Conestoga gets a taste of ‘Tubby’ time as Ridley moves on
RIDLEY TWP. — There is ample room on the Tubby bus. If you’re a Ridley fan, everyone gets a ticket, so sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.
Tahir “Tubby” Mills ran for what seemed like miles Friday night at Phil Marion Field. The senior running back shattered the school record for most yards in a game and had five touchdowns as the No. 7 Green Raiders cruised to a 42-23 win over No. 10 Conestoga in the first round of the District 1 Class 6A tournament.
Next stop is North Penn High School in Lansdale. All aboard the Tubby bus.
Mills finished with 357 yards on 28 carries, sixth highest in Delaware County history for an individual one-game rushing total. The previous Ridley High single-game record of 305 yards was set by Darren Washington in 2012.
Mills gave love to his offensive line: Khalil Blagmon, Hayden Brown, Anthony Berry, David Rainey and Antonio Saahir, among others.
“I think it’s the bond we have,” he said. “I’m really close with all of them. They put it all on the line for me and I go out there and make it happen.”
Mills, who had 120 yards in the first quarter, broke the record with a 36-yard jaunt in the fourth quarter. Two plays later he sealed the win for the Green Raiders (10-1) with a four-yard touchdown run.
“Tubby is the real thing. I’ve been telling people that for a long time,” Ridley coach Dave Wood said. “The offensive line, I thought, did a tremendous job tonight. Last week we had a lot of things going on, I wasn’t at the game (due to illness), and I thought in the second half we really played well. From the get-go tonight we were focused and I thought our offensive line played really well.”
Ridley and Conestoga played last Saturday at Phil Marion Field. The Green Raiders rallied from a pair of two touchdown deficits to win, 29-28. This week the Green Raiders were in control from the outset, jumping out to a 14-0 lead on a pair of Mills TDs. But the Pioneers never backed down. Peter Detwiler returned a kick to inside the Ridley 10-yard line to set up a Calvin Shirley quarterback sneak for a touchdown. Mills then answered with a 70-yard sprint to the end zone for his third TD and a 21-6 lead.
Ridley’s defense had two goal line stands in the first half. Stephen O’Donovan broke up a pass in the end zone on fourth-and-goal in the waning seconds of the second quarter as Ridley took a 13-point lead into the locker room.
The Pioneers finally capitalized with a goal to go in the third quarter. Shirley connected with Detwiler for a 20-yard scoring strike on fourth down to trim Ridley’s lead to 21-16. Detwiler racked up nine catches for 140 yards and Shirley was 18 of 29 for 227 yards for the Pioneers (8-3), who had their first winning season since 2015.
“We have a great group of guys and we’ve been with each other since we were freshmen. We can definitely be proud,” Shirley said. “We knew they had one hell of a running back. We tried to stop him as much as we can, limit the big plays. At the end of the day it didn’t work out, but we fought.”
Khameen Powell returned the ensuing kick 60-plus yards, then hauled in a touchdown pass from John Heller to put Ridley up 28-16. Mills scored the final two touchdowns to give him five on the night and 27 on the season. He is two TDs shy of breaking the Ridley High single-season record.
