By ERIC HERTER
BLACKSVILLE — Clay-Battelle’s Carson Shriver touched the ball 12 times on Friday night in a Mason-Dixon Conference football contest against visiting Valley Wetzel.
If he would have touched it many more times, the Cee-Bees’ scoreboard operator might have developed a hand injury.
As it was, Shriver scored four touchdowns on those 12 touches and accounted for 220 yards of total offense as Clay Battelle (2-1) rolled to a 49-8 win over the Lumberjacks.
“Carson’s got speed and he’s got real good vision,” C-B head coach Ryan Wilson said. “He’s got real good vision of where to cut and things like that. I also give credit to our offensive line because they were blocking their tails off.”
The Cee-Bees rolled up 368 rushing yards and tacked on 77 passing yards for 445 yards of total offense. Wilson was happy with his offense’s performance but also excited about a defense that is starting to find its identity. That defense held the Lumberjacks (0-3) to just 160 yards of total offense.
“We have a lot of kids who are only playing their third game of varsity football,” Wilson said. “We only played five games last year and I think that hurt us in developing some of our youngers kids. Tonight, we our best tackling of the year so far. I know it’s a young year, but I was really impressed with our tackling. We were breaking down and attacking the ball. We did some different things in practice this week — I don’t know if that helped or not — but there is no substitute for experience.”
Some of that experience comes from Shriver, who plays both offense and defense. But on Friday, it was his offense that did the talking. Nine of his touches came while running the ball from his quarterback position as he ran for 177 yards and three touchdowns, including an 88-yard gallop down the right sideline.
“We blocked down but there wasn’t really a hole there,” Shriver said of his long run. “So, I bounced it and I was able to get the stiff arm and the receivers blocked well and I was able to get to the sideline and beat everyone to the end zone.”
Shriver also got a 43-yard scoring pass from teammate Drew Boczek, threw an incompletion and in his only bad play of the game, he had his lone punt attempt blocked.
“I don’t know what happened,” Shriver said. “A kid got through and blocked it. It really doesn’t matter; we got the win.”
Valley-Wetzel head coach Logan Miller said he knew this was going to be a tough game for his young squad.
“Speed kills,” Miller said. “We don’t have guys (as fast as Shriver) right now and any time you got a player that caliber on the field, you are going to have a good chance to win a lot of ball games.”
Brady Ammons, a senior for the Cee-Bees, also had a nice game on the ground as he finished with 96 yards rushing on just four carries. He added touchdown runs of 23 and 49 yards, respectively. Clay Battelle also added a one-yard touchdown run by Allen Nestor.
Clay Battelle returns to action on Friday when it hosts Beallsville (Ohio) in a Homecoming contest at 7 p.m.
1 2 3 4 F
Valley-Wetzel 0 0 0 8 – 8
Clay-Battelle 21 15 13 0 – 49
SCORING SUMMARY
1st Quarter
CB – Carson Shriver 37 run (pass fail)
CB – Shriver 3 run (Shriver run)
CB – Shriver 43 pass from Drew Boczek (Drew Mercer Kick)
2nd Quarter
CB – Shriver 88 run (Mercer kick)
CB – Allen Nestor 1 run (Braden Coen kick)
3rd Quarter
CB – Brady Ammons 23 run (Mercer kick)
CB – Ammons 49 run (kick fail)
4th Quarter
VW – Gavin Derby 1 run (Patrick Higginbotham pass from Derby)
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING – VW: Billy Kuhn 24-81, Derby 9-54 1 TD, Higginbotham 1-(-7). CB: Shriver 9-177 3 TDs, Tate Elliott 2-5, Ammons 4-96 2 TDs, Nestor 1-1 1 TD, Boczek 2-29, Maddox Shriver 1-4, Maverick Gum 15-48, J.C. Spears 1-8.
PASSING – VW: Derby 7-11-1 32, Kuhn 0-1-0 0. CB – Boczek 3-4-0 77 1TD, C. Shriver 0-1-0.
RECEIVING – VW: Isaiah Bassett 1-(-4), Brigg Anderson 3-9, Lane Dallison 1-15, Higginbotham 2-12. CB: C. Shriver 1-43 1 TD, Zac Hall 2-34.
