INDEPENDENCE—Rick Adams reached a career milestone in Independence 48-0 win over visiting Fairport Harding at Stan Skoczen Field at Alumni Stadium on Friday.
The win was the 100th of Adams’ 18-year coaching career.
“It’s special to have it at home,” Adams said. “It’s been a long time coming and when you have coaches as good as you have around us, it makes it easy.”
Adams won 25 games at Columbia from 2000-2003. He added 22 more wins in his four years at Kenston from 2004-2007 and 39 at Rocky River from 2008-2014.
He has guided the Blue Devils to 13 wins in 2 ½ years.
“It’s special to do it with this group because when I came into the program, they were sophomores, so we grew up together here,” Adams said.
Independence took control of the game early thanks to Kyle Stefanski, who picked off a pass—the first of two he had in the game—and turned it into a 15-yard touchdown run.
He then threw a 14-yard pass to Braden Sears to give the Blue Devils a 14-0 lead.
“Defensively, when you make plays, it gives you momentum for your offense,” Stefanski said. “We were able to get that done and it felt good.”
Luke Clymer’s 39-yard fumble return for a score pushed the Independence lead to 14-0 and the Blue Devils never looked back.
Nick Mroczynski scored on a 2-yard run in the second quarter and Trevor Thompson scored twice in the final two minutes, 15 seconds of the first half.
He caught a 5-yard touchdown pass from Stefanski then returned an interception 64 yards for another score.
Nick Laski closed out the scoring with a 1-yard run in the third quarter.
Independence improved to 4-1 overall and 2-0 in the Chagrin Valley Conference Valley Division. The Blue Devils get their biggest test of the season on Friday when they travel to undefeated Kirtland, a 60-0 winner over Berkshire.
“Next week is basically a playoff game for us,” Adams said. “We have to go into the game and match Kirtland’s tenacity.”
