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By Jesse Swafford
August 12, 2006 – PIQUA — The pads were popping on Saturday morning at Alexander Stadium as the St. Mary's Roughriders came strolling into town to lock horns with the Indians in the first scrimmage of the year.
The end result was Piqua coming away with a 6 touchdowns to 0 victory.
Phil Collier stepped in front of a pass on the 8th play of St. Mary's second possession and returned it 65 yards for the score. Brad Burkhardt booted the first of his six extra points and the onslaught was on.
Brandon Saine scored from one yard out on the ensuing offensive possession on the ninth play of the series. He duplicated that on the next Piqua set as well, this time from two yards out.
From there, the two teams went to a 1st and 10 series.
The Indians defense was more than up to the task. All three possessions for the Roughriders saw them gain 0 first downs as the Piqua defense transformed into a brick wall.
"This is an offensive scrimmage," Piqua head coach Bill Nees said. "To come out and defend 30 plays before getting into 1st and 10 and once we got into that, they (defense) did their job and got off the field. They understand the concept that we don't want to see our defense play.
The offense turned in an impressive performance as well. Justin Hemm called his own number and scored on a 60 yard run with the first play. The second set saw Saine pick up 25 yards on first down and Collier haul in a pass down to the 2 yard line before Saine found the end zone.
Saine dazzled everyone on the final possession, with the help of an excellent block from David Rolf, with a 43 yard touchdown run and finished the day with 161 yards on 15 carries and 4 touchdowns.
"I thought we played pretty well," Nees said. "Fundamentally I don't think we missed many tackles on defense and I thought we ran to the ball real well. Offensively, we did what we do which is get big plays and get Justin and Brandon the ball out in some open space and make people miss tackles.
The offensive line handled the St. Mary's rush all day long and allowed the big plays to develop.
"The protection from our offensive line was tremendous," Nees added. "Justin got hit hard one time and other than that he was able to sit back there and make some decisions and proved that he is a two way threat (running and throwing)."
Piqua will play a 4-way scrimmage on Thursday at Lima Stadium against Lima Senior, Lima Central Catholic and Toledo Rogers. It will start at 7:00 with each team playing each other for one quarter.
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