Friday night Lightning romps

Chris Yemma

The clouds loomed above Sage Hill School’s stadium Friday night, but

Mother Nature didn’t cause any thunderstorms. Instead, she left it up

to the football team.

The Lightning players rumbled all over the field, rushing for 330

yards in a 62-19 rout of Silver Valley in Sage’s first night game.

Sage running back Keya Manshadi rushed for 124 yards and three

touchdowns, and added a fourth touchdown on a 41-yard reception from

Jamie McGee early in the third quarter.

The score at the half was a comfortable 35-0, letting the 200 or

so fans in attendance rest easy and enjoy the homecoming halftime

show.

“This is the best game we’ve played all year,” Lightning Coach Tom

Monarch told his players in the postgame huddle.

“We didn’t expect to dominate this much,” he said. “We’ve been

working our linebackers all week to prepare for this and tonight our

juniors stepped up and played like seniors.”

Monarch added that the key to the victory was his team’s defense.

Silver Valley (2-4), a team that runs the wishbone offense, was

completely shut down by the Lightning defense. Trojans’ quarterback

David Hatch was tackled in the backfield four times and had minus-17

yards rushing. The Trojan running offense as a whole was held to 71

yards on the ground on 25 carries, and was forced to take to the air

-- something Monarch had hoped would happened.

“They just run, run, run,” Monarch said before the game. “They’ve

got us in size and if we don’t stop the run, we’re in trouble.

They’re also throwing a new quarterback in there, so hopefully we can

get him to throw.”

Sage (5-1) also threw a five-man defensive front at the visitors

from Yermo, something the Lightning hadn’t done this season.

It not only worked in stopping the run, but also in causing the

Trojans to fumble four times, turning it over twice.

“The reason we won was because of our defense,” Monarch said.

“This is the best physical game we’ve had and the adrenaline was

pumping high in all of our players.”