The Hillsboro took very little time getting on the scoreboard first on Friday night against the Wilmington Hurricane, as they threw a 65 yard touchdown pass to Brian Smith to go up 7-0 with only a 1:30 draining off the clock. The Indians put 15 points on the board before Wilmington could even answer with any of their own. Unfortunately, the ‘Cane would come back later in the game and pull away with the game in the second half and bring the game to a final score of ### in favor of Wilmington.
After Hillsboro scored their first TD they stopped the ‘Cane after allowing only one first down and forced them to turn the ball over after going for it on fourth down. For their second score of the game, they wasted no time again. The first play saw Luke Gallimore run the ball up the field 14 yards. On the very next play, quarterback Hunter Chain kept the ball himself and found a hole in the line, split it, and took the ball 49 yards to the Wilmington endzone for another score. On the extra point, Hillsboro quick snapped the ball to the left of the field and ran right into the endzone as a confused ‘Cane defense could do nothing. With 6:52 left in the first quarter, the Indians had jumped out to a 15-0 lead.
Wilmington finally got themselves on the board on their next drive on a 18 yard run by their freshman quarterback and forced the Indians to punt on their next drive.
After forcing the punt, the Wilmington team took a play out of the Hillsboro playboook in regards to scoring quickly. They took three plays, ending with a 68 yard run by Adam Phelps to bring the score to 15-14, still in favor of the Indians.
Wilmington scored twice more before the Indians could get back on the board. With the score 28-15 and just having giving up a touchdown, Hillsboro lined up at their own 30 yard line. On the first play of the drive, Chain found Sajoun Jones with a deep pass, who took it the rest of the 70 yards to the endzone for another Indians’ touchdown.
Wilmington scored twice more before the halftime buzzer with a 15 yard passing play to Tony Merritt and a sack that led to a touchdown by the defense. One of the point afters fell short of the goal posts so at the half, Wilmington had a 41-22 lead on the Indians.
At the start of the third quarter, Wilmington got the ball first and marched the ball down the field and looked to be adding to their score, but a pass thrown towards the endzone was intercepted by Britton Haines at the 20 yard line and brought back the distance to give Hillsboro another score to start the second half and bringing the score to 41-29.
But Wilmington wasn’t going to Hillsboro back into the game that easily and in the third they scored twice more, missed a point after, and after three full quarters, the score was 54-29.
Hillsboro was able to put seven more points on the board but it wasn’t enough as the ‘Cane scored once more themselves to bring the final score of the game to 61-29 Wilmington.
The Indians fall to 1-4 and 0-2 in the South Central Ohio League while the ‘Cane moves to 4-1 overall and 2-0 in the SCOL. The Indians will be right back on their home field next week when they take on Chillicothe.
Reach Robert Stegbauer at 937-393-3456 ext. 1679 or on Twitter @RStegbauer.
