Gallery by Heather Belcher
Hico – All was well for Summers County through half a quarter of football.
The Bobcats opened Friday’s contest at Midland Trail with an eight-play, 59-yard touchdown drive and recovered a fumble at the goal line to prevent a Patriot score.
Immediately the good fortune crumbled.
The turnover proved to be the only stop of the night for Summers’ overmatched defense as Midland Trail scored touchdowns on its remaining six drives en route to a 46-20 victory over the Bobcats on homecoming night in Hico.
Immediately after recovering the Trail fumble the Bobcats handed the ball back with a fumble of their own, relinquishing the lead three plays later.
It was the first domino in what proved to be a night of offensive efficiency and excellence for the hosts.
They never punted and tallied 24 total first downs, 19 of which were converted on first and second down. When the Patriots did face third down they were efficient there, converting on 5 of 7 attempts.
“Being able to run the ball, that’s what I want to do, but we just have not been able to do that on first and second down efficiently,” Midland Trail head coach Jeremy Moore said.”The first few weeks, we’ve had moving pieces up front. There’s a lot of built in excuses to that, but our guys, I think are getting more and more comfortable working with each other, and they’re starting to recognize fronts now and blocking assignments, and they’re talking more. And I think that’s huge. We’ve faced some pretty good teams the first four weeks, and it’s hard to get your assignments and handle that kind of talent and strength. And I think this week they finally dialed in to them.”
For as efficient as Moore’s rushing offense was, generating 173 yards and four touchdowns on 33 carries, it was his passing attack that found its groove. Trail QB Thad Brown came into the game with an area-high seven interceptions through four games but shook that start for the best outing of his career. He connected on 14 of 16 passes for 239 yards and a pair of touchdowns, adding 52 yards and three more scores with his legs. For good measure he connected on five two-point conversion attempts.
“Thad’s got an arm, and he knows the game,” Moore said. “He just sometimes gets caught up reading coverages and stuff like that. And I really think us letting him run the ball some has actually let him get a better feel of the game. We didn’t look into that last week against Wheeling Central because their front six was pretty stacked and I wasn’t trying to get his ribs broke to be honest with you. So he’s getting to play total football now. Our running game has struggled the first four weeks and so he feels like he has to make a play on the field. And that’s where a lot of those interceptions are coming from – him winging it out there and just trying to make a play.”
Brown made play after play with a margin for error that was increased by standout receivers
The first play came when Trail capitalized on the fumble recovery with Brown finding Jamison Swafford from eight yards out for the score, adding two on a pass to Xaylen Johns.
Brown called his own number on Trail’s next series, scoring from nine yards out to help establish a 16-6 advantage, one answered by 1-yard rushing score from Frankie McClaugherty on Summers’ following drive. Trailing 16-12, the Bobcat defense struggled to keep up and get off the field.
An 18-yard completion on second-and-21 from Trail’s own 16 set up a manageable third down for the Patriots that they converted. A 36-yard completion to Swafford later in the drive eventually led to a nine-yard scoring strike from Brown to Will McGraw with 1:07 to play in the half, extending the lead to 24-12 at the break.
The inability to hold Trail late in the half spelled doom for Summers’ run heavy offense with the Patriots getting the ball to start the third quarter and effectively putting the game away with a six-minute scoring drive, capped again by a Brown rushing touchdown.
“Defensively, we had guys in position make plays on the ball in the pass game,” Summers head coach Justin Pugh said. “Defense, man, we’ve worked on it last couple weeks. We’ve got pieces moving around. Some guys have never played in some positions, and I got Braxton Lambert on the sideline, and they’re there in the hip pocket. They make plays on the ball and give credit to Trail – the quarterback put the ball where he needed to put the ball and those guys came down with it. So defensively, we got to we got to do better at playing up. We played on our heels a lot the second half, and it showed. The first half, it was okay. Second half, we kind of let down and kind of let off the gas.”
Summers’ offense didn’t fare terribly, picking up 19 first downs while averaging 4.3 yards per rush attempt, but each negative play or early-down run the didn’t pick up at least three yards put the Bobcats in unmanageable spots.
“It’s nothing against my quarterback, Eli (Franklin),” Pugh said. “Eli comes in and does a good job. His arm wasn’t on today and warm ups, he was a little bit off there too. I don’t know what was going on with him, but he’ll bounce back next week. He’s a great kid. He’s a smart kid. I wouldn’t trust anybody else mentally to run this offense other than him. He’s solid. He’s got to grow. He’s never really gotten reps underneath center the last couple years. He’s a junior.
“He watched Brandan Isaac play, watch Duke (Dodson) play, so he’d sit behind these guys and rarely got opportunities to play. He’s gonna get there, but offensively we moved the ball at times and looked solid, but because we couldn’t connect in the passing game we became one dimensional and they started blitzing the A gaps and B gaps on us. It made it hard, but some kids didn’t quit, and still had some grit, and you can see that in their stat sheet. Some of those runs were nice runs we just didn’t get enough of them.”
For Trail the defensive adjustments made after Summers’ first drive proved effective. The Bobcats had their way on the opening drive of the game, never facing a third down. It was a stark contrast from the rest of the contest.
“Coach (Jonathan) Shockey did a great job,” Moore said. “He put an extra big lineman in and we kind of just went big on big up front, trying to absorb some of those blocks to let our linebackers clean up. Will McGraw and Max White were playing downhill quite a bit so we moved Max outside, just stopping that off tackle he did two week backs. So really we were trying to just let Will go head hunt, for lack of better term. He was playing downhill really well tonight, so we were just trying to keep guys off him.”
Tyson Adkins led Summers and all players in rushing with 120 yards on 25 carries. Swafford led Trail with six receptions for 137 and a score.
Trail (2-3) travels to Nicholas County next week in a pivotal Class AA matchup. Summers (2-3) will host James Monroe.
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