FOOTBALL: Eldorado pulls away late from Falcons
ELKVILLE, IL - For three quarters of football, Elverado-Trico hung in the ballgame with bigger, more experienced Eldorado, but the Eagles would score 22 straight points during the fourth quarter on their way to a 34-12 victory.
The Falcons rushed for over 200 yards as a team, but gave up 322 to Eldorado - 116 of those by Dylan Roberts on his 20 attempts.
"We played them pretty tough for three quarters, but the last one is the one that counted," said E-T head football coach Zach Schumacher. "It's hard to be happy after a loss, but we're trying to take baby steps. We've got some growing to do maturity-wise, but there were a lot of positives (on Saturday)."
"It's disheartening to some degree, but all in all, it's a good step for us, what we did for three quarters. We've just got to get a couple of things fixed and we'll be ok."
The game was one of many in the area that was delayed on Friday night and completed on Saturday afternoon. The two teams played to a 0-0 stalemate late in the first quarter in rainy conditions on Friday night, then Eldorado's Tyler Deaton took in the game's first touchdown from 45 yards out with 10:34 left on the second quarter clock on Saturday.
The Falcons went three-and-out on their ensuing possession, then the Eagles grabbed command after a 10-play, 55-yard drive capped off by a 3-yard TD run by Deaton with 4:27 remaining in the half.
Eldorado led 12-0 at the break after the Falcons ran out of time during one of their best drives of the game. An 11-yard gain by Kenny Loos, a 12-yard gain by Jacob Jeschke and a fourth-and-short conversion by Brian McClanahan got E-T deep into Eagles' territory, but quarterback Kyle Whittington couldn't connect with a receiver before the halftime horn.
"You can tell (McClanahan) likes to get that ball and just pound it up the middle," Schumacher said. "He's been having a lot of fun doing that. Between Jeschke, Kenny Loos and Brian, it gives us a lot of options there. We've got some good talent, we just need to change our culture and our mindset right now."
Elverado-Trico got a short field to work with late in the third quarter and took advantage. Jeschke had a lengthy run down to the Eagles' 15-yard line to help set up a 4-yard touchdown carry by Christian Kistner to make it 12-6 heading to the fourth period.
Another long, time-consuming drive by the Eagles followed. After a dozen plays and over five-and-half minutes of game clock, Colton Edwards scored on a 3-yard run to put Eldorado up by two scores.
"On one end, we want to make them drive," Schumacher said. "We don't want anybody to get a quick score on us, but we didn't come back from that emotionally."
The Falcons turned it over with a fumble less than a minute later, allowing the Eagles to get a quick score on their way to three straight touchdowns in the game's final seven minutes.
Another perennial Black Diamond powerhouse awaits the Falcons in week four when they hit the road to face Johnston City.