North Olmsted wins shootout 49-38 over Lakewood

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LAKEWOOD, OHIO– The North Olmsted Eagles beat the Lakewood Rangers, 49-38, in a shootout where North Olmsted running back Darren Anders ran for 347 rushing yards.

The scoring didn’t start early, but it did happen often.

Lakewood’s Will Adams got things started with a 11-yard touchdown run to give the Rangers the lead with 3:47 left in the first quarter.

But the Eagles struck right back.

One play into the next North Olmsted drive, Darren Anders broke loose for a 66-yard touchdown run to tie the score at seven apiece.

Lakewood responded with an impressive 60-yard drive that ended in a missed field goal.

North Olmsted extended their lead on a Ryan Connolly two-yard touchdown run bringing the score to 14-7 with less than a minute left in the first quarter.

After a one-yard touchdown run from 6’3 senior quarterback Austin Mahar, the Eagles jumped offsides twice on the extra point.

With the ball inside the one-yard line, the Rangers elected to go for two, but were stuffed right up the middle and the Eagles retained a 14-13 lead.

On third and eight with less than two minutes to go, Liam Fay dropped back to throw it to Anders in the flats who was wrapped up by three Rangers.

He managed to get out of it and ran 82 yards to the end zone to give the Eagles a 21-13 lead with 1:29 left in the half.

The Rangers had a golden opportunity to tie up the game, as they had the ball at the North Olmsted one-yard line with five seconds to go in the half but were penalized with a false start and had to settle for a field goal as time expired.

The Eagles took a 21-16 lead into the locker room at halftime.

On North Olmsted’s first drive of the second half, Ryan Connolly plowed through the Ranger defense from four yards out for the touchdown extending the North Olmsted lead to 28-16.

The momentum went all the way to North Olmsted after a squib kick was recovered by the Eagles on the ensuing possession.

They would score again from two yards out from Ryan Connolly to make the score 35-16.

Connolly finished with 63 yards on 11 carries, scoring three times in the process.

With 5:26 remaining in the game Anders scored his final touchdown of the game.

He finished with 347 rushing yards, three rushing touchdowns, 90 receiving yards, and a receiving touchdown for a grand total of 437 yards from scrimmage.

“We just wanted to come out here and force the run game and we did, they played a hell of a game and we just gotta look at it tomorrow, get better and get ready for North Ridgeville next week,” Anders said after the win.

On seven of the last eight drives of the game, a team scored.

North Olmsted improves to 4-2 and will host North Ridgeville (0-6) next week while Lakewood falls to 0-6 and will travel to Avon (6-0) next week.