Does Hillsboro senior running back Micheal Keller ever get tired of scoring touchdowns?
“Yeah, it gets tiring sometimes, but I’ve got to do it,” joked Keller after he scored three more of his St. Louis area leading 17 touchdowns Friday night as the host Hawks subdued Festus 30-14 in a Mississippi Area Football Conference Red Division game.
For the second time this year, Festus head coach Russ Schmidt has had to start from scratch at the quarterback position. Last year’s starter, Justice Johnson, transferred to Kirkwood 10 days before the start of the season. That launched sophomore Austin Coale into the starting QB job, but Coale and junior Tyler Roth were dismissed from the team Thursday for the rest of the season for disciplinary violations, Schmidt said.
Senior Chase Cole, who’s the team’s leading receiver with 11 catches for 253 yards and is also the Tigers’ all-conference kicker, had one day to prepare to play quarterback. Cole was sturdy under center and had the Tigers leading 7-6 at halftime.
“To compete against (Hillsboro) with a makeshift quarterback says a lot about my kids,” Schmidt said.
The Hawks improved to 3-1 but head coach Lee Freeman can’t understand why his team has started slowly against their rivals the past two years. Festus led Hillsboro 20-0 at halftime last season before Hillsboro came storming back to win 22-20.
Aside from Keller’s normal fireworks, the Hillsboro defense stood tall on short-yardage situations and twice turned turnover on downs into touchdowns.
“Anytime you can get off the field defensively and give the offense another chance, it’s nice because our offense sputtered a couple of times tonight and we were in a situation we didn’t want to be in again in the first half,” Freeman said. “We’ve started slowly against them the last three years. I don’t know what it is, but we’ve been able to navigate through it.”
The Hawks navigated the length of the field on the game’s first possession and reached the Festus 5-yard line before stalling on fourth-and-13.
Festus went three-and-out on its first series and the Hawks were in business at the Tiger 34-yard line. Five plays later, Keller scored his first TD on a 6-yard run, but the two-point conversion failed and the Hawks led 6-0 with 3:55 left in the first quarter.
Under a new QB with other players out of position and learning new roles, the Tigers couldn’t get any traction on offense until late in the first half. Senior running back Logan Uding dashed 55 yards down to the Hawks 7 and finished the drive a play later. Cole kicked the extra point and the Tigers led 7-6 with 1:24 left in the half.
“We’ve got kids that can fill (Cole’s) role, we just didn’t have a chance to get any reps,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt opted to try to make fourth-and-1 on the first Festus drive of the second half but the Hawks stopped the Tigers at their own 40. Two Keller runs later and the Hawks were on top to stay 14-7.
“We took chances we normally wouldn’t do,” Schmidt said. “The plan was to shorten the game and not give up big plays.”
With Keller and fellow senior running backs Joe Gregory, Luke Skaggs and Joe Garner, the Hawks are always a play away from the end zone. That quartet is every bit as deep and talented as the Hawks’ senior-laden offensive line was last year.
But the Hawks can be methodical too, as they were in a 12-play drive that spanned the third and fourth quarters and ended with Keller’s third touchdown, this time from 36 yards and Hillsboro led 22-7 10 seconds into the final quarter.
“It’s great to know I can come off the field and know the other (running backs) can do the same thing,” said Keller who rushed for 153 yards on 13 carries and has 723 yards on the ground through four games.
After another Hillsboro fourth-down stop, no sooner had the Tiger defense and Hawk offense stepped onto the field when Gregory raced 84 yards for a score to give his team a 30-7 lead.
Quarterback Tyler Isaacson and linemen Zach Bodway and Mike Lalk opened the door for Gregory to run through.
“They allowed him to get vertical,” Freeman said.
Senior Jordan Fiedler got the bulk of the carries for the Tigers and scored on a 14-yard run with 3:41 left in the game. Fiedler is the leading tackler this year for Festus.
Festus 0 7 0 7 – 14
Hillsboro 6 0 8 16 – 30
First Quarter
H: Micheal Keller 6 run (run failed), 3:55
Second Quarter
F: Logan Uding 7 run (Chase Cole kick), 1:24
Third Quarter
H: Keller 26 run (Keller run), 9:30
Fourth Quarter
H: Keller 36 run (Luke Skaggs run), 11:50
H: Joe Gregory 84 run (Gregory run), 7:09
F: Jordan Fiedler 14 run (Cole kick), 3:41
Blue Jays lose two more offensive players to injury
Jefferson overcame injuries that knocked out career rushing leader Andrew Graves and senior running back Brice Moran and beat host St. Pius X 28-9 Friday night in an I-55 Conference game.
Graves, who topped 4,000 yards rushing against Herculaneum last week, suffered a knee injury early in the second quarter while several Lancers tackled him. Jefferson quarterback Brandon Perry and wide receiver Collin Gosnell were both injured in last week's game.
“We’ll get him checked out tomorrow” Jefferson head coach Alex Rouggly said. “We don’t think it’s too serious.”
Rouggly said he kept Graves out of the game as a precautionary measure after he was injured.
Moran “tweaked” his ankle about six minutes into the third quarter, Rouggly said. He also was taken out of the game as a precaution.
Jefferson never trailed, holding leads of 14-0 after a quarter and 21-7 at the half.
The Blue Jays took control early, scoring 14 points in the first quarter on a Tanner Davis 37-yard touchdown run and a Moran 3-yard scamper.
Moran would add a second touchdown on a 31-yard run with 4:54 on the clock. Sophomore Lucas Vaughn booted all three extra points and the Blue Jays led 21-7.
After a scoreless third quarter, Jefferson outscored St. Pius 7-2 in the fourth.
Vaughn, a fullback, charged up the middle for his team’s final touchdown, then was successful again on his extra point.
The Lancers were credited with a safety late in the game when they had Jefferson backed up for a punt from its end zone and Rouggly had his punter step out the back for a voluntary safety to avoid setting up St. Pius for good field position.
St. Pius head coach Jerry Woods said dropped passes and penalties doomed his squad.
“Both are fixable,” Woods said.
He praised the play of junior Jalen Thornton, listed as a running back but was moved all around the offense to maximize his versatility.
“When you have a player like him, you do all you can to get him the ball,” Woods said.
Rouggly credited his offensive and defensive lines for taking charge of the game.
“We told them they needed to impose their wills (on the game),” he said. “They did.”
Jefferson improved to 3-1 while St. Pius fell to 1-3.
Other county football scores from Friday night: Parkway South 47, Seckman 0; St. Vincent 32, Herculaneum 6; Fox 35, Mehlville 14; Lift for Life 34, Windsor 17; Valle Catholic 63, Crystal City 6