Caldwell football muscled its way to a convincing 38-0 opening night victory inside the new Tribe Athletic Complex.
CALDWELL − A new era for Caldwell began Friday night.
The football team christened the brand-new Tribe Athletic Complex in impressive style with a pair of firsts on Week 1.
Playing their first game on their new artificial turf field, Caldwell delivered a dominant 38-0 shutout victory over Buckeye Trail to send the home crowd home happy.
"Just a big win tonight, and that's something that we've been preparing for for a long time, and to be able to execute like that to open our new facilities, something super super special," Caldwell head coach Chance Rucker said. "And not only to me, but to the guys, you know, they're the ones that put in the grunt work and they're the ones that you put in the blood sweat, tears and cramps tonight, so it was it's something super special."
Caldwell put the game away early jumping out to a 32-0 lead at the halftime break. Junior QB Izic Cool hit on 4-of-9 passes for 115 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Sophomore Garner Gaydos paced the ground game with 54 yards on 6 carries with a TD. Senior Brody Chandler hauled in 2 catches for 54 yds with a touchdown, with seniors Adan Bender and Grady Mazgay each snagging a TD reception for Caldwell.
Caldwell defense too stout for struggling Trail offense
A combination of a strong Caldwell defensive effort, coupled with Buckeye Trail still struggling to adjust to filling the void of losing junior starting QB Drew McGlumphy for the season with a broken leg just prior to the season.
It proved too steep a hurdle for the visiting Warriors as they were limited to just 82 yards of total offense with 33 passing yards and 49 yards on the ground game.
Caldwell's defense came up with three fumble recoveries and interceptions from Gavin Leake and Lucas Baker.
"I knew our defense is going to be really, really good. We returned everybody excluding Ethan, you know, and I think we fit that gap really well, and we saw attitude in the offseason," Rucker added. "Playing defense is all about attitude and the technique and the philosophy will come after that. So, you know the defense attitude definitely checked the box this week flying around."
Senior Sammy Brown stepped in at quarterback for Buckeye Trail and finished 4-for-10 for 33 yards with a pair of interceptions, with senior Mason Todd picking up 44 yards on 14 carries for the Warriors.
"That's a good football team, I'm proud of the efforts of a few of our guys," Buckeye Trail head coach Donnie Kerns said. "We had a lot of kids playing varsity football who did not play last year or are first year players. That's not an excuse, because we have to get them ready to play."
"I was really proud of Mason, Sammy, Daniel Ringer and Ben Shank," Kerns added. "Those kids played tough tonight, we need to get about 12 more to do that. And I believe we will, we just need to go back to the drawing board."
Caldwell travels to Waterford next week, while Buckeye Trail will play host to Crooksville with 7 p.m. kickoffs at both sites.
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This article originally appeared on The Daily Jeffersonian: Caldwell football's win kicks off new era on turf field
Category: General Sports
