The Coach Says…

By Larry Claypool

Review Sports Writer The Review

This is one week the Lisbon football team doesn’t mind hearing what the rival coach Bob Spaite has to say. The veteran Clippers coach knows a little about playing Lisbon and their opponent tonight, the Dalton Bulldogs. Spaite’s Clips lost to Dalton last week in the opening round of the Division V, Region 17 state playoffs and was the only team to defeat the Blue Devils in the regular season. Spaite said this weekend would be tough for him because he feels that his team should be playing Lisbon in the Region 17 semifinals at Canton Central Catholic. The Clips failed to advance in the playoffs by giving up five turnovers in a 24-7 loss to Dalton. Lisbon advance to face Dalton by cruising by the number one seed Gilmore Academy 21-12 last week. Spaite agrees both Lisbon and Dalton rely on smash-mouth football on offense, but he feels the Devils have more weapons on offense and will control the game. “Their approach is almost identical. They just use a different set to get it done. Lisbon tries to get 203 backs involved and Dalton features basically “one kid” said Spaite. Their approach is identical. The game should be over in 48 minutes. “ The key is turnovers. Both guys (Lisbon coach Jim Tsilimos and Dalton coach Bob Ramsey) don’t want to get out of their comfort zone. They both want to stuff the run,” said the Clippers coach. “We were able to do that against Lisbon and not against Dalton. But, personally, I think Lisbon is the better team. They are much better in all facets of the game. I don’t want to sound bias because we’re from the Tri-County League, but coaching against

Lisbon, we were much more concerned about stopping their offense. Lisbon has so many weapons. The Devils main weapon this year has been four-year starting quarterback Jay Yorty, who’s lately made a switch to tailback to add another dimension to Lisbon’s offense. Tsilimos said Yorty has been taking about 70 percent of the snaps at quarterback in recent games. Yorty leads the team in rushing with 949 yards on 169 carries and 14 touchdowns. He has also thrown for 922 yards and 9 TD’s, also a team high. On defense, Yorty has 65 tackles, six sacks and a fumble recovery from his linebacker spot this year. Spaite said his team made to many errors last week at Dalton. “Honestly, if we played as poorly against Lisbon the outcome would have been the same. It was just one of those nights,”said Spaite. “ Preparing for Lisbon concerned us greatly. If you get up on Dalton, they have no ability to do other things and Lisbon does,” added Spaite. According to the Clippers Coach, Lisbon has a better line on offense though Dalton features two very big guards (Justin Stutz at 6-5, 320 and Ryan Treish at 5-11, 285) that they like to run behind. “When we played Lisbon we had to take out a defensive back and put in a lineman. We didn’t do that against Dalton, we played our basic defense. We’ve never played a Jim Tsilimos team in our basic defense. I definitely give the edge to Lisbon,” said Spaite, who plans on doing the commentary for WSOM radio at tonight’s game in Canton. I would rather be playing Lisbon than watching them. Maybe this will help.