Friday, August 29, 2003

CANTON TOWNSHIP - Whoever is responsible for listing positions next to each player's name on the Canton High School football roster played a dirty trick on

Pioneer for Thursday night's opener.

Senior Devin Thomas is listed as a halfback in the Chiefs' run-oriented offense, but he caught four passes, for 189 yards and two touchdowns, to lead his team to a 28-14 victory in a matchup of playoff teams from a year ago.

Every catch came after he lined up in the backfield, with the most dramatic moment coming 2 minutes before halftime on third-and-11 from Canton's 8-yard line.

Thomas, the school record holder in the 100- (10.4) and 200-meter (22.8) dashes, caught a slant pass from Shawn Little in the middle of the secondary and appeared to be caught from behind right away by four Pioneers.

Two seconds later, however, the player being courted by many Mid-American Conference Schools and Indiana University had 8 yards of separation.

"When you have a guy lining up 5 yards deep in the backfield and beating us deep, that's a helluva player," Pioneer coach Chuck White said.

To that point, Pioneer's defense had all but shut down Canton's power-T formation, and Chiefs coach Tim Baechler had to switch to a flex bone formation.

"Coach knows when something needs to be done I have to get the ball," Thomas said.

"I have good hands, and I can get up there and catch it."

Pioneer answered Thomas' score by marching 76 yards in eight plays to open the second half and take a 14-13 lead. The score came on third-and-goal from the 8 when quarterback Mike McCoy found Allen Kennedy in the end zone.

Three players later, however, Little found Thomas again, this time on a play-action slant pass, for a 61-yard score. Thomas also found Little for the two-point conversion to make it 21-14.

The Chiefs' defense responded, holding Pioneer to two first downs and forcing three turnovers the rest of the way. Canton's other two touchdowns came on 2- and 35-yard runs by Chuck Schumacher, who had a game-high 112 yards rushing on 20 carries.

Little threw three passes and completed all of them to Thomas, for 159 yards.

McCoy completed 19 of 40 passes for 294 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions. Kennedy caught 10 of those passes for 161 yards and two touchdowns.

Corey Roepken can be reached at (734) 994-6812 or e-mail at croepken@annarbornews.com