Team effort drives Planets
HICKORY TWP — Billy Bair is a beast.
But the Mars football team showed Friday night it has much more than just a talented fullback.
Wingback Shane Kaclik rolled off two scores and 107 yards in the first half, quarterback John Brake was a perfect 4-for-4 on the night for 71 yards and Mars used the big play to routLaurel 39-14 on the road.
Oh, Bair got his yards and his scores — 222 on the ground and three touchdowns — but the early damage was done by the supporting cast.
"Shane is the forgotten guy," said Mars coachScott Heinauer, who has 96 career wins, and now one career victory at Laurel. "He blocked a lot last year, and Shane has to be the guy to fill the void for Billy."
Laurel was set on stopping Bair early and had some success. But the Spartans had few answers for Kaclik, who had touchdown runs of 15 and 68 yards in the first 13 minutes of the game.
Laurel gave Mars a scare late in the half, scoring on a 70-yard pass from sophomore quarterback Tyler Forbes to Adam Gibson to cut the lead to 13-7.
Mars then marched down the field and faced a fourth-and-goal at the 1 with five seconds remaining in the half.
Heinauer eschewed the field goal and decided to go for the touchdown.
Enter Billy Bair.
The senior took the handoff from Brake and leaped into the air, crashing down across the goal line for his first touchdown of 2007.
"We've got to give the ball to our horse," Heinauer said. "Everyone knew we were going to give him the ball. We had to give him the ball."
The score started a string of three straight offensive plays that resulted in Mars touchdowns.
Bair took a handoff on the Planets' first play of the third quarter and raced 61 yards for a score. Kaclik followed that with a 30-yard run on the Planets' next offensive play to build a 32-7 lead.
"No, I wasn't surprised by how good Mars is," said Laurel coach Jerry Holzhauser. "We didn't tackle well. That has to be improved upon."
Bair made running room for himself on several of his 24 carries. He also draggd Laurel tacklers with him on several plays.
Mars recorded 377 rushing yards and averaged 9.2 yards per clip.
"Billy Bair — he's a known commodity," Heinauer said. "People are going to try to stop him, and if they can, that will be a big boost for them."
But not many can stop Bair.
Mars lost several key members of its offensive line to graduation. For the most part, the line played well, but Heinauer was still concerned with his big guys up front.
"There's still a lot of work to do," he said. "There were plays where they were good and some plays where there were breakdowns. Luckily, we have two really good guys who can do things other kids can't do, especially Billy. He got yards breaking tackles, dragging kids."
The one bright spot for Laurel was the play of Forbes, who threw for 215 yards.
He hooked up with Gibson four times for 134 yards, including the long touchdown.
"There were some positives to take out of this game," Holzhauser said. "We have to focus on those and fix the major mistakes we made, and in a hurry."
Heinauer was happy he got Laurel out of the way early.
A road conference win is always welcome.
"It's just fortunate we played them early," Heinauer said. "It's awful tough to play him early, and us early. I've never gotten one up here, so it's nice."
