The Danville Blue Devils (3-1) beat the Mt. Gilead Indians (2-2) at home last night, 20-8.
After a scoreless first quarter, and following an interception recovered by the Indians, Mt. Gilead then took the lead with a 10-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Wyatt Long to running back Eliot Jones. The Indians then converted a two-point conversion and settled in with an 8-point lead with 3:21 left on the clock in the second quarter.
With a minute left before the half, Danville's running back Aidan Burke carried the ball from the Indians' 11-yard line to score the first points of the night for the Blue Devils.
Following a failed two-point conversion by the Blue Devils, the teams went into the locker room with Mt. Gilead leading 8-6.
A little over halfway into the third quarter, Danville began to dominate. Quarterback Jacob Hackman took off on a 35-yard sprint, taking it to the house for a touchdown.
At this point, the crowd was in it and the stadium was roaring. Danville went to kick the ball off, following another failed two-point conversion and tricked the Indians with an onside kick, in which Blue Devils DB Ashton Spaulding recovered at the Indians' 30-yard line. Mt. Gilead held their own though and forced a turnover on downs.
3:33 was left on the clock in the fourth quarter, with Danville leading 12-8, when DB Josh Byers was inserted at running back. Sitting at the 11-yard line, Hackman handed the ball off to Byers who then rumbled and forced his way in for the final deciding touchdown of the game. This time Danville was able to convert on the two-point conversion with a run in by Burke who finished the game with 14 carries for 106 yards and a touchdown.
Byers ended the game with another amazing performance with 25 tackles, 4 of them for loss and 2 sacks.
"Coach really got me fired up at the half with his speech, so I came out and got physical as did the rest of the team, and you see the results on the board," said Byers after the game.
Quarterback Jacob Hackman finished the game going 4-8 for 54 yards.
"We knew we had to throw some deep balls coming out after the half and that ended up working at the end of the fourth quarter and we pulled through," Hackman said.
Mt. Gilead ran the ball a total of 44 times over the course of the game for 109 yards while their quarterback, Wyatt Long, completed three out of nine passes for 47 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions.
Flags were being thrown all night, as the Blue Devils racked up 11 penalties for 90 yards.
When asked about the officiating, Coach Matthew Blum said, "There is always going to be flags in the game, I could sit here and complain, but we gotta play through it, I think our guys did a really good job of doing that. Its unfortunate when they take touchdowns off the board, that makes a big difference, it is what it is though. Sometimes you are not going to have great officiating, and you just gotta battle through it, which is what we did and I'm happy to do that."
Hackman, Byers, and Blum explained what they plan to work on in preparation for their next game at Northmor.
"We got to start off fast, we started off slow again," said both players and the coach.
Danville will suit up again to play undefeated Northmor (4-0) in Galion next Friday.
