By Dinos Simcox

Photo: Mustang players watch on as sophomore Martin Todorov is loaded into an ambulance after suffering a scary head injury. (Photo by Dinos Simcox)

The Mustangs crushed the Thomas Jefferson Colonials 48-0, however the game will unfortunately not be remembered for Meridian’s impressive victory, and instead for the injury suffered by Meridian’s Martin Todorov after being slung down by a tackler. Todorov was down on the field for an agonizing amount of time before an ambulance was finally able to make its way down to the field and pick him up.

“The first call [to EMS] was rerouted, and the second call never picked up. The bus blocking the way had nothing to do with it. For whatever reason, they didn’t come. That is the second time in the last two weeks we’ve had EMS take more than 25 minutes to get [to the field]. I’m not sure what is going on but that needs to get fixed on their end,” head coach PJ Anderson expressed his frustration in the poor response time by EMS.

Coach Anderson went on to reassure everyone that Todorov was going to be okay.

“Martin is completely responsive…he has movement in all his extremities. He tried to sit up but the doctors wouldn’t let him. His pulse was good, heart rate was good, blood pressure was good, everything is good. He was talking and he was alert. He knew where he was, knew we were playing TJ, knew it was the second half, knew we were winning big. He’s going to be okay. They think he’ll be released from the hospital tonight,” coach Anderson said.

During the lengthy break while Meridian’s medical staff tended to Todorov, there was a real possibility the game would not resume.

“We decided it would’ve been really hard on both teams to end on something like that, especially knowing that he was okay. We felt it sent a stronger message to everybody that everything was okay. I asked all my players if they wanted to play three separate times, and every single one of them said yes. If even one of them had said no we wouldn’t have played the second half,” coach Anderson said. “I talked to them about how tough it is to respond to something like that. Something happened to somebody we care deeply about. It’s not something we can control, we can only control how we respond to it.”

And respond, they did. After the game resumed, the Mustangs added on to their already insurmountable lead, adding on one final touchdown before the final whistle. Aside from the injury, the game was an incredibly positive one for Meridian. The Mustangs punched in six rushing touchdowns, three thanks to senior Abe Ellis. They also converted one long bomb touchdown from junior quarterback Luke Micciche to senior Luke Greiner at the very end of the first quarter, which was one of the very few passes thrown by Meridian all game.

“We’re never gonna throw the ball a lot as an offense. We pick and choose our spots. This is what we expect to have out of our pass game. We want those big plays. In an ideal world, Meridian quarterbacks will be 4/4 passing for 125 yards and two touchdowns. That’s what we want to set up with our running game,” coach Anderson explained.

There was one hole in the Mustangs’ otherwise stellar performance. The offense was held back majorly by several holding penalties, and a holding call even called back a touchdown in the second quarter.

“I’ve been carrying a notebook around with me tonight, and I wrote down every penalty on us in it. We didn’t have any personal fouls, so that’s good, our discipline was good. Most of the penalties were holds, and that’s on me as the offensive line coach,” coach Anderson said.

If the Mustangs can clean up the penalties, they will have a very good chance of winning their homecoming game against the Brentsville Tigers next week.