Hillsboro senior Hayden Voyles had a big hand on both sides of the ball to aid the Hawks in their come-from-behind 32-22 win at Festus on Friday night.
With Festus leading 22-16 in the fourth quarter of the Mississippi Area Football Conference Red Division game, and driving on offense, Voyles and Seth Lowery laid a bone-jarring hit on running back Jack Robinson, who coughed the ball up. Hillsboro’s John Moseley made the recovery.
“We committed three turnovers. Before the game I said the team that committed the least amount of turnovers and penalties would win,” Festus head coach Russ Schmidt said. “That played a factor in our game.”
The ensuing 10-play, 78-yard drive by the Hawks featured big runs by Tyler Sizemore and Dylan Dace. After Voyles went up the gut for a 10-yard gain, the Hawks would eventually wind up with a fourth and goal from the Festus 3-yard line. Dace picked up the score from there, and Voyles added his second two-point conversion run, putting Hillsboro in front for the first time all night 24-22 with 3:16 left.
The Tigers, who led at one point 14-0 in the first quarter, had one last shot, but Hillsboro’s defense stiffened, and Festus turned it over on downs.
Voyles rushed for 105 yards on 15 carries, second to Dace’s 116 on 19. Voyles put the game out of reach with a 40-yard TD scamper with 1:26 to play. Sizemore added the two-point conversion. The win gave the Hawks a 3-1 record while the Tigers, who had won two in a row following a season opening loss at Fox, fell to 2-2.
The Tigers took a 14-0 lead in the first quarter on a perfectly lobbed touchdown pass from quarterback Austin Coale to Zack Baisch and a 48-yard run by Jayden Rystrom.
Dace answered back with a 62-yard jaunt on the final play of the first quarter. Then in the second quarter, Dace (two yards) and Chalmer Brickhaus (67) traded scores. Brickhaus finished with 136 yards on the ground for Festus on 13 carries. Rystrom had 66 on five attempts, and Coale was 4 of 9 passing for 71 yards.
Brickhaus didn’t practice all week because he had the flu and didn’t play on defense.
“He was fresh. He showed up Friday and played the game,” Schmidt said.
Falling behind the Tigers by a pair of touchdowns early didn’t seem to catch Hillsboro head coach Lee Freeman one bit by surprise.
“It seems like almost every time we play them, they go up 14-0, or something like that,” Freeman said. “We just can’t seem to get going against them in the first (quarter), and have to fight from behind to score. This was just a good high school football game. Both teams had fight in them, and knew they were going to have to put everything into it, to come out with a win.”
Freeman recalled his first season as the Hawks head coach (2014) when the Tigers beat Hillsboro 31-20 in the regular season, but the Hawks beat Festus 21-10 in the district tournament.
“Since then, we’ve been on kind of a roll (six straight wins) against them,” Freeman said. “And our kids put a lot of effort into this game. Voyles is a good player, and a really tough kid.”
Graves buries Lancers
There isn’t much Andrew Graves hasn’t done on a football field.
Now, Graves can check returning a fumble for a touchdown off that short list. He scored all three of Jefferson’s touchdowns as the Blue Jays held off St. Pius X 20-6 in an I-55 Conference game on Friday.
Graves scooped up St. Pius running back Dustin Burch’s fumble and rumbled 56 yards for a score with 8:30 left in the first quarter. The two-point conversion failed and Jefferson led 6-0.
“Colby Ott stripped the ball, the ball landed in my hands and I just had to make one cut,” said Graves, who led the Blue Jays with 141 yards on 20 carries.
The Lancers were moving the ball on their first series using running back Michael Bollinger in the shotgun taking the snap and plowing ahead in their heavy package.
Was that something the Blue Jays were expecting?
“Nope, we were not and that’s a credit to (St. Pius head coach Jerry Woods) and his staff,” Jefferson head coach Alex Rouggly said. “Our kids adjusted and we switched our front and went old-school with four men.”
Woods said it was necessary to try something new on offense.
“We thought we’d give them a different look because we’ve been pretty predictable the last three weeks,” Woods said.
