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Oak Glen football makes history

NEW CUMBERLAND, W.Va. — Playing its first home football playoff game in school history, Oak Glen fans turned out en mass Saturday, packing the stadium at the Bears Den an hour before kickoff for what they hoped would end in a big celebration.

Stamp it mission accomplished, as the host Golden Bears overwhelmed visiting Wyoming East 55-13 in a Class AA postseason battle on a sunny but chilly afternoon.

“This is wonderful for our community to have our first home playoff game, and to perform as we did is great,” said Oak Glen coach Ted Arneault. “We needed some guys to step up and make things happen today and that’s what they did.”

The victory vaults the unbeaten and sixth-seeded Golden Bears (11-0) into a West Virginia state quarterfinal against the third-seeded Poca Dots (11-0) next weekend on a day to be determined. Poca advanced Saturday afternoon with a romp over North Marion. Oak Glen will be the visiting team at Poca and has the choice if it wants to play on Friday night or Saturday afternoon.

“The culture here is amazing,” said Oak Glen wingback-outside linebacker Gage Patterson, who scored an offensive and defensive touchdown.

Wyoming East bowed out with an 8-3 record.

“Too many turnovers, just too many turnovers,” said Wyoming East coach Larry Thompson, whose team lost two fumbles and threw two interceptions. One interception went for a pick six and one fumble recovery for another Oak Glen six-pointer.

Oak Glen piled up 450 yards of total offense, while holding the Warriors to 270 yards.

Leading Oak Glen’s offensive assault were running backs Hunter Patterson (13 carries for 103 yards and two receiving touchdowns) and Paxton Shuman (16 carries for 124 yards and a rushing touchdown).

Quarterback Nick Chaney had a big game through the air, throwing for 191 yards and four touchdowns.

Oak Glen’s defense also had a big afternoon, picking off two Wyoming East passes, recovering two fumbles and scoring two touchdowns.

“Wyoming East came in with a good game plan and gave us some trouble early as they drove down the field, but our defense overall held up and they were just outstanding,” said Arneault.

Wyoming East’s top offensive player was running back Caleb Bower with 103 yards on 19 carries.

The mistakes began early for Wyoming East. The Warriors marched all the way to the Golden Bears’ 7-yard line on their first offensive series. But as the Warriors attempted a double reverse, the ball was fumbled and scooped up by Oak Glen outside linebacker Gage Patterson who raced 89 yards to the end zone, giving the Bears a 6-0 lead after a missed conversion pass.

“I picked it up and knew I was taking it to the house,” smiled Gage Patterson.

Then, it was the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference champion Golden Bears’ offense which got into the scoring act as quarterback Nick Chaney tossed three first-half touchdown passes of 25 yards Hunter Patterson, 61 yards to Gage Patterson and 22 yards to Brayden Mineard as Oak Glen led 28-7 at halftime. The Bears’ Gage Patterson and Michael Lemley also caught successful first-half conversion passes.

“Offensively we like to mix it up, we like to run and pass through different formations and not be predictable,” said the Oak Glen coach.

“Defensively we like to stop the big play and create turnovers and we were able to accomplish that today.”

Wyoming East scored its lone first-half touchdown on a 75-yard interception return by Chase York. Lydia Crook added the PAT kick.

The Oak Glen rout continued in the third quarter as Golden Bears added three more touchdowns on a 43-yard scoring pass from Chaney to Hunter Patterson, while Michael Lemley had a 75-yard interception return for a score and Shuman bolted six yards up the middle to score. Kicker Matt Wright booted all three PAT’s in the quarter, and it all added up to a 49-7 Oak Glen lead after three quarters.

“Props to our defense for creating turnovers, and making stuff happen,” said Arneault. “They were outstanding.”

With backups playing in the fourth quarter, Oak Glen added its final touchdown on a one-yard QB sneak by Landon Beatty, making it 55-7 at the 9:42 mark.

Arneault said the Golden Bears’ offensive line has played a major role in the team’s success all season.

“Our offensive line, you have to give them a lot of credit because they are outsized every week but they tend to outperform (their opponent) every single week,” he said. “Our offensive linemen are awesome.”

Wyoming East added the final score of the game when quarterback Seth Ross found receiver Jacob Bishop on a 50-yard scoring aerial with 6:00 left in the game to close the final gap to 55-13.

Gage Patterson can’t wait for Oak Glen’s second-round game against Poca.

“We go week by week and set a goal of going 1-0,” he said. “I just love my team, we put in the work every single day to get to the next game and now we’ll get ready for the second round of the playoffs and go 1-0 one more time.”

Arneault added, “We’ll go down there and work our butts off at Poca and put together another great game plan and hopefully that will be another great game down there.”

WYOMING EAST: 0- 7- 0-6–13

OAK GLEN: 6-22-21-6–55

SCORING

OG–Gage Patterson 89 fumble return, 6:59 1st (Pass failed)

OG–Hunter Patterson 25 pass from Nick Chaney, 11:53 2nd (Michael Lemley pass from Nick Chaney)

OG–Gage Patterson, 61 pass from Nick Chaney, 7:56 2nd (Gage Patterson pass from Nick Chaney)

WE–Chase York, 75 interception return, 1:11 2nd (Lydia Crook kick)

OG–Brayden Mineard, 22 pass from Nick Chaney, 8.2 2nd (kick failed)

OG–Hunter Patterson, 43 touchdown pass from Nick Chaney, 9:57 3rd (Matt Wright kick)

OG–Michael Lemley, 75 interception return, 6:37 3rd (Matt Wright kick)

OG–Paxton Shuman, 6 run, 4:26 3rd (Matt Wright kick)

OG–Landon Beatty, 1 run, 9:42 4th (run failed)

WE– Jacob Bishop, 50 pass from Seth Ross, 6:00 4th (pass failed)

——

WE OG

First downs 11 18

Total Yards 270 450

Rushes-yards 34-148 35-259

Passing 122 191

Comp-Att-Int 8-16-2 7-15-2

Punts 4-32 3-.36.5

Fumbles-Lost 4-2 0-0

Penalties-Yards 4-30 7-45

——

INDIVIDUAL LEADERS

RUSHING–Wyoming East, Caleb Bower, 19-103, Seth Ross 2-3, Chase York, 7-33; Oak Glen, Hunter Patterson 13-103, Paxton Shuman, 16-124, Matthew Greenlief, 2-35.

PASSING–Wyoming East, Seth Ross 8-16-122-1-2; Oak Glen, Nick Chaney 7-15-191-4-2.

RECEIVING–Wyoming East, Mcquade Canada 3-24, Mason Houck 1-14, Chase

York, 1-m5, Jacob Bishop, 3-89; Oak Glen, Hunter Patterson, 2-68, Gage

Patterson, 3-79, Brayden Mineard, 2-44.

INTERCEPTIONS–Wyoming East, Chase York 2; Oak Glen, Michael Lemley 2.

FUMBLE RECOVERIES–Oak Glen, Gage Patterson.

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