Norwalk looks to ride defense more

NORWALK — How good has it been? Over the first three weeks of the season, the Norwalk football team's defense has allowed one touchdown or less. No Norwalk team has done that in five years, when the 2019 team did it over weeks 3-5 against Port Clinton (42-7), Edison (38-6) and Ontario (52-7). The Truckers also had similar three-game stretches in 2011 and 2018. But the last time it happened to start a season? Not since 1977, when the Truckers beat Huron (20-7), Vermilion (32-0) and lost to Willard (3-0) to also start 2-1. Last week, the Truckers scored with 11:03 left in the game to claim a 7-6 win over Toledo Rogers in a steady downpour at Contractors Stadium. Now, the Truckers have a chance to win for a third time in four weeks — and match last season's win total — when they host Bellevue (1-2) at 7 p.m. Friday at Contractors Stadium in Norwalk. "We are doing a very nice job of pursuing the ball," Norwalk head coach Keith Mora said of the defense. "We typically do not have just one guy making the tackle, it's a lot of guys. We have a lot of guys playing actively and we're not relying on any one player making the tackle." In the win over Rogers, Ben Rothhaar had 13 tackles, while Nico Helton had 12, Brady Case had 11, and AJ Weilnau had nine. For the season, Rothhaar has 31 tackles, followed by Helton (23), Case (21) and Weilnau with 15 tackles and one sack. Carter Harp also adds 15 tackles with an interception and a fumble recovery. "It's not a one-man show," Mora said. "We have a lot of guys active up front and doing a nice job of working to the ball." However, after a 26-7 win at Toledo Start on Aug. 23 in the season opener, the Truckers have experienced some growing pains on offense. In a 17-12 loss at Eastlake North on Aug. 30, the Truckers had 245 yards, two touchdowns and one turnover. In last week's win over Rogers, Norwalk had 127 yards total with one touchdown, three fumbles and an interception. Mora felt last week was a combination of a young offensive line in a new system with the combination of lousy weather last week. "We're still learning with a new system we brought in after last year," he said. "We changed some things up and there was some learning on the front end. It's football in-season. We're seeing different fronts and blitzes, a lot of things that go into what we're seeing offensively. "But those guys are getting better in different areas each week. We didn't have a chance to showcase that on Friday due to the weather. That wasn't necessarily as much of a blocking issue as much as it was having a tough time holding onto the football." Through three games, quarterback Brayden Viock is 22-of-45 passing for 280 yards with 3 TDs and 2 INTs. He's also ran 22 times for 77 yards. Rothhaar has six catches for 69 yards and a TD and has three rush attempts for 26 yards, and Jameson Poole has four catches for 50 yards and 2 TDs. Also for the Truckers, Helton has totaled 239 yards and 3 TDs on 61 attempts. This week, Norwalk is facing a Bellevue team that also struggled to score, with one caveat. The Redmen were shut out by identical 34-0 scores in Week 1 vs. state-ranked Clyde (3-0) and last week at Shelby (3-0). The Redmen won 28-7 at Wauseon on Aug. 30. Bellevue quarterback Ike Brown is 28-of-68 passing for 282 yards with 1 TD and 2 INTs while rushing 58 times for 39 yards and 2 TDs. Cooper Moyer has 12 catches for 119 yards, while Mason Flicker has made the most of four catches that have totaled 82 yards with a TD. Mora said the Redmen are very disciplined in what they run, which can be many different looks. "That makes them difficult to prepare for," he said. "They may do something in the first game and don't show it again until the third game. And what you prepare for this week, they may have not shown a lot in the first three weeks. Or maybe the tendencies aren't there because they do different things … it's hard to pinpoint that one thing they really do." One thing the Truckers do have to prepare for is overloaded formations with the tight end on certain sides of the field. "But then again, they will break those tendencies and go back against it," Mora said. Defensively for the Redmen, Konner Dauch has 17 tackles and Moyer and Nolan Hartman each have 17. "They are who they've been for a long time with an even front that jumps into an odd look at times," Mora said. "They play a lot of cover 4 and match. They are just a very disciplined program and have been for a long time, which is why they've been successful." Series history Friday's game is believed to be the 125th meeting between the Truckers and Redmen, a series Bellevue leads 77-44-4 according to Bill Oddo's Bellevue football history book. After nearly 100 years of being league rivals in the Little Big League and the Northern Ohio League and Sandusky Bay Conference, the shift in divisions in the SBC last year turned this annual game into a non-conference matchup for the immediate near-future. Bellevue steadily pulled away for a 26-0 win last season at home. Norwalk's last win in the series was a 45-21 win at Bellevue in 2019.