It was a ground assault by the Tigers of McClain on Friday night as they hosted South Central Ohio League opponent East Clinton. McClain, who was looking for its first win fought tooth and nail and finally came up with it with a 28-21 victory.
The Tigers had 331 yards of offense in the game and 329 of those were on the ground.
Alex Hollar had another big night running the ball as he crossed the 1,000 yard threshold in the game with a total of 126 yards. Tristan Pitzer, the Tigers quarterback, had 196 rushing yards and collected three rushing TD’s in the game.
East Clinton was the first team on the board with a touchdown at 6:09 in the first off a seven yard run in to make it 6-0. The point after was no good.
McClain answered back with 1:02 left in the first quarter with a one yard sneak by quarterback Tristan Pitzer for the first of his three touchdown runs. 7-6 in favor of the Tigers
Right before the half (43.5) East Clinton took the lead with a 20 yard pass that was carried into the endzone for a touchdown to put the Astros up 14-7 going into the half.
The third quarter was all Tigers as they wasted no time in getting back on top and staying there.
Just 43 second after the second half started, Tristan Pitzer found the endzone a second time, this time on a 51 yard sprint to the finish to make it 14 all.
Later in the third (6:57), Pitzer capped off his night with another TD run for 31 yards to put his team on top 21-14.
McClain’s defense kept the Astros at bay for the rest of the third and a majority of the fourth and had interceptions from both Owen O’Connor and Brady Willett.
The Tigers added one more touchdown as the clock winded down with a 20 yard run in by Alex Hollar with 2:02 left in the game, and East Clinton was able to muster one more score before the end of the game on a nine yard pass but it was too little too late as the McClain Tigers took their first win both overall and in the SCOL with a 28-21 final.
The Tigers are now 1-5 in the SCOl and 1-8 overall and will host rival Hillsboro next week for the annual Rotary Bowl.