Warriors adjust early to romp past Eden in home opener

By PHIL AMEELE

Press Sports Editor

With seven minutes gone in Saturday night's home football opener, Salamanca trailed by 6-0 after Eden had marched 85 yards on its first possession.

Things were not looking well at that time but it was only three minutes later when the Warriors tied the game and began to dominate.

That domination allowed Eden only 50 more rushing yards and no points while the Warriors were running and forcing turnovers in the 36-6 victory.

A total of 10 Warriors piled up 315 yards rushing while the defense forced Eden into five turnovers and held them to just 2 19 possession time in the second quarter.

"We were really worried at the beginning.'' said Salamanca coach George Whitcher. "We went with pretty much the same things we did last year while we were not sure what Eden was going to do and had to adjust on the fly."

"Eden went from a 40 defense to a 50" he added, "and we only had practiced against that about 40 minutes on Friday, but we picked up on our blocking assignments really well and our veteran linemen did a fine job. Mac MacLeod and Jim Knaus did good jobs at end. Dennis Titus had some super trap blocks and did a good job of pulling. Luen Fisher went against a physically tough kid and did well and Carl Muzi pulled out around the corner to lead the pitch "

Things started out a little precarious for the Warriors as they recovered their own fumble on the opening kickoff but only advanced to midfield before punting. Eden then put on an 85-yard drive on 10 rushing plays that ended as Bert Weidner went through right tackle for a 26-yard scoring jaunt with 4:45 left.

But the adjustments were made, with the help of co-captain Jay Haley and the speed of halfbacks Chris Krantz and Joel Whitcher, as it took just five plays before quarterback Todd Heidrick scored the first of his three touchdowns on bootlegs to tie the game with 2:04 remaining.

We got stellar performances from everyone in the backfield," said Whitcher and Heidrick had "one of the strongest performances we ever have had from a quarterback. His quickness and ball handling, along with his fakes to the ball carriers, helped him score three times off the bootleg and he is a fine open field runner."