Oxford’s defense tough in hard-fought victory vs. WC East

East Goshen >> Following Oxford’s hard-fought 21-14 win at West Chester East Friday evening, Hornet head coach Michael Means praised his defense.

“The key was our defense coming up time and time again with big plays,” said Means. “Every time we put our defense in a bad spot, they answered the bell. My defensive coordinator, Joe Pearson, had an unbelievable game plan, he did a great job in the second half of calling it, and our kids executed it in the second half.”

Oxford (3-1) came up big defensively after each of the Hornets’ first two possessions Friday. On the fourth play of the game, an Oxford fumble gave the ball to East at the Hornets’ 32 yard line. But Oxford’s defense stiffened and the Vikings (0-4) failed to score.

On the Hornets’ next possession, they went for the first down on 4th and 3 from their own 20 yard line and failed to make it, giving the hosts the ball deep in Oxford territory. But the Hornets’ defense rose to the occasion again, and East failed to score.

Late in the first quarter, East junior free safety Mike Renzi intercepted a pass (the first of two picks he made in the first half) at the Vikings’ 25 yard line and returned it to midfield.

The Vikings then moved in for a score. East senior quarterback Ryan McIntire hit sophomore wide receiver Tyler Wileczek (who had six first-half catches) for an 18-yard completion, then senior running back Drew Steele broke loose down the left side for a 25-yard touchdown run to give the hosts a 7-0 lead with 1:29 left in the first quarter. 

Early in the second quarter, Oxford’s offense began to move, with the help of a couple of big plays. Junior running back Luke Piskun broke free for a 22-yard run, and junior quarterback Dustin Long hit a wide-open Dean Hunsicker in the right side of the end zone for a 27-yard touchdown pass to tie the score at 7-7 with 9:26 to go before halftime.

The score remained 7-7 through halftime, then Oxford put together a 9-play, 66-yard touchdown drive on its first possession of the second half, capped by a 33-yard run up the middle for a touchdown by Piskun with 7:22 left in the third quarter.

West Chester East came back with a solid touchdown drive, mixing short passes by McIntire and short runs by Mitch Ragni and Mason Grear. When Ragni plunged over from the 3-yard line into the end zone, it tied the score at 14-14 with 2:40 left in the third quarter.

Oxford fumbled the ensuing kickoff – its second fumble of the game, and its fourth turnover of the contest to that point – but the Vikings’ offense stalled and a 32-yard field goal attempt by East failed.

Following the missed field goal, Oxford drove for a touchdown in four plays, including a 38-yard tackle-breaking run by Zander Quinn, and a 35-yard pass from Long to Hunsicker that put the ball at the East 1 yard line. When Long plunged into the end zone from the 1 yard line to make it 21-14, there were 44 seconds left in the third quarter.

Midway through the fourth quarter, West Chester East drove down to the Hornets’ 14 yard line for a first down. On a third-and-1 from the Oxford 5, the Vikings’ defense stood tall and nailed the East ball carrier for a 3 yard loss, then a Viking pass into the end zone on 4th-and-4 was intercepted by Oxford’s Philip Martin.

“Our defensive secondary came up with a ton of big plays in the second half,” said Means. “We got good pressure on their quarterback, and the secondary did a great job of locking their [receivers] down.”

East made one last scoring threat near the end of the game when, on a flea flicker play, McIntire hit Wileczek on a 47-yard bomb to the Oxford 18 yard line. But the Vikings failed to get a first down on four tries (three of them passes) and the Hornets ran out the clock.

“This was a defensive game tonight,” said Means. “I give all the credit to our defense. Offensively, as a unit, we’ve got to play better – that starts with me, we’ve got to make fewer mistakes. We made a lot of mistakes, penalties, a lot of dumb stuff, but this is the kind of ugly game that we didn’t use to win. It’s [about] learning to win these ugly games.

“I’m really proud of our kids. It’s been a tough week – we’ve been down about 40 kids this week [COVID-related], lost a lot of our backups, so it took some of our [team] depth away. But our kids answered the bell tonight.”

West Chester East head coach Scott Stephen said, “We showed a lot of fight tonight. Hats off to Oxford for making plays. We had some missed opportunities throughout the game that we’re going to correct. We’ve got to find a way to complete a game and get that first win.

“We need to clean up some things offensively. I think we shot ourselves in the foot a few times. We were in the red zone and didn’t score five times, I think – that’s something we’ve got to work on, got to learn from and keep moving forward. We’ve got to learn to finish in a few areas.”