Monmouth-Roseville controls clock, trenches to top Newman

STERLING – The battle between Three Rivers Conference division winners was won controlling the clock and dominating the line of scrimmage.

Monmouth-Roseville beat Newman at its own game Friday at Roscoe Eades Stadium, rolling up 309 yards rushing while limiting the Comets to four first downs in a 21-0 shutout.

“Our O-line up front, game in and game out, they’re just the more dominant team, and we just dominated up front again tonight,” Mon-Rose running back Payton Thompson said. “And our defense really stepped up tonight, didn’t give up very many yards or first downs to them at all. We did everything we were supposed to do defensively, and there just weren’t very many mistakes at all for our defense tonight.”

[ Photos of Newman vs. Monmouth-Roseville football ]

The Titans (8-1) held the ball for nearly 30 minutes on offense, and converted half of their third down attempts (7-for-14). But they were also 5-for-5 on fourth down, meaning they converted 12 of their 14 chances to keep drives alive.

Newman (7-2) had its biggest play of the game on its second snap. Cody McBride broke off a 46-yard run on second-and-10 after the Comets started the first drive of the game inside their own 10-yard line due to a mishandled kickoff. But a bad snap on the next play put Newman behind the chains, and that’s where it found itself the rest of the night.

“For us, getting behind the chains makes it really tough. It was rough kind of being in that position tonight,” Newman coach Mike LeMay said. “We hit a couple of big plays, but we were really mistake-riddled – penalties really killed us – and especially when you get a little momentum, that really hurts.

“The time of possession for them, in a game like that against that team, you’ve got to make sure you get stops and then sustain some drives. Hats off to them, they played physical ball and we just didn’t have the answer for it.”

Mon-Rose took its first possession 79 yards for a touchdown, scoring on a 2-yard run by Landon Montroy on fourth-&-goal to cap a 5 minute, 15 second drive.

The Titans forced a Newman three-and-out, then drove 53 yards in 3:32 – after converting a fourth-and-5 from the Newman 48-yard line in the first set of downs on that series – for a 6-yard touchdown run by Thompson.

Newman went three-and-out on its next two possessions, but punts by John Rowzee pinned Mon-Rose at its own 4-yard line to start two consecutive drives. The Comets forced a punt and then picked off a pass near midfield to end those Mon-Rose possessions, but ran out of time in the first half to capitalize on Matthew Blackert’s interception.

The Titans opened the second half with a 63-yard, 8-minute drive that saw two fourth down conversions, the second a 1-yard touchdown run by Montroy, to make it 21-0 with 4:01 left in the third quarter.

“We’ve trusted our guys all year, and I just told them at halftime, ‘Hey, we came here to win this thing, so 14 [points] is good, but I think we’ve got to get to 21 to really put some pressure on them,’” Mon-Rose coach Jeremy Adolphson said. “So the [fourth down on the fourth play] coming out of half, if it doesn’t work, I’m an idiot, but it works and it turns into an 8-minute drive. And I think at that point, it’s very unlikely for them to come back, without onside kicks or something weird.”

“The first half, we were shooting ourselves in the foot with mistakes – I think we had seven penalties – and giving up those third- and fourth-down conversions, we’ve got to get that fixed,” McBride said. “Second half, we came out with a little more energy, but we would’ve liked to have put some points on the board.”

The Titan defense didn’t let that happen. Other than the long run by McBride, they held Newman to minus-4 yards rushing and gave up just 41 yards on 8-for-16 passing by George Jungerman. The Comets ran just 34 plays in the game, and only one of them – McBride’s run – went for double-digit yardage. Newman finished with just 88 total yards.

“They play a very patient game, they trust their defense, and we challenged our guys, told them ‘You’ve got to be the best you’ve been all year up front’ – and we think we’re pretty good up front – and we were really good against them,” Adolphson said. “And we just did an awesome job defensively.”

Mon-Rose burned the final 6:56 off the clock with its final drive, converting one final fourth down with 1:25 remaining to finish things off.

Thompson ran for 190 yards and a touchdown on 23 carries, while Montroy finished with 91 yards and two scores on 25 rushes.