Deer Lakes gets big nonconference win over Apollo-Ridge

By: George Guido
Friday, September 9, 2022 | 11:33 PM

It was a whole lotta love Friday for Deer Lakes in its home opener.

Junior wide receiver Wayne Love caught four passes for 184 yards and three touchdowns as the Lancers rolled past Apollo-Ridge, 43-7, in a nonconference game.

Deer Lakes quarterback Derek Burk completed 7 of 15 passes for 254 yards for the 1-2 Lancers.

To illustrate how the night went for Deer Lakes, Derek Burk threw a pass to Love in the end zone on a left fly pattern. Love juggled the ball and went out of bounds, and it was ruled an incompletion. The Lancers ran the identical play and scored on a 24-yard catch by Love.

The game was a bounce-back effort from last week’s disappointing overtime loss at Burrell.

“Looking back on the first two weeks, we left a lot of things out there,” Deer Lakes coach Tim Burk said. “A lot of miscues, things that we weren’t reading right. My kids never stopped believing, and the credit goes to them. They worked hard all week in practice and finally put it together.”

Added Love: “A hundred percent, we were ready to play tonight. That was a tough loss last week at Burrell. We wanted to come back even stronger this week.”

The Lancers got the first big break of the game when Brandon Colledge intercepted a pass at the 45 and returned it to the Apollo-Ridge 1, where Burk scored on a keeper.

Deer Lakes forced a punt and drove 45 yards in three plays, with Love taking a short pass on third-and-12. He navigated through a number of Vikings defenders and scored on a 47-yard play.

Apollo-Ridge (2-1) had its longest possession of the night — 12 plays from its 1 to the Lancers 44 — before being forced to punt.

Love’s second scoring reception gave Deer Lakes a 20-0 lead with 3 minutes, 27 seconds left in the half.

Midway through the third quarter, Love was open by a least 20 yards and scored on a 76-yard play to put the Lancers ahead, 26-0.

“I just ran my regular stuff, and thanks to my QB who got me the ball,” Love said.

The Vikings, playing without injured quarterback Karter Schrock, finally got on the scoreboard two plays later on Nick Curci’s 44-yard run.

But Deer Lakes answered quickly, moving 65 yards in six plays, with Ryan Cochran catching a 6-yard crossing pattern from Burk.

“This is the most we’ve been out of sync all year,” Vikings coach John Skiba said. “We’re trying to piece things back together after losing Karter last week. We’ll have to restructure and get back to work tomorrow and clean some things up.”

Gage Johnston moved from tight end to quarterback.

The score could have been worse, but Apollo-Ridge stopped the Lancers twice inside their 20 on downs. A third time, the Vikings stopped a Deer Lakes drive at the 14, but Mason Metzer booted a 30-yard field goal to make it 43-7.

Senior linebacker Sam Guthrie put the icing on the cake with a 33-yard interception return to close the scoring.

“We always preach to them that we can score points,” coach Burk said. “Tonight, we showed it. We have a lot of read concepts with a lot of players with experience coming back this year.”

Deer Lakes is now 18-14 all-time against Apollo-Ridge.

Curci finished with 115 yards on 17 carries.

Tags: Apollo-Ridge, Deer Lakes