FROSTBURG — On as cold and rainy a night as Saturday was, ball security and execution were imperative.
Mountain Ridge protected the football and sustained drives, particularly in the second half, and Frederick couldn’t get out of its own way.
The Miners forced five turnovers, three turnovers on downs and blocked a punt — and they pounded Frederick with more than 40 runs and dominated the time of possession to knock off the Cadets, 27-6, at Miner Stadium.
“We know their track record over the last few years, so our kids wanted it really bad,” Mountain Ridge head coach Ryan Patterson said. “We had our best week of practice.
“The kids just didn’t back down. They didn’t look at this as a big school. They weren’t intimidated at all. They played with fire and passion the entire time.”
With an enrollment of 1,542 and coming off an unbeaten 10-0 regular season, Frederick — the largest school to ever step on the field at Mountain Ridge High School — came into Saturday’s contest as the odds on favorite.
The Cadets, of Class 4A/3A, didn’t just win their first 10 games before falling to state runner-up Oakdale in 2022, they bludgeoned their opponents 436-40.
Despite the athletes all over the field — like running back Tae Anderson, who rushed for 1,000 yards each of the last two seasons and 45 combined touchdowns — Frederick wasn’t the best team on the field Saturday.
Not by a long shot.
Mountain Ridge dominated two keys facets of the game: the turnover battle and special teams.
Frederick’s first four drives ended with a failed fake punt, a fumble, a blocked punt and an interception.
The Miners, meanwhile, took advantage of short fields on all four of their scoring drives — starting on average at the Frederick 29 on those series; Frederick began on its own side of the field on all but one possession.
“I didn’t hear much from coach Adam (Patterson) tonight on the headset because our kids already knew their automatics,” Ryan Patterson said of his defense. “They were lined up, ready to go. We knew every formation they would run.”
Mountain Ridge struck first at the 3:54 mark of the first half when Garrett Michaels rumbled 18 yards for the first of his two rushing touchdowns. Michaels ended with 72 yards on 18 carries.
Dayton Llewellyn, who also recovered a fumble on Frederick’s second series, then set up Mountain Ridge at the one-yard line by blocking a punt by Anderson.
Will Patterson scored a one-yard keeper one play later to make it 13-0 Miners with two seconds to play in the opening quarter.
Patterson had another impressive performance on both sides of the ball — rushing for 96 yards on 17 carries and intercepting two of Greyson Rollman’s passes on defense. Austin Frost also picked off a pass.
Mountain Ridge’s lone turnover came back to bite it. Following Patterson’s first interception, the Miners coughed the ball up and Frederick recovered on the Miners’ 16-yard line.
It took just one play for Rollman to connect with Newton Essiem for a 16-yard touchdown pass. After the missed PAT, the score stood at 13-6 Miners with 8:09 to play in the half.
The game appeared to be headed for that margin at the half, but Frederick had other ideas.
The Cadets, struggling to execute punts, elected to run a fake on their own 23-yard line with 2:28 left in the half, and the pass fell incomplete.
With a short field, Mountain Ridge needed just four plays — the final a 14-yard touchdown pass from Patterson to Ketterman with 19 seconds left — to go up 20-6 at intermission.
In inclement weather, Frederick couldn’t get a punt off all night.
“We saw something, the last one kind of slipped out of my guy’s hand,” first-year Frederick head coach Pat Cadden said of the second fake punt.
“We have to execute better. If we execute I think we have some guys to win football games.”
Frederick came out of the half and turned the ball over on downs on its first possession, and Mountain Ridge answered with an 11-play, 52-yard touchdown drive, capped by a one-yard run by Michaels with 1:11 left in the third quarter.
The Cadets drove the ball down to the Mountain Ridge goal line on their next drive, but the Miners’ defense didn’t break.
Mountain Ridge forced a fumble and Ketterman recovered on the one-yard line.
From there, the Miners bled more than eight minutes off the clock to ice the game. While the 10-play, 40-yard series ended with a punt, Frederick got the ball back with just 1:01 left and didn’t have time to score.
Mountain Ridge held a 15:27-8:33 advantage in time of possession after halftime and 28:56-19:04 for the game.
The Miners ran the ball 45 times for 190 yards and Will Patterson threw just eight passes, completing four for 25 yards and a score. Frederick ran 27 times for 75 yards and was outgained 215-174 in total offense.
While the weather limited Mountain Ridge’s playbook in the passing game, the Miners found a different way to win.
With 27 victories in its last 30 games, Mountain Ridge has done that consistently over the past two seasons. Saturday was no different.
“We challenged our offensive linemen pregame and said everybody sees what’s going on out here,” Ryan Patterson said of the weather. “We’ll try to throw it a little bit to mix it up, but we’ll definitely need to own the line of scrimmage.
“I don’t think that we owned it, don’t get me wrong, but at the same time, we did just enough. We have those small backs that can find those small cracks and creases and cutbacks and kept those chains moving.”
Frederick didn’t adjust nearly as well to the rain and used three quarterbacks to try and find something that worked. Rollman, the starting quarterback, completed 5 of 13 passes for 86 yards and an interception.
Anderson saw time under center out of the Wildcat and was 2 for 3 for 13 yards and a pick. The Miners limited him to 69 yards rushing on 19 carries.
Mountain Ridge was penalized just three times for 15 yards and Frederick was called for six flags for 45 yards.
Two down, two to go for Mountain Ridge during its brutal early season stretch of contests having already beaten Allegany, 16-13, and Frederick.
The Miners draw No. 4 Frankfort (4-1) on Friday with Fort Hill (4-0) on the horizon.
“We’re seeing growth, and kids want to practice right now,” Patterson said.
“Frankfort is going to be another interesting challenge.”