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Louisville At Perry

An apology needs to be made to the football fans at GlenOak and Green high schools. A change was made this week on our Aultcare TV Game of the Week schedule. We decided to return to Perry Stadium to watch the undefeated Panthers host the surging Louisville Leopards this Friday night.

After dropping their first two games of the season, 21-14 at Canfield and 30-14 at home against Hoover, the Leopards have come alive the last two weeks. The turnaround started on September 7th with a 31-20 win at home against Green. It continued last week with an impressive 41-28 home win over previously undefeated Lake. Louisville’s offense came alive again thanks to the strong right arm of quarterback Colton Jones.

The junior broke his own school record by passing for 502 yards in the win. Jones completed 28 of 37 passes, 6 of those completions going for touchdowns. Wide receiver Ryan Pukys caught four of those touchdown passes and finished with 8 catches for 196 yards. One more thing. This offensive explosion came against a Lake defense that had given up just 34 points in their first three games. So, it’s pretty obvious the Leopards’ offense is in high gear, but will the defense be ready to face the punishing running attack of the Perry Panthers?

Perry opened Federal League play last week at home with a 24-14 win over Jackson. In typical Perry fashion, the Panthers ran 45 offensive plays, 42 of them rushing. Perry finished the night with 299 yards on the ground and 49 yards through the air. The win snapped a two-game losing streak to Jackson and it marked the 200th career win at Perry for long-time head coach Keith Wakefield.

Wakefield trails only Lowell Klinefelter in career wins at one Stark County school. Klinefelter rolled up 257 victories while at Central Catholic. The Panthers actually trailed 7-3 at the half before a long run by Richard Coleman gave Perry the lead late in the 3rd quarter. The talented and physical trio of Coleman, Sha’Vea Lightner and Jarin Curtis combined for 250 yards on 31 carries. On the other side of the ball, Perry’s defense gave up 360 yards to the visiting Polar Bears, but held Jackson to just one touchdown in each half. Jackson turned the ball over twice in the red zone while Perry went turnover free in the win. In their first four wins Perry is averaging 32 points per game on offense while giving up just 15.5 points per game.

Be sure to join Frank Cilona, Mark Miller and myself from Perry Stadium this Friday night for our Aultcare TV Game of the Week as the 4-0 Panthers host the 2-2 Louisville Leopards. Be sure to check TV playback dates and times right here on our website. We’ll see you on Friday night in the PTO!

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