By RICK NOLAND

Assistant Sports Editor

The good news for the Medina football team is that it had 236 yards total offense at halftime and did not have to punt.

The bad news is the Bees were still down a whopping 15 points.

The good news for Medina is that it finished with 419 yards total offense.

The bad news is the Bees committed four turnovers, failed to cover a squib kick, gave up 15 points in the final 58.8 seconds of the first half and lost 43-27 to cross-town rival Wadsworth in non-league action Thursday at Art Wright Stadium.

And we haven’t even mentioned Medina’s defense, which sometimes looked like it had only seven players on the field, Wadsworth had so much room to run (and pass and catch).

“Our margin for error is very slim,” Medina quarterback Pat O’Boyle said. “When we’re on offense, we’ve got to put points on the board to keep ourselves in the game.

“But I’ve got to try to get my teammates more involved. Sometimes I try to do too much.”

When O’Boyle was good against the Grizzlies, he was sensational, as he rushed for 206 yards and three touchdowns and passed for 90 more.

But when he tried to do too much, he made mistakes the winless Bees simply couldn’t overcome, as his interception and fumble led to two Wadsworth touchdowns.

In O’Boyle’s defense, however, his team’s defense was, well, defenseless.

Time and time again, Wadsworth quarterback Caleb Busson fielded low shotgun snaps from center, made one cut and picked up big gains.

When Busson needed a break, he handed off to Aarick Jones, who frequently built up a 10-yard head of steam before he was even greeted by a Medina defender.

On the rare occasion when the Grizzlies actually needed to pass, Busson tossed the ball up and 6-foot-3 Anthony Schrock, who was playing on one good leg, beat very slow adjusting defenders to it.

It all added up to 425 yards and 43 points for the Grizzlies, whose 15 points in the final minute of the first half were one more than they scored in an entire game while losing to Nordonia six days earlier.

The bad news began for the Bees immediately after O’Boyle scored his second touchdown to tie the game at 14 with 3:38 to go in the second half.

Wadsworth promptly marched 76 yards in nine plays to go up 21-14 with 58.8 seconds left in the half, setting the stage for things to go from bad to terrible for Medina.

The Grizzlies squibbed the kickoff and, when Medina players looked at the football as though it were a hand grenade, Wadsworth obliged and fell on the pigskin at the Bees 39-yard line.

Twenty-four seconds later, the Grizzlies scored again, turning what could have been a 14-14 game at best and should have been a 21-14 game at worst into a 29-14 contest at intermission.

“That second one was a kick in the stomach,” Medina coach Greg Reed said of the Grizzlies’ two late scores.

By the time Medina’s 200-plus person band took the field at halftime — 6-5, 311-pound offensive tackle Ben Buzzelli plays the tuba for Wadsworth, so surely one or two pied pipers might be able to help the green and white’s defense — it was already time for the Bees to face the music.

More sour notes were struck early in the third period, however, as the always hard-running O’Boyle fumbled on Medina’s first possession and Wadsworth scored again to go up 36-14.

Then, with Medina facing fourth-and-3 from its own 49, the defenseless Bees not only elected not to go for it, they wasted a timeout before deciding to punt for the first time all night.

That’s two mistakes on one play, and moments later Wadsworth scored again to make it 43-14.

To Medina’s credit, it did tack on two touchdowns to make the final score respectable, but with Northeast Ohio Conference powers Solon, Brunswick and Strongsville looming on the schedule, the going is about to get even tougher for the Bees.

That’s the really bad news. The good news is next week brings a very bad Brush team to Medina, so there’s reason to believe the Bees could break into the win column.

Noland may be reached at rickn@ohio.net or 330-721-4061.