Mike Wagner leads Victor past Webster Thomas
That famous play "Student Body Right" describes a sweep, when the quarterback pitches the ball to his running back and the fullback and offensive linemen also head in that direction.
Things are much more elementary for the Victor Blue Devils' offense. It's Mike Wagner left, Mike Wagner right and Mike Wagner up the middle, and this is no secret: It works.
The multi-talented quarterback powered the top seed into next Saturday's Section V Class AA football championship with a 34-23 win over No. 4 Webster Thomas.
"With a six-point lead, your stomach's always in your throat a little bit," said Victor coach Geoff Mandile, whose team led 6-0, 13-6, 20-14 and 27-21. "We just kept feeding Mikey and had a couple big pass plays to get ahead and the kid just keeps making plays."
A 6-foot-3, 215-pound senior, Wagner accounted for 321 yards of the 381 that Victor (8-1) racked up in avenging a 13-0 season-opening loss to the Titans (6-3). He rushed 33 times for 225 yards, including touchdown runs of 35, 25, 15 and 6 yards, and was a perfect 2-for-2 passing. Both completions went to 6-foot-5 junior tight end Zac Lefebvre.
The first was a 46-yard scoring toss over the middle that made it 13-7 in the second quarter. The other was a 50-yarder. It looked like the same play call, this time on a crucial third-and-7 from Victor's 37-yard line after Thomas had trimmed its deficit to 27-21 midway through the fourth quarter. That set up Wagner's 6-yard TD scamper.
"He's a monster; the kid does it all," Thomas coach Scott Deuschle said of Wagner. "He played defense (safety), ran the ball and we couldn't stop him. He's just a great athlete and ran with a lot of heart. Up front I've got to give it to those guys, too."
Wagner gave his big boys on the offensive line credit, too. Among them: seniors Connor Sharkey, Austin Kunick, Tristan Yates and Colt Salsburg, sophomore Ryan Flaitz and freshman Mike Novitsky.
"All the credit goes to the offensive line. I wouldn't be anything without them," Wagner said. "They block everything. They adjust to the fronts really well. They're the reason we're successful."
Wagner also had a hand in the win on defense, including a couple of key pass breakups late in the game. He has started the past couple weeks after an injury to Sam Byassee. Wagner sprinted, leaped and tipped a Brendan Smith pass to the sidelines near the 10-yard line, then laid a big hit on Alex Hutchings, knocking the ball from the Thomas senior in the end zone.
Senior running back Steven Zaccardo rushed 26 times for 113 yards and three TDs for Thomas.
Victor went 3-for-3 on its first-half drives to build a 20-7 cushion at intermission and scored TDs on five of its first six possessions. Wagner orchestrated and then finished off a pair of 11-play drives of 83 and 71 yards. The first took 4½ minutes and second six minutes. His only mistake was a third-quarter fumble, but a few plays later Zaccardo coughed it up and Wagner recovered it.
"Losing last year in the sectional finals, we were just trying to figure out a way to get back to that being up in a new class, we just want to prove ourselves to AA that we can hang with everybody."
JDIVERON@DemocratandChronicle.com