Senior Jalen Thornton had a 51-yard run on the next St. Pius series, but the Lancers turned the ball over on downs. Jefferson running back Colby Ott fumbled on the Blue Jays’ next set of downs and senior Jarrett Kort recovered for St. Pius.
Starting at midfield, the Lancers had a chance to tie or take the lead right before halftime when their offensive line held their blocks, quarterback Carson Fischer threw a perfect pass that went off the hands of wide open junior Dre Townsend. Rouggly said it was a blown coverage on the Blue Jays’ part.
Woods and the rest of the St. Pius coaches told Townsend to shake off the missed opportunity.
“We told him if we get a chance, we’ll go back to you,” Woods said.
St. Pius did tie the game 6-6 on its first drive of the second half. Thornton ripped off a 37-yard run and Townsend tacked on 34 yards on the next play. Burch scored from five yards out, but the run failed on the conversion, leaving the game knotted with 9:48 left in the third quarter.
That’s the way it stayed until Jefferson launched the game-winning drive from its 24. Graves gained five yards on fourth-and-4 and ended the drive with a 2-yard burst with 10:32 left in the game. Graves also ran in the two-point conversion to give the Blue Jays a 14-6 lead.
A holding penalty on the Lancers negated a first-down pass to the Jefferson 5 and senior Brock Hill recovered a St. Pius fumbled pitch. Five plays later, Graves scored his third TD of the night from three yards.
“I want to go out with a bang and I want my teammates to think I’m all in and will do anything to win a district championship,” said Graves, the school’s all-time rushing leader with more than 5,000 yards.
On a humid night, players were grabbing at their legs with cramps, but not Graves, who’s taken to yoga.
“It’s helping tremendously,” he said. “I can dig my foot in the ground and not worry about my calf muscles cramping up.”
Jefferson and St. Pius both had short weeks to prepare because they both started games on Sept. 7 that weren’t finished until Sunday (for the Blue Jays) and Monday (for the Lancers).
The decreased practice time certainly didn’t affect the intensity of play.
“We had a great week of practice, even though it was short,” Woods said. “Our guys responded. Our scout offense is doing a great job this year and that’s why our defense has been so good. We’ve got to make sure we catch the balls, hold onto the ball and clean up a few mistakes.”
“We had to make sure our bodies recovered,” Rouggly said. “A lot of kids got into last week’s game so that allowed us to recover better. We knew this was going to be a dogfight and our bodies had to be ready to go.”
Jefferson improved to 4-0 for the first time in school history, while St. Pius lost its first game and is 3-1. Both teams continue conference play next week when the Lancers host Herculaneum and the Blue Jays visit Crystal City.
Blackcats fall in Perryville
Herculaneum had two passes returned for touchdowns and dropped its third straight game with a 44-20 loss at St. Vincent in an I-55 Conference contest.
The Blackcats (1-3) took a 7-0 lead with a touchdown pass from quarterback Jordan Duncan to junior Tyler Ruder. The Indians countered with a long TD run to tie the game. St. Vincent took a 14-7 lead when it scored on its first pick six. Herky forced a fumble and on its next series, Duncan tossed a TD pass to senior Jason Harden, but the PAT failed and the score was 14-13.
The Indians scored the next two touchdowns, one before the end of the first half to lead 20-13 at the break, and another on Duncan’s second interception returned to the end zone to make it 27-13. After that TD, the Blackcats made a goal line stand, but gave up a safety on the ensuing possession and trailed 29-13.
Trailing 44-13 in the fourth, backup QB Blake Leathers tossed a touchdown pass to junior Luke Teague. Leathers and Duncan combined for 260 yards passing. The Blackcats added 150 yards on the ground.
Junior linebacker Austin Huson had 10 solo tackles and five assists. Jacob Brown and Drew Gibson each had a fumble recovery for Herky.
“The kids played hard and never stopped working,” Herculaneum head coach Cody Hunter said. “We just had some mental mistakes and couldn’t bounce back. We look to improve this week in practice and be ready for Week 5.”
That’s against conference rival St. Pius X (3-1) in Festus on Friday night.