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Saturday,
September 28, 2002
Size matters little for BHS
Olson's big plays key victory
over Big 12 West foe
By Randy Kindred
Assistant sports editor
BLOOMINGTON -- Bloomington High School football coach Rigo Schmelzer
says senior Chad Olson is "all of about 150 pounds soaking
wet."
In the absence of rain Friday night, the 5-foot-8 Olson was closer to
his listed weight of 145.
Yet, playing on the same field with highly touted Decatur MacArthur
lineman Lawrence "Moe" Dampeer, Olson came up big in BHS' 24-6
Big 12 Conference West Division victory at Fred Carlton Field.
Olson returned a punt 57 yards for a touchdown two minutes into the
game, and later caught a 32-yard touchdown pass from Andre Brown as the
Purple Raiders clinched a share of their third straight Big 12 West
title.
"He's a gutsy, hard-nosed kid," Schmelzer said of Olson, who
led the Raiders with three catches for 66 yards and helped the defense
hold MacArthur to 113 total yards.
"You can't say enough about him. He's a football player."
Olson literally got the Raiders off and running. He fielded a punt at
his 43-yard line, slipped a tackle just after he caught the ball, then
raced to the end zone.
"I'm always ready for the first hit," he said. "I take
a stutter step and hopefully they'll miss and I'll just keep
running."
MacArthur's Nehemiah Bates returned the ensuing kickoff 57 yards to
the BHS 35, leading to a 1-yard TD run by quarterback Steve Daniel.
The Raiders (5-0, 3-0) took control in the second quarter, scoring on
a 29-yard run by tailback James Wade and a 1-yard run by fullback Damon
Mehlberg.
Then, late in the third quarter, Olson sprinted behind the defense on
fourth-and-9 at the 32 and Brown hit him in stride. BHS, ranked third in Class
6A, was on its way to its 30th straight regular-season win.
"A linebacker stepped out on me and my eyes lit up," Olson
said. "Me and Andre made eye contact. I said, 'I'm going
deep.'"
The Raiders had 261 yards of offense despite the 6-5, 290-pound Dampeer,
who has narrowed his college choices to Miami, Ohio State, Michigan,
Nebraska, Purdue, Illinois, Tennessee, UCLA, Florida State, Nebraska and
Oklahoma.
Among those helping to contain him was 6-5, 275-pound BHS senior
Andrew Kernes.
"Everybody was heckling me all week saying, 'Kernes is going to
Eureka, Moe's going to Miami,'" said Kernes, who actually has not
chosen a college. "I think they just pushed me to play that much
better.
"I've been looking forward to this since last year. That pushed me
all summer, thinking about going against him."
Kernes and his fellow linemen paved the way for 78 yards rushing by
Wade and 72 yards for Mehlberg. Brown was 6 of 13 passing for 94 yards.
"I thought we played pretty well," Schmelzer said. "I
thought Wade ran hard, Mehlberg ran hard and Andre had a couple of nice
runs.
"We played a pretty good team. They're explosive offensively and
we limited them to around 110 yards."
Senior linebacker Ryan Pankey led the defense with nine tackles. Jacob
Kummer added seven and Michael Harrison six.
"We started quite often in bad field position, and it's hard to
move the ball when you start from in deep," said MacArthur coach
Cordell Ingram, whose team fell to 2-3 and 1-1.
"They're an awfully good team. And when you lose the field
position game and lose the special teams game, it's tough."
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