this. True character is not only made in football, it's revealed. And my guys are going to show it."
Contact Jeff Rancudo at sports@timesfreepress.com