Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – Senior night at sporting events often possess the feel of a goodbye party for the senior class.

Solon paid tribute to 18 seniors before its regular season finale on Friday and then the Spartans demonstrated in a 43-0 blanking of Fairfield they aren’t going anywhere just yet.

“Senior night is special but we are looking for bigger and better things,” Solon senior lineman Tyler Linderbaum said. “It’s nice tonight but we have a playoff game here at home next week and we want more than this.”

Top-ranked Solon (9-0) was dominant in every phase of the game, putting up 389 yards of offense and posting its sixth shutout of the season.

Sophomore quarterback Cam Miller threw for 168 yards and three touchdowns but Friday was all about the Solon seniors.

Senior Kendrick Harris rushed for 109 yards and a touchdown and Spencer Wegmann hauled in touchdown passes of 14 and 23 yards as Solon capped its first unbeaten regular season since 2009.

“We have had great senior leadership and I think that’s where it starts,” Solon coach Kevin Miller said. “When you have great senior leaders when adversity does strike they are able to handle it and rise above it so with this group of seniors I feel pretty good about where we are at and what we are doing.”

As it has been all season Solon was absolutely dominant defensively on Friday.

The Spartans held Fairfield (2-7) to 52 yards of total offense and zero yards rushing on 22 attempts.

“That has been our focus in practice is getting better every day and I think it was big putting up zero points after we gave up a touchdown last week,” Solon senior defensive end Spencer Wegmann said. “I think that gives us some momentum going into the playoffs.”

The Solon defensive line controlled the line of scrimmage all game with ends Zach and Spencer Wegmann and tackles Matt Folkerts and Linderbaum continually making plays behind the line of scrimmage.

Of the 26 offensive plays for Fairfield in the first half, 10 went for negative yardage.

“In practice we focus on getting better each and every day,” Linderbaum said. “I think at the end of the season we are making bigger strides but I think we can keep getting better as we get into the season.”

Fairfield picked up a pair of first downs on the opening drive of the game on a roughing the passer penalty on third down and an 18-yard run by 245-pound running back Tristin Waugh.

Of the 12 offensive plays Fairfield ran following the 18-yard run by Waugh, 11 were incomplete passes or rushing yards that went for no gain or lost yardage.

Meanwhile the Solon offense got rolling after a 3-and-out on its first possession, scoring on three straight possessions all of four plays or fewer in the final four minutes of the first quarter.

“Mistakes happen, we’ve had a little trouble with them this year but we just refocused and kept doing what we do,” Solon senior lineman Zach Wegmann said. “The ball started rolling our way and things went well.”

Solon took a lead when Adam Bock capped a four-play, 33-yard drive that was set up by a 21-yard Payton Bandy punt return with a 1-yard touchdown plunge with 3:28 left in the first quarter.

On the first play following a Fairfield punt Miller hit sophomore AJ Coons with a perfectly thrown 43-yard touchdown pass that made it 15-0 Solon with 1:38 left in the quarter.

Just 67 seconds later Harris raced 40 yards for a touchdown on the first place following another Fairfield 3-and-out to put Solon up 22-0 after one quarter.

“We did some good things, we are still striving to be more consistent,” Kevin Miller said. “Defensively we were pretty solid once again. Offensively we had a couple of miscues, we need to be a little bit sharper but as a whole we are doing some nice things we just have to be more consistent.”

Miller connected with Wegmann twice on scoring strikes in the second quarter to put the game away.

First Miller found the do-everything senior wide open in the back of the end zone on a fourth-and-13 play for a 14-yard touchdown that make it 29-0 Solon.

The second touchdown to Wegmann was a beautiful throw by Miller on a flag route off play-action that ended with a 23-yard Wegmann touchdown.  

“I couldn’t have asked for a better game,” Spencer Wegmann said. “I just said thank you to Cam for throwing me two good passes to catch and the line for protecting I was just fortunate to get a couple of big plays tonight.”

That was more than enough for a Solon defense that allowed just one first down in the second half as the clock ran for the final two quarters.

Solon now turns its attention to the opening round of the Class 3A playoffs as it will play host to a game on Friday night.

“We set high expectations for ourselves and we are working for next week and the week after that,” Zach Wegmann said. “It’s special on senior night so we enjoyed the moment and had fun.”

 

                                SOL                FAIR

First Downs               17                    4

Rushes-Yards            32-210              22-0

Comp-Att-Int              11-18-0             8-17-0

Passing Yards            179                  52

Punts-Avg.                 2-43.5              8-29.8

Fumbles-Lost             1-0                   2-0

Penalties-Yards           5-50                 1-5

Solon               22  14  7  0  –  43 

Fairfield            0    0   0  0  –  0

SOL – Adam Bock 1 run (Aidan Dall run)

SOL – AJ Coons 43 pass from Cam Miller (Dall kick)

SOL – Kendrick Harris 40 run (Dall kick)

SOL – Spencer Wegmann 17 pass from Miller (Dall kick)

SOL – Wegmann 23 pass from Miller (Dall kick)

SOL – Hunter Kula 7 run (Dall kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – SOL: Kendrick Harris 14-109, Hunter Kula 8-62, Mason Stahle 4-26, Seamus Poynton 5-12, Adam Bock 1-1. FAIR: Tristin Waugh 17-19, Carson Crile 4-(-14), Brittan Bowman 1-(-5).

PASSING – SOL: Cam Miller 11-16-0 179, Ben Krutzfeldt 0-1-0 0, Seamus Poynton 0-1-0 0. FAIR: Carson Crile 6-15-0 42, Brittan Bowman 2-2-0 10.

RECEIVING – SOL: Adam Bock 63, AJ Coons 2-59, Spencer Wegmann 2-37, Payton Bandy 2-15, Storm Scott 1-5. FAIR: Hunter Hoskins 3-38, Leone Gihure 2-5, Jackson Weaton 1-7, Andrew Martin 1-5, Tristin Waugh 1-(-1).