H.S. Football: Wyatt McKee, opportunistic defense get it done for Keystone

WELLINGTON — Wyatt McKee did the heavy lifting on offense and the defense dominated as Keystone stayed unbeaten in the Lorain County League.McKee, a junior, rushed for 164 yards and four touchdowns on 16 carries and the defense forced four Wellington turnovers Friday evening to propel Keystone to a 35-0 win.Keystone is 5-2 overall, 4-0 in the league. Wellington slipped to 3-4, 1-3. It was Keystone's ninth straight win over Wellington, and the Wildcats' 14th victory over the Dukes in the last 15 meetings.Keystone has won 12 straight in the LCL dating to the final game of the 2023 regular season.McKee scored a pair of touchdowns in each half. He amassed 98 yards on just seven carries in the first half, including a 53-yard scoring run with 8:54 left in the second quarter to give the Wildcats a 22-0 lead at intermission. He saw double duty in the secondary."All thanks to the O-line," said McKee. "They blocked great today and all thanks to God. The O-line was phenomenal. I couldn't ask for better. We just focused on throwing in different plays this week. It was just a lot of different plays."It was a really good job by our DBs (defensive backs) and corners. Just a shoutout to them."The Keystone defense limited Wellington to 164 yards of total offense, including 17 yards rushing in 14 attempts.Wellington reached Keystone territory three times in the first half but came up empty each time.Turnovers killed two of the Dukes' first-half drives. The first turnover came thanks to a hard hit and fumble recovery with 2:37 left in the first half by Wildcats senior Shane Ohl at the Keystone 20. It came two plays after an apparent 31-yard touchdown pass from Gaven Wacker to Connor Kinser was nullified by a holding penalty."We haven't played as well as we wanted to the last few weeks," said Ohl. "We just keep grinding at practice, trying to reach our best every week. We always focus on next-play mentality. It's only about the play that's going on right now is the one that matters. We've just learned to flush out the bad plays."The Keystone offense amassed 337 yards, 240 yards on the ground. Sophomore quarterback Colt Cowling was effective in the pocket, completing eight of 14 passes for 97 yards. Cowling also rushed twice for 29 yards, including an 11-yard touchdown with 4:45 left in the first quarter to give the Wildcats a 14-0 lead."We pitched a shutout on defense and offensively we spread the ball," said Keystone coach Don Griswold. "We spread touches the whole width of the field. I was very happy with how Colt ran the offense."This is a team full of character and leadership. No one's crying for us but we've lost seven starters to season-ending injuries. It seems to be a bug in Lorain County this year. We just come to practice with a blue-collar work ethic and just try to get better with next-guy-up mentality."It was another frustrating home loss for coach Rob Howells and the Dukes, who appeared to take a step backward after last week's 48-6 win over Oberlin."It's the same story as two weeks ago," Howells said of a 30-0 loss to Clearview. "We have some nice plays and do some nice things, but then we shoot ourselves in the foot with a penalty. We shouldn't have been shut out tonight. We had a touchdown called back. We had some big plays in both special teams and offense called back. You can't do that against a very well-coached and disciplined football team."Wellington still leads the all-time series 24-15, but since 2011 it's been nearly all Wildcats."Lack of consistency has been our problem all year," said Howells. "I'm happy with 3-4, but that record's deceiving because we're not executing right now. We just have to do a better job of preparing during the week and be ready to execute on Friday nights when the lights turn on."When you're still messing up Day 1 assignments it's frustrating., but that's high school nowadays. There are so many other things going on in kids' lives. Unfortunately, a lot of them don't make football a priority. We just got to keep hitting the pavement, watch the tape, watch the film, make the corrections and try to get better."Contact Paul Heyse at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.