FOOTBALL: Falcons get first win
Elverado-Trico owned the battle in the trenches on Friday night at McLeansboro, out-gaining the Foxes 356-176 in rushing yardage for their first victory of the season, 22-6.
Brian McClanahan (17 carries, 153 yards) and Christian Kistner (10-100) both topped the century mark on the ground for the Falcons, whose defense held Hamilton County scoreless after the first quarter.
"We switched a couple of guys around (on defense) and it's really seemed to help," said E-T head football coach Zach Schumacher. "One of our big concerns has really been depth, so it's been kind of a chess match trying to figure out who needs to play where. It seemed last week we found a pretty good rhythm with the guys that we have in those positions."
"One thing we've been stressing all week is to do it as a team, not one guy tackling, everybody gang tackling. It looks like they took to it and hopefully they can keep it up."
The Falcons jumped on top 6-0 on a 44-yard touchdown run by Kaleb Green-Light with 7:30 to go in the first quarter.
Wesley May, who led Ham-Co with 14 carries for 121 yards, rushed for the Foxes only score late in the first period on a 6-yard run, but the extra point failed leaving the game knotted at 6-6.
With 1:17 left in the opening half, the Falcons pinned the Foxes deep in their own territory and forced a safety to grab the lead just before the break.
Elverado-Trico's defense had all it would need, but the Falcons added two long TD runs from Kistner (46 yards) and Jacob Jeschke (51 yards) to pad the lead.
"It's nice for the kids," Schumacher said of the team's first victory. "We've been seeing little victories throughout, we've been improving each week. We've been happy with the kids all year, it's great for them to get some validation."
"Our guys were sick of getting pushed around and they'd had about enough of being the little sisters of the poor and stepped it up. I just hope we can do it again."
Green-Light finished with 2 carries for 45 yards, Jeschke had 7-for-81, Brendan Garcia 2-for-17 and Kyle Whittington 1-for-7. Whittington was 2-for-5 passing for seven yards, completing throes to Kistner (1-10) and McClanahan (1-(-3).
The Falcons weren't perfect, fumbling nine times, but the defense played well enough in the rough conditions to keep the Foxes well-contained in the second half.
"Ham-Co has a really nice field," Schumacher said, "but it's deceptive because they keep their grass kind of high. You think you're going to go down in a dry spot, and that night it was three inches of water and around 40 degrees, it's pretty rough decisions."
The Falcons (1-6) go for win number two this Friday at Sesser (4-3).