High School Football: Westminster Shuts Out Century at Homecoming

Westminster blanked 46-0 Thursday night in front of a large homecoming crowd.

The Owls did damage on both sides of the ball as they scored on offense and defense. While the offense is wide open, the Owl defense scored one touchdown on a fumble return and held Century to 70 yards of offense on the night.

"I don’t want to talk about injuries anymore. It’s just a word we use," said Century coach Jim Holzman. "We have what we have and we are putting a lot of kids in places they are not used to being in, but to the kids credit They haven’t given up at all. They are playing tough."

As usual the Westminster offense was directed by senior quarterback Romie Cheese. He had 115 yards rushing and passed for another 189 yards. He ran 65 yards for one touchdown and threw for two.

The first touchdown through the air went to junior Darius Clifton with 7:56 left in the first quarter and covered 50 yards. The Owls jumped out to a 14-0 lead as a big hit resulted in a fumble that C. J. Nichols took in for six points.

The quarter ended on another scoring pass to Clifton. This play covered 62 yards.

Halftime saw the crowning of Homecoming king and queen. The honors went to Logan Ryder and Alice Mercer.

The second half belonged to the Owls as Dan Johnston went in from two yards out at the 7:29 mark. Cheese took off on a keeper play and scored about two minutes later from 65 yards.

Back-up quarterback Deryk Kern scored the next Owl touchdown on a fourth down play as he went in from one yard out with 1:07 left in the third quarter.

Kern completed the scoring when he found Nichols for a 72-yard scoring strike with 6:43 remaining in the game.

"Hopefully good things will come to them," said Holzman. "We have two games we can win these last couple of weeks, but we have to play good. We are not a good enough team to show up and just win a football game."

Westminster is 5-0 in the county and 7-1 overall. Century falls to 1-4 in the county and 2-6 overall. The Owls host Manchester Valley next week, while Century is home with North Carroll.

"So, the kids are playing tough and I think they are going to learn this season about themselves and I think as a coaching staff we learning a lot about ourselves and I think we will become better for it in the end," said Holzman